Seagate Barracuda 3.5 8TB Internal HDD 6GB / S 256MB 5400RPM ST8000DM004 H:8TB

As another buyer reviewed this is a SMR drive, which is slightly cheaper than a CMR drive. HD manufacturers are somewhat reluctant to draw attention to the fact that some of their drives are SMR. The cost for the cheaper price is that the drive is slower to write.As the drive fills up with data it gets slower. More full more slow. At approx 90% full this really become noticeable to the point where it is best to consider this a 7TB HDD (vs 8TB), which makes the 8TB Iron Wolf (CMR) cousin look somewhat better price wise.Up to the point where it gets slow, all good. It does complete the storage to full, given time. So it is what it says on the label with some small print attached.In short there are drives more suited to being filled to capacity or placed in a ... MoreAs another buyer reviewed this is a SMR drive, which is slightly cheaper than a CMR drive. HD manufacturers are somewhat reluctant to draw attention to the fact that some of their drives are SMR. The cost for the cheaper price is that the drive is slower to write.As the drive fills up with data it gets slower. More full more slow. At approx 90% full this really become noticeable to the point where it is best to consider this a 7TB HDD (vs 8TB), which makes the 8TB Iron Wolf (CMR) cousin look somewhat better price wise.Up to the point where it gets slow, all good. It does complete the storage to full, given time. So it is what it says on the label with some small print attached.In short there are drives more suited to being filled to capacity or placed in a NAS. After that is why Seagate, and others make different models.Interestingly enough I bought a 4TB BarraCuda and it does not exhibit the same issue. Both are SMR HD.

I purchased these 2 x 8TB Barras to replace 2 x 4TB WD Purples in my security camera system. I know the warranty is shorter on this value product, but they will be replaced again in 3-4 years, so who cares. Install was simple and the security system was up and running again in seconds. With these larger drives I now record over 2 months of continuous feed from 11 camers @1080p. As a bonus, I'm re-using the old drives for off-site motion-sensed backup. So, probably a year's worth there! Rinse and repeat in due course.

5th worst HDD I've bought...

I bought 4 Seagate 8TB "Archive" SMR drives in years previously (these are marketed as shingled [multiple tracks are read/re-written with a slight overlap to gain capacity] but with the knowledge they will be quite a bit slower to write) and I saw fairly terrible performance (USB 2.0 sort of transfer speeds). Having told myself never again, I bought one of these new Barracuda 8TB drives not knowing they are now the same, and have now seen the same sort of poor performance... 20MB/s on average for writing (or backup) operations. A quick research of the 'net shows Seagate have quietly moved this terrible tech into these branded drives now. They say they also now contain a bunch of "smarts" to speed up this poor performance for desktop usage, but it hasn't helped me at ... MoreI bought 4 Seagate 8TB "Archive" SMR drives in years previously (these are marketed as shingled [multiple tracks are read/re-written with a slight overlap to gain capacity] but with the knowledge they will be quite a bit slower to write) and I saw fairly terrible performance (USB 2.0 sort of transfer speeds). Having told myself never again, I bought one of these new Barracuda 8TB drives not knowing they are now the same, and have now seen the same sort of poor performance... 20MB/s on average for writing (or backup) operations. A quick research of the 'net shows Seagate have quietly moved this terrible tech into these branded drives now. They say they also now contain a bunch of "smarts" to speed up this poor performance for desktop usage, but it hasn't helped me at all - the HDD is a slow POS to save to. I can't believe I now have a 5th unit that can only be used for "archive" purposes, where you wait forever to save things, but then get sort of OK performance on reading back the data.

8TB

8TB hard drive that offers expansive storage capacity, providing ample space for your data needs. Its reliable performance and high storage density make it a solid choice for users requiring significant storage space. The sleek design and compatibility with various devices enhance its versatility, making it a valuable addition to any setup. Overall, a dependable solution for those seeking substantial storage without compromising on performance.

Died within two years

Died within two and a half years, expected more from Seagate. My old Seagate 4TB is almost ten years old now and still going strong, guess it's not what it used to be anymore. The disk didn't have a hard life, it was just a backup drive, for OS weekly backup copies and Google Drive. The manufacturer's warranty is only two years. You have to be careful when buying an extra warranty from "scan", turns out I bought "30-day starter" that covers only installation, not faults. My bad, should've read more carefully...

