Seagate IronWolf Pro 125 960GB SATA NAS SSD Review

TweakTown's Rating: 94%

The Bottom Line

Consumers in the market for NAS cache or AFA SSDs should look at the IronWolf Pro 125. This redesigned solution matches the Synology SAT5200 in performance and beats it on price!

Buy at Amazon

With the release of the IronWolf 125 in September, Seagate unveiled an updated SATA portfolio for NAS platforms that included a second, higher endurance option. That second option is the IronWolf Pro 125.

The IronWolf Pro 125 takes over where the IronWolf 125 left off, an option for consumers that need that extra bit of endurance for 24/7 always-on environments. Capacity options remain the same as IronWolf 110, with everything from 240 and 480GB to 1.92 and 3.84TB available.

Endurance ratings over the five-year warranty period give the 960GB model in house a 1750 TBW rating, while the peak capacity 3.84TB model reached 7000TWB. This means 1DWPD endurance across the entire lineup. Additional features of the IronWolf Pro 125 include Power Loss Data Protection, IronWolf Health Management for platforms that support it, and Data Recovery Services from Seagate for three years.

MSRP of the 960GB Seagate IronWolf Pro 125 comes in at $259.99 with a five-year warranty.

10

Packaging follows the new art direction we saw with the IronWolf 125. Capacity listed top right along with marketing performance; 545 Read and Write.

10

The back goes into more detail about the drive in several languages, with the model and warranty information towards the bottom.

10

Unboxing, the IronWolf Pro 125 has rather simple artwork on the top of the metal enclosure.

10

The backside offers a full sticker that includes model identification along with capacity and interface.

10

Opening the drive, it has nearly identical build quality and components found in the Synology SAT5200.

10

A closer look at the PCB, we have the Phison S12 to the left two DRAM packages above. To the right, we have eight Toshiba BiCS TLC packages.

10

CDM is a staple in performance testing; version 7 has seen some updates in the workloads used for testing. Sequential Read is a touch above marketing for the IronWolf Pro at 557 MB/s while write falls just short at 530 MB/s. Peak IOPS reach 97K read and 87K write.

10

If we push the IronWolf Pro 125 through our standard PCMark testing, it comes out just under the Synology SAT5200, fourth in our chart above.

10

Switching the workload to Data Drive in PCMark, the Pro nudged the Synology SAT5200 by a few MB/s, scoring 2102.

10

Historically, pricing isn't competitive for high endurance solutions, so with that, the Pro 125 lands at 95% just above the Samsung 860 Pro.

As expected, when Synology released the SAT5200, Seagate responded with an equally prepped solution, certainly an upgrade over the existing IronWolf 110 platform that used Seagate's own SSD controller technology.

The performance was on par with marketing. For the most part, we exceeded expectations in read performance, reaching 557 MB/s sequential and 97K IOPS 4K. PCMark workloads showed this solution to be quite good, not as good as the non-Pro variant but right behind trading places with the Synology SATA5200 in nearly every test. Quick System Drive netted a score of 1509 while Data Drive scored 2075.

Pricing again, not the friendliest, but not many current drives support 1DWPD, and the IronWolf Pro 125 does that with ease. MSRP at $259.99 for the 960GB model comes in nearly $100 cheaper than the Synology platform, making it an attractive value choice for NAS and AFA storage.

Tyler's Test System Specifications

• Motherboard: ASUS Crosshair VIII Formula X570 (buy from Amazon)
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 (buy from Amazon)
• RAM: Corsair Vengeance 16GB 2x8GB DDR4 3600 (buy from Amazon)
• Cooler: Corsair Hydro H60 (buy from Amazon)
• Case: Corsair Carbide 275R (buy from Amazon)
• OS Storage: Corsair MP600 1TB (buy from Amazon)
• Power Supply: Corsair RM850x (buy from Amazon)
• OS: Microsoft Windows 10 (buy from Amazon)