Seagate Exos X16 16TB SATA HDD, ST16000NM001G

I purchased two of these disks in April 2022 to use in a Synology NAS as effectively RAID 1. Although they are nominally 14 TB, in practice the NAS says I only have 12.7 TB available.When the disks arrived one worked fine, but the other was dead on arrival. I returned it to PB Tech and after some email discussion they eventually agreed to replace it. I'm happy with the final outcome as the replacement disk did work fine out of the box. One of my reasons for buying from PB Tech rather than from overseas was the expectation that it would be easier to deal with a local supplier in the event of any problems, and this turned out to be the case. Much appreciated, PB Tech.So far so good with the disks. They are relatively noisy when being accessed, but I have my NAS ... MoreI purchased two of these disks in April 2022 to use in a Synology NAS as effectively RAID 1. Although they are nominally 14 TB, in practice the NAS says I only have 12.7 TB available.When the disks arrived one worked fine, but the other was dead on arrival. I returned it to PB Tech and after some email discussion they eventually agreed to replace it. I'm happy with the final outcome as the replacement disk did work fine out of the box. One of my reasons for buying from PB Tech rather than from overseas was the expectation that it would be easier to deal with a local supplier in the event of any problems, and this turned out to be the case. Much appreciated, PB Tech.So far so good with the disks. They are relatively noisy when being accessed, but I have my NAS away from me in another room so this is not a problem. The latest statistics from Backblaze (Q1 2022) record that the Annual Failure Rate is around 0.91%, which sounds pretty good to me.

Arrived with a dint in the casing but seems fine

Ordered to be a new parity drive for my first unRAID server.Drive seems to work, but there's a dint on the casing which I took a picture of just in case. It must have happened before packing because it was packed very well IMO. SMART seems fine and its working well though so hopefully just cosmetic. Performance seems to be as it should be.

Fantastic NAS drive, but caveat emptor: industrial noise level

Using this in a NAS, upgrading from 4TB Iron Wolf Pro. They perform admirably and I especially can't beat them on sale for 1/2 off. Only unexpected negative is the noise, which I did read about but you kind of have to experience it firsthand... it's not ridiculously loud? But it's not quiet. One single drive being written steadily sounds almost exactly like the gutter runoff hitting the bottom of the metal downspout outside the home, a few minutes after a cloudburst. It can be a pleasant sound at the right time of day, etc., less awesome at others. I'm a litttttle afraid of what all four bays are gonna sound like. But: no pain, no RAID, I always say-ed.

Got 4 of these for a Synology NAS, and they are awesome

I'm loving these drives. They are a little bit overkill for a home NAS, but I wanted to build a shared volume that could take better advantage of my 10g network. I have 4 of them in a RAID10, and I'm loving the performance. In terms of noise, my only comparison is an array of 10TB Ironwolfs, and these Exos are louder. The Ironwolfs were never loud enough to be heard over the quiet NAS case fans, but the new Exos can be heard when they seek. I imagine most people buying enterprise drives don't care about noise, but when I was trying to decide on buying these drives (which were cheaper than the equivalent Ironwolfs), I couldn't find noise level data published anywhere. I would say the noise isn't bad, but I definitely have been moving frequently accessed shares back ... MoreI'm loving these drives. They are a little bit overkill for a home NAS, but I wanted to build a shared volume that could take better advantage of my 10g network. I have 4 of them in a RAID10, and I'm loving the performance. In terms of noise, my only comparison is an array of 10TB Ironwolfs, and these Exos are louder. The Ironwolfs were never loud enough to be heard over the quiet NAS case fans, but the new Exos can be heard when they seek. I imagine most people buying enterprise drives don't care about noise, but when I was trying to decide on buying these drives (which were cheaper than the equivalent Ironwolfs), I couldn't find noise level data published anywhere. I would say the noise isn't bad, but I definitely have been moving frequently accessed shares back to my old array to keep these new disks from constantly seeking during the day. If I didn't have that choice, I would probably look into moving the NAS farther away from my desk. One of the 4 drives I originally ordered died during the initial scan that was performed while building the array. This actually caused kernel panics in my NAS that rendered the web interface inoperative until I removed the offending drive, so next time I will definitely run extended SMART tests on the individual drives before adding them to an array. The RMA on the dead drive went fine. I don't have a problem with drives arriving DOA every once in a while, as statistically this is just a fact of how hard drives are built and shipped, regardless of the model or brand. And the 4 I ended up keeping are working great!

