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NAS HDDs vs. Desktop HDDs

written by Brian Beeler July 21, 2015

Starting in 2012 hard drive vendors got serious about producing duty-specific hard drives.
With the growth of the NAS, surveillance, and cloud-based categories aligning well with
massive data explosion, the pains around storing lots of data in a cost effective manner
became real for everyone from individuals through large enterprises. It's unsurprising
then that hard drive vendors tapped into this trend when releasing NAS-specific hard
drives. What is a NAS hard drive though and what makes it special? We take a deeper
technical dive here to demystify the technology underscoring the benefits of NAS drives
and the risks of using traditional desktop hard drives in a NAS environment. 

It's somewhat ironic that when it comes to protecting our data, we sometimes make cost-
based decisions instead of selecting the right product for the job. As is the case especially
in the small NAS category (8 or fewer bays), where even today, some popular NAS
vendors put the lowest cost HDDs in their systems. Data from leading NAS vendors
indicates that a vast majority of small NAS systems are sold bare. That being the case, for
well over half of systems in place, the end user or their advisor is selecting the hard drives
to go inside. Based on data we've seen from Synology, QNAP and others, there are a lot of
bad decisions being made. 

Many end users oversimplify the problem by making the drive choice about cost only and
many vendors have not provided additional information beyond the marketing
lingo. They've talked about special firmware and alluded to "NAS tuning" in the drives, but
technical details have been largely obfuscated. There's also a certain distrust amongst
some consumers as to whether or not the NAS hard drive is really any better than the
lower-cost eco-friendly drive category. To get past all of this we've worked with Seagate to
go beyond the spec sheet to get to the crux of what makes a NAS drive special and why
they're the only right answer to the question of what HDDs should live in a NAS.
Getting started, it's interesting to note that warranty claim rates are comparatively not
very high. Recent data from Warranty Week suggests that HDDs, from Seagate and WD at
least, have lower percentage of claim costs  than Apple products. To anyone who's lost a
drive, that's not terribly soothing, but the fact remains, HDDs are pretty well established
tech at this point and don't die all that often. That said, Synology for instance, would be
the first to tell you that a large number of their support calls deal with situations where
desktop HDDs were used in their product, despite their best efforts at education on the
topic. While consumers and system integrators may not know or care a lot about RV
sensors, disc clamps and the structural rigidity of the base plate, they should and here's
why.

Each hard drive is composed of about 30 components, depending the size of drive. These
components work in concert to deliver a great user experience that usually lasts beyond
the drive's warranty. The way those components are assembled though and the specificity
for which they're selected, are what determine the capabilities of the drive. For the
purposes of this piece we're looking at desktop vs. NAS vs. enterprise NAS product lines to
better illustrate the differences between each and to highlight where the step up to
enterprise NAS drives makes sense. 
  Desktop HDD NAS HDD Enterprise NA

Reliability 750K Hours MTBF 1M Hours MTBF 1.2M Hours M

Work Load Rating* 55TB 180TB 300TB

Usage 8x5 24 x 7 24 x 7

Usage By Form Factor 1-2 Drives 1-8 Drives/Bays 1-16 Drives/B

Motor Bottom Attached Bottom Attached Top and Bott

Rotational Vibration** 5 5 12.5

Balance Control Basic Disc./Motor Balance Dual Plane Balance NA

Vibration Control NA NA RVFF Sensors

RPM 5900 5900 7200

Base Plate Standard Standard Structural Rig

Top Cover Attached No No Yes

Voice Coil Magnets Standard Standard High Flux De

Seagate Acu_trac Non-standard Yes Yes, advance

Disk Clamps +Weighted +Weighted Top and Bott

Heads Standard Performance Performance

  Desktop HDD NAS HDD Enterprise NA

Disks Standard Performance  Performance

Humidity Sensors No No Yes

Adaptive Fly Height Tech. Yes Yes Yes

Firmware Basic Desktop NAS Optimized NAS Optimiz