Seagate BarraCuda, 8TB, Internal Hard Drive, 3.5 Inch, SATA, 6GB/s,, 5,400 RPM, 256MB Cache, for Computer Desktop PC, FFP (ST8000DMZ04)

Product Information

The standout feature of the Seagate BarraCuda ST8000DM008 is its generous 8TB storage capacity. This colossal amount of space allows me to store a vast collection of data, including games, multimedia, photos, and important documents, without worrying about running out of storage. Having a single drive storing potentially important data is always something of a gamble since physical mechanisms can, and do, go wrong. Therefore, we wouldn’t recommend putting any files on the My Book that you don’t store elsewhere, in case of failure.

That’s about a half of what you might expect from a SATA SSD externally connected via USB 3.0, and about a fifth of the best NVMe SSD external drives connected via USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports. It must also be kept in mind that the Segate Exos Enterprise and WD Gold are enterprise drives meant to be used in server rooms where noise and power consumption (to a large extent) are not as important as performance. As per the Exos 16TB and 18TB Exos Enterprise product manuals, the acoustics specifications are around 28-30 dB at idle, and 32-34 dB for performance seeks. Power consumption ranges from 1.31W at standby to 9.45W for high queue-depth random writes, with idling average being around 5.26W. The numbers for WD Gold are very similar. On the other hand, a drive like WD Red Pro has idle acoustics around 20 dB for the high-capacity models, though performance seeks are around 36 dB. Unless one is buying for a datacenter storage array, it is fair to expect that the drives are going to be idle for more time than doing performance seeks in SMB or SOHO NAS units. While WD doesn't break down power consumption by access trace type, the specifications indicate power numbers between 0.6W and 6.2W - considerably lower than the Exos / Gold. Price can be a key factor (which is the reason for shifting a number of our recommendations to the Exos series), but data hoarders with multi-bay NAS units or those in a SOHO setting may prefer thte NAS to be not as noisy or consume more power than needed.The 3.5-inch form factor makes it compatible with most desktop computer configurations, ensuring easy installation and integration into my existing system. There are three active vendors in the consumer hard drive space - Seagate, Toshiba, and Western Digital. Their retail offerings currently top out at 20TB, 18TB, and 22TB respectively. For performance, HDDs are also often gauged by rotations per minute (RPM), which is usually a direct indicator of performance. The RPM value impacts sequential transfers as well as random access latency. Lower RPM drives tend to be quieter and more efficient, while higher RPM drives have better performance. There are also variable RPM drives that try to achieve the best of both worlds. Power draw, heat, and noise are factors related to performance.

In terms of recent product introductions, the retail availability of Western Digital's OptiNAND-equipped 22TB drives has improved. Pricing for Toshiba's 18TB drives using FC-MAMR, as well as Seagate's Exos 20TB and IronWolf Pro 20TB have shown a downward trend. With the HDD supply chain having pretty much recovered, and the short-lived Chia craze a thing of the past, prices have largely stabilized. Many high-capacity models such as the Seagate IronWolf Pro line are currently running 15-20% lower than launch MSRPs, and the Exos lineup continues to offer great capacity for money. The matrix below shows the current pricing for each available capacity point in all the considered hard drive families. HDD Pricing Matrix (as of November 4, 2022) We suspect the next generation of My Book will have this feature and offer USB 3.2 Gen 2 connectivity, but this model works for the broadest possible selection of customers right now, critically. Traditional hard drives have a circular disk (platter) that stores your data - as the disk spins, the read-write arm reads data on the disc or writes data to it as it spins. Solid state drives (SSDs) have no moving parts, instead using NAND (Negative-AND) flash memory - the more memory chips an SSD has, the more storage capacity.The BarraCuda ST8000DM008 also benefits from Seagate's advanced management features, such as AcuTrac technology and SeaTools diagnostic software, which further enhance its performance and ensure data integrity. The Seagate ST8000DM008 BarraCuda 8TB is a standard 3.5-inch internal hard drive designed for mass storage needs in desktop computers. In this unbiased review, we will assess its various aspects to provide a comprehensive overview. So how do you know which hard drive is best for you? There are a lot of things to consider, so it's not as simple as just buying the "best" hard drive. Which hard drive is best? And, in the UK the best value per TB is the 6TB and 14TB models, where stateside the 8TB and 14TB hold those honours.