Great so far. A little louder than expected

I purchased a batch of these to put into an 8 bay Synology NAS. I chose them for the good warranty period and the fact that they are a Synology approved enterprise drive. I was previously using WD Red 5400 RPM drives that were significantly quieter. They ran for 8.5 years 24/7! The sound is not a problem as I plan to relocate the NAS farther from our workspace.

Malcolm's review of Seagate Exos X18 ST16000NM000J - Hard drive - 16 TB - internal - SATA 6Gb/s - 7200 rpm - buffer: 256 MB

Pros: Excellent drive, 16TB to play with. Nowhere near as noisy as people make out, my 2 are silent. Occasional flickering noise but barely audible. Nice fast transfer speeds, much faster than any other drive I own. I don't normally buy Seagate, but at the price, it was a no brainer.Well happy, will buy more if the price drops again.Can't comment on reliability, these are only days old.Cons: None.

Massive drives

I bought two of these for a TrueNAS server setup. They have been deployed as ZFS mirrors and are working as expected. Frustrating that the warranty is missing 6 months, however a lot of retailers offer zero warranty on these drives and sell them for a similar price. As for noise, maybe I am more tolerant than others, but I find it difficult to hear them over the case fans during copy operations. I actually slept next to the NAS box while it was doing an overnight data transfer, didn't bother me at all. I am using a Fractal 7 XL which has some padding in the case and rubber hard drive mounts, so maybe that helps. .

New standalone backup disk

I've bought this disc to replace my old Seagate external 5Tb as that was now taking over 6hrs to backup my pc.This new EXOS disc has been put into a UGreen 3.5" HDD caddy and connected via usb 3.0 to a linux Ubuntu 20.04 system.On Friday nights I backup the whole of my 4Tb NVME Data Disk which has several large VMs.I have now had two friday runs now and its only taking approx 2.5/3hrs.Much better than the old 5Tb.I had heard that enterprise HDDs were much louder. So after a 20 second rumble it goes quiet.Then I start my rsync backup and other than an expected quiet rattle there is hardly any noise what so ever.As a single disk being used as a backup it am very happy with it and would buy again if required.

Not the best experience of EXOS 16Tb

Purchased two of these to replace two 4Tb WD Red on my Synology SAN, both still working OK but wanted to increase capacity. Fitted the first and it started the rebuild after approx. fifteen hours came up with a critical failure. Decided not to chance the second and re-installed the WD drives which rebuilt without further problems. Unfortunately I have insufficient exposure to a successful operation with the above Seagate 16Tb EXOS units, but did not expect a failure on the first installation.I must commend SCAN for their excellent service and support. Having returned the two drives they were very quick to check and initiate a full refund which was with me within 48hours. I would definitely use the company again

we shall see :) some notes though

packaging:BH package was 1 piece of bubble wrap for two drives in a box just bouncing around !!!come on BH tell the packing folks to wrap the drive boxes not just put one tiny tear sheet in a box with any number of drives to then bounce around ! box was damaged so hoping these work out and were not damaged ?what type of drive did I get ?:mine was OEM not retail not a huge deal as I just put them in a NAS anyway ?(unless the new retail is plain brown box and the other info out there is not up to date on change of package and contents)registering and warranty:no issuealso the warranty is date of manufacture I have read elsewhereand it seems to be true as I just ordered and received the drives in Oct 2020 and the warranty says May 2025 when registering so ... Morepackaging:BH package was 1 piece of bubble wrap for two drives in a box just bouncing around !!!come on BH tell the packing folks to wrap the drive boxes not just put one tiny tear sheet in a box with any number of drives to then bounce around ! box was damaged so hoping these work out and were not damaged ?what type of drive did I get ?:mine was OEM not retail not a huge deal as I just put them in a NAS anyway ?(unless the new retail is plain brown box and the other info out there is not up to date on change of package and contents)registering and warranty:no issuealso the warranty is date of manufacture I have read elsewhereand it seems to be true as I just ordered and received the drives in Oct 2020 and the warranty says May 2025 when registering so not the full 5 year warranty from date of purchase !I have read this on other sites and reviews but good to knowalso I have heard some of the x14 drives are over a year old manufacture so you get less warranty time no idea if this is true BUT I have read it on forums so might be worth knowing researchingOK WHY I GOT THISI have had two WD red drives die now ? I used to love WD but who knows anymore about how long or what company these were a good price for the data and figure give them a try after not using seagate for over 5 years since they had such issues years ago ? but with a warranty till May 2025 I am covered for a while