I. Introduction: The world's first 30TB mechanical hard drive

On July 15, 2025, Seagate unveiled the industry's pioneering 30TB mechanical hard drive, the IronWolf Pro 30TB, tailored for NAS and RAID heavy-duty data applications.

Notably, this groundbreaking product leverages Seagate's Mozaic 3+ platform and incorporates Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) technology, delivering unparalleled scalability and robust stability for AI deployments in local NAS systems.

Fast Technology secured four units, collectively offering a staggering 120TB of storage capacity.

In addition to evaluating the performance of a single drive, this review will also assess the capabilities of four 30TB drives configured in RAID 0 within NAS and Windows environments.

The Seagate IronWolf Pro 30TB achieves its 30TB capacity not by increasing the number of platters but through an innovative helium-filled 10-platter design, with each platter offering 3TB and an impressive storage density of 1.742Tb per square inch—a 25% boost over the 24TB model released a year prior.

Spinning at 7200RPM, this hard drive excels in power consumption and heat management, with an average operating power of 8.3W and idle power consumption of 6.8W. It also features a built-in Rotational Vibration (RV) sensor, ensuring vibration resistance and consistent performance in multi-bay systems.

Unlike home hard drives designed for 7x8-hour workloads, the Seagate IronWolf Pro 30TB supports 7x24-hour continuous operation with a workload rate of 550TB/year. Offering approximately three times the durability of standard hard drives, it boasts a Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) of 2.5 million hours and comes with a five-year limited warranty.

To ensure robust and stable performance in multi-bay, multi-user environments, the IronWolf Pro 30TB employs Conventional Magnetic Recording (CMR) technology instead of Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR).

Moreover, it supports AgileArray technology, specifically optimized for NAS applications, providing dual-plane balance and time-limited error recovery for top-tier RAID performance in multi-bay systems.

II. Photo Gallery: Four drives totaling 120TB

Four Seagate IronWolf Pro 30TB hard drives, collectively offering 120TB of storage capacity!

This hard drive features the model number ST30000NT011, with a nominal capacity of 30TB (decimal) and a helium-filled 10-platter design, offering 3TB per platter.

All IronWolf Pro drives utilize CMR technology, not SMR.

Measuring 147x102x26mm and weighing 695g, this is a helium-filled drive designed for peak performance.

Designed specifically for NAS, the IronWolf Pro excels in high-performance environments.

Equipped with a traditional SATA 6Gbps interface and a miniature circuit board on the back, this hard drive is ready for high-speed data transfer.

Boasting a 10-platter design, this drive maintains a similar thickness to the previous IronWolf Pro 24TB model.

III. Single-drive performance testing: Average copy speed of nearly 280MB/s

1. Hard drive information

Using CrystalDiskInfo, we can see that the firmware version is EN02, with a transmission mode of SATA/600, support for ACS-5, S.M.A.R.T, and NCQ, and a spin speed of 7200RPM.

2. CrystalDiskMark

CrystalDiskMark recorded sequential read speeds of 293MB/s and sequential write speeds of 291MB/s. 4K random read speeds were 0.93MB/s, and 4K random write speeds were 2.673MB/s.

3. AS SSD Benchmark

Results were consistent with CrystalDiskMark, showing sequential read speeds of 275MB/s and sequential write speeds of 229MB/s. 4K random read speeds were 0.86MB/s, and 4K random write speeds were 2.26MB/s.

4. ATTO Disk Benchmarks

According to ATTO Disk Benchmarks, read and write speeds stabilized above 260MB/s starting from 8K.

5. Game copy test

We copied "Black Myth: Wukong" from a local SSD to the IronWolf Pro 30TB, involving a 131GB file size with a total of 335 files. The entire task was completed in 8 minutes and 36 seconds, averaging a write speed of 279.8MB/s.

IV. HD Tune test: Outer track read/write speeds reach 290MB/s

Generally, the inner and outer track speeds of mechanical hard drives differ. While most software tests outer track speeds, HD Tune can simultaneously assess both.

1. HD Tune Benchmark

The HD Tune benchmark test revealed a maximum read speed of 287MB/s (outer track) and a minimum read speed of 129MB/s (inner track), with an access latency of 12ms.

2. HD Tune Random Access

In tests with small files (less than 64KB), the Seagate IronWolf Pro 30TB achieved approximately 81 IOPS for read/write operations per second. For extremely small files (512Byte), the read speed was 0.040MB/s, with an average access latency of 12ms.

When the single file size increased to 1MB, IOPS were 58, with a read speed of 58MB/s.

Random write performance was significantly better, with 512Byte files achieving 225 IOPS, a write speed of 0.11MB/s, and an average access latency of 4.4ms.

3. HD Tune Additional Tests

The Seagate IronWolf Pro 30TB delivered sequential read speeds of 291MB/s (outer track), 235MB/s (middle track), and 120MB/s (inner track).

Sequential write speeds were 290MB/s (outer track), 235MB/s (middle track), and 115MB/s (inner track).

V. 4-Disk RAID 0 NAS experience: Read/write speeds exceed 1100MB/s, with explosive random performance

Next, we tested four Seagate IronWolf Pro 30TB hard drives configured in RAID 0 within a NAS.

The four hard drives were set up as a single storage pool in RAID 0 mode.

During space allocation, we noted a maximum capacity limit of 110592GB or 108TB for a single storage pool.

1. Fastcopy

We mapped the storage space to the local H drive and copied "Black Myth: Wukong" from a local SSD to the IronWolf Pro 120TB. The 137GB file was copied in just 2 minutes and 48 seconds, averaging a write speed of 847MB/s.

2. ISCSI Storage Performance Test

Within the NAS, we created an ISCSI storage with a capacity of 110148GB.

With the support of a 10Gb LAN, CrystalDiskMark measured sequential read speeds of up to 1130MB/s and sequential write speeds of 1110MB/s, with 4K random read speeds exceeding 44MB/s and 4K random write speeds of 45MB/s.

We copied 99GB of QQ chat records containing 472,000 files from a local disk to the Seagate IronWolf Pro 120TB ISCSI storage, observing a stable copy speed of 100MB/s throughout, rarely dipping below 70MB/s. The entire 100GB of fragmented files was copied in just 20 minutes, demonstrating random performance on par with ordinary SSDs.

VI. Performance Testing of 4-Disk RAID 0 under Windows: 4K Random Performance Increases 4-Fold

adv