Seagate Desktop 4TB, 5TB and 6TB HDDs RAID Report

Introduction and Test System Setup

Over the past few months, we have been able to get our hands-on many of Seagate's latest offerings including 5TB and 6TB solutions. Adding these new solutions with our previously reviewed Desktop HDD 4TB, we now have a complete set of 4TB, 5TB and 6TB drives.

With each of these drives now in the lab in pairs, we could find no better time than now to set up a few RAID arrays using the integrated solution on our test platform.

Today, we will explore the performance in RAID 0 for each of these solutions for those of you building storage servers or gaming rigs with intense capacity.

Desktop Test System

Our consumer storage-testing platform consists of a GIGABYTE Z97X UD7 TH Pro with an Intel Core i7-4770 at the heart. Memory consists of a 4 x 4GB configuration of Corsair Dominator Platinum rated at 2800MHz. Samsung 840 Pro SSDs provide storage of the test system.

For this article, we used the Intel onboard RAID option ROM 13.0.0.0275 with RST 13.03. Benchmarks used in the process include IOMeter version 1.1, with the RAID Stripe Size set at 128K.

PRICING: You can find the Seagate Desktop HDDs for sale below. The prices listed are valid at the time of writing but can change at any time. Click the link to see the very latest pricing for the best deal.

United States: The Seagate Desktop HDD 4TB retails for $143.50 at Amazon, and the Seagate Desktop HDD 6TB retails for $299.99 at Amazon.

Benchmarks - 4K Random Performance & Latency

IOMeter - 4K Random Performance with QD

In random read, the Desktop 6TB held a slight lead over the 5TB model. Here we have the 6TB coming in at 1151 IOPS, while the 4TB and 5TB models touch 653 IOPS and 1137 IOPS, respectively.

Random write had the 4TB model showing consistent performance throughout the QD scale, while the 5TB and 6TB fell off after QD4.

Read latency for the 5TB and 6TB arrays were stellar coming in at 28 and 27ms at QD32. The 4TB model was able to manage 48ms at QD32.

Write latency for the 5TB and 6TB arrays came in at 81ms and 83ms respectively at QD32, while the 4TB was much quicker at 51ms.

Benchmarks - Sequential Performance & Latency

IOMeter - Sequential Performance with QD

Sequential read for both the 6TB and 5TB arrays was rather impressive reaching 440 MB/s and 448 MB/s.

Moving over to sequential write, the 5TB and 6TB arrays again carried a large performance advantage over the 4TB array. Here we have 422 MB/s for the 5TB, and 448 MB/s for the 6TB array.

Read latency for both the 5TB and 6TB arrays was considerably better than expected. As you can see, they both managed near 9ms at QD32, while the 4TB array chugged along slower at 14ms at QD32.

Write latency was quite similar to the read latency, where we found the 5TB and 6TB arrays being much quicker than the 4TB setup.

Power Consumption

Our custom power testing samples each drive for a period of three minutes, across each workload. In order to offer more granularity, we sample the power in one-second intervals.

Looking over our power consumption results, we found the Desktop 6TB coming in at 20 Watts at its peak, while the 5TB and 4TB models came in at 17.4 watts and 12.4 watts, respectively.

Of course, this is due to the platter count in the 5TB and 6TB models, along with the very quick spindle speed of the new solutions.

If we compare the power stream from the 4TB model to the new 5TB and 6TB models, you can see there has been a change in the way these drives manage power transitioning between workloads.

Final Thoughts

We knew going into this article that the Seagate Desktop 6TB would most likely take the performance crown for two drives in RAID, but as much as that is true, it is also good to see the 5TB was right there with it every step of the way.

In fact, there really is not much of a performance difference by adding another platter, and by that same token, there is no loss of performance either. What we do know is this latest generation of drives from Seagate holds a tremendous performance boost in single drive and RAID over the previous 4TB solution.

The performance jump is so big that when reviewing the 6TB model a month back, I recommended everyone dump their old drives and buy the 6TB, a statement I still stand by today. As easy as that sounds, I know many cannot simply run out and purchase another drive on a whim, but for those that can, this new generation of drives from Seagate packs a serious punch for your dollar.

MSRP for the 4TB Desktop HDD used in today's article sits at $179.99, while the 6TB comes in at $299.99. Finally yet importantly, we have the 5TB that as you know is a bit tricky to come by, but comes in at $249.99.

All consumer hard drives from Seagate ship with a two-year warranty.

PRICING: You can find the Seagate Desktop HDDs for sale below. The prices listed are valid at the time of writing but can change at any time. Click the link to see the very latest pricing for the best deal.

United States: The Seagate Desktop HDD 4TB retails for $143.50 at Amazon, and the Seagate Desktop HDD 6TB retails for $299.99 at Amazon.