Good drive, Great price, Not a speed demon

This is, without a doubt, a drive that is a great value choice, assuming you are choosing it for the right reason. It excels at providing a large amount of disk space for archives, backups, and other workloads that are NOT performance sensitive. It is NOT a good choice as a primary drive, or anything write intensive. I bought it for one reason, a local disc to store backups and archives before they are copied to NAS storage. It is installed in a near antique system running a now discontinued 2nd Generation Core I5, installed on a motherboard with a limited number of SATA 600 ports, hence the SATA 300 connection shown in the attached screenshot. Also shown are some Crystal Diskmark scores that highlight the near dismal write performance, likely because it uses ... MoreThis is, without a doubt, a drive that is a great value choice, assuming you are choosing it for the right reason. It excels at providing a large amount of disk space for archives, backups, and other workloads that are NOT performance sensitive. It is NOT a good choice as a primary drive, or anything write intensive. I bought it for one reason, a local disc to store backups and archives before they are copied to NAS storage. It is installed in a near antique system running a now discontinued 2nd Generation Core I5, installed on a motherboard with a limited number of SATA 600 ports, hence the SATA 300 connection shown in the attached screenshot. Also shown are some Crystal Diskmark scores that highlight the near dismal write performance, likely because it uses Shingled Magnetic Recording. That said, it does well at what I bought it for, a source of cheap storage (less than 2 cents per GiB) for processes that run in the background when I'm not using the system. So if you just want lots of cheap storage, give this drive a look. If you want any sort of performance, bite the bullet and get an SSD.

Great for me, but not fast and use SMR

First some negatives, which are not an issue in my case: As you may have read elsewhere, these drives are not suitable for a NAS. They spin slowly at 5400 RPM. They use Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR), which makes them unsuitable for write-intensive use. (A few years ago I thought one of my earlier Seagate SMR drives was defective when the write speed slowed to a crawl, perhaps 10 MBS/sec. However, everything was fine; I paused my writing and let the drive move data into it's final position, and the speed picked up again.) In my case I use the drives to store backups and video, and read from them much more than I write.My three drives were well packed in OEM packaging. I used Seagate's verify website to check that the drives were genuine. I used the HDTune ... MoreFirst some negatives, which are not an issue in my case: As you may have read elsewhere, these drives are not suitable for a NAS. They spin slowly at 5400 RPM. They use Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR), which makes them unsuitable for write-intensive use. (A few years ago I thought one of my earlier Seagate SMR drives was defective when the write speed slowed to a crawl, perhaps 10 MBS/sec. However, everything was fine; I paused my writing and let the drive move data into it's final position, and the speed picked up again.) In my case I use the drives to store backups and video, and read from them much more than I write.My three drives were well packed in OEM packaging. I used Seagate's verify website to check that the drives were genuine. I used the HDTune utility ERASE function to write random data to the entire surface of each drive and then read data back to verity each byte written. (A 30-hour process per drive.)During these tests the SMART data showed many seek errors and many CRC errors, all of the latter being correctable. I assume that these errors are normal for drives of this sort, as has been the case with similar drives that I've used for several years with no problem.

Great for my first attempt at a NAS

8TB for ~$110 is really great. All four arrived quickly, in great condition, and immediately worked. Windows recognized them without issue, and they all pooled easily using Windows Storage Spaces. The only knock is that these are SMR and not CMR drives. I foolishly found that out after setting them up in parity. The write speeds were abysmal at 1Mb to 30Mb and sometimes actually 0 speed. I then started over and set them up as a mirror for 30TB in the pool and 14TB useable storage, and then they were able to write ~110-150Mb. If they were CMR and performed well in parity, then I could have had 19TB useable. That's the only knock. But for what they are, they're great for me to learn how to setup a network PC with basic file sharing on Windows, and eventually I'll ... More8TB for ~$110 is really great. All four arrived quickly, in great condition, and immediately worked. Windows recognized them without issue, and they all pooled easily using Windows Storage Spaces. The only knock is that these are SMR and not CMR drives. I foolishly found that out after setting them up in parity. The write speeds were abysmal at 1Mb to 30Mb and sometimes actually 0 speed. I then started over and set them up as a mirror for 30TB in the pool and 14TB useable storage, and then they were able to write ~110-150Mb. If they were CMR and performed well in parity, then I could have had 19TB useable. That's the only knock. But for what they are, they're great for me to learn how to setup a network PC with basic file sharing on Windows, and eventually I'll learn how to setup a proper NAS/media server. (Yes, I jerry-rigged four stackable Phanteks HDD cages to the Corsair 4000D with zip-ties. No, a GPU won't fit because the HDDs cover all of the pcie slots.)

