HDD specialist Seagate is launching a new hard drive tailored for NAS devices: the IronWolf Pro 22 TB. The drive has the highest capacity in Seagate’s entire CMR lineup.

Seagate launches the IronWolf Pro 22TB. The release of this disc came since January of this year. The drive is helium filled and consists of ten 2.2TB drives inside. Seagate uses a classic 3.5-inch format with a SATA connection. The drive rotates at 7,200 rpm and has a 512 MB cache on board. Seagate claims sequential read and write speeds of around 285 MB/s, which is pretty good for a hard drive.

The IronWolf Pro 22TB is a direct competitor for the WD Red Pro 22TB. Seagate’s HDD