SAVE, STORE, RETRIEVE

So I only purchased this to save store and retrieve. However I may not retrieve till 10 plus years from now. I use these to store raw original content from various TV shows and movies. After it's saved I buy the drive into the anti static bag and it goes into a fire proof metal case and I almost never have to go back to it. I have clients that ask me about footage that sometimes goes back 20 years. This drive is reliable, not to fast but fast enough and does what I need it to do. Simple 8TB of basic storage that I keep off the system just as a backup. BH has done it again, before this I would use a 5TB portable drive around the same price point.

SMR system drive + Windows 10 or Windows 11 = HORRIBLE performance

DON"T BUY THIS DRIVE TO USE AS A WINDOWS 10 OR WINDOWS 11 SYSTEM DISK. These SMR (shingled magnetic recording) drives can't write a single sector at a time to the disk because of the overlapped magnetic recording technology they use. The drive ends up writing the sector you try to write to a small temporary storage location on the drive and that is pretty fast, but later it has to go back and rewrite the data to another higher density location on the drive where it will have to rewrite adjacent sectors at the same time because their data overlaps unlike the data on traditional CMR (conventional magnetic recording) drives. As a result of having to write sectors more than one time the drive will thrash (move the recording head around making seeking noises) more than ... MoreDON"T BUY THIS DRIVE TO USE AS A WINDOWS 10 OR WINDOWS 11 SYSTEM DISK. These SMR (shingled magnetic recording) drives can't write a single sector at a time to the disk because of the overlapped magnetic recording technology they use. The drive ends up writing the sector you try to write to a small temporary storage location on the drive and that is pretty fast, but later it has to go back and rewrite the data to another higher density location on the drive where it will have to rewrite adjacent sectors at the same time because their data overlaps unlike the data on traditional CMR (conventional magnetic recording) drives. As a result of having to write sectors more than one time the drive will thrash (move the recording head around making seeking noises) more than normal, but if the data is written in small bursts and not too often then aside from the extra disk operation that you will hear it will work like a regular drive. The performance problem with this drive occurs when you write too many small bursts of data at the same time as you are trying to read data or you write a large amount of data for a sustained period of time and that temporary fast storage area becomes full. When that happens you have to wait for the drive to write the overlapped data before it can process your next bit of data and the sustained transfer rate of the drive plummets due to jumping back and forth between the fast and the slow part of the disk. I will get sustained transfer rates under 20 MB / sec sometimes when transferring a large number of files. That's almost as bad as a USB 2.0 flash drive. The latest versions of Windows 10 and Windows 11 seem to do a lot of logging. They read and write event log and NTFS filesystem log data to the drive constantly. In Windows 11 my computer was reading over 1 MB/sec of data constantly so this drive keeps jumping around writing sector, read sector, rewriting sector to higher density area, reading sector and latency of all these small operations just crushes the performance of the drive. It takes the latest versions of Windows 10 or 11 a few minutes just to boot up and the disk operations just never end. Its constantly thrashing the drive every second of the day and since its always in the middle of some disk operation, the latency of any disk operation you want to perform is greater because it has to wait for its current operation to end first. Its very unpleasant and completely unacceptable both performance-wise and noise-wise and I'm sure the life of this drive will be shorter than a CMR drive due to the extra operations the drive is having to perform. The drive does hold a lot of data. If you don't use it as your Windows system drive which will be constantly reading and writing log files and you mostly read data from it and not write to it then its decent enough as an archival drive for movie, music, picture, or game storage. It has a lot of capacity and is cheaper than equivalently sized CMR drives. Writing performance of the drive is terrible, but reading is just as fast as other drives provided you haven't written a lot of data recently to the drive causing it to need to rewrite data possibly at the same moment you are wanting to read from it. You really need a SSD for your system drive in Windows 10 and 11 now due to the excessive reading and writing of small event log files. This drive isn't suitable for that purpose. SSDs don't have the seeking latency or noise production of magnetic drives so you won't notice that your SSD is operating all the time. You will regret it if you buy this drive and attempt to use it as your system drive in Windows 10 or 11. You've been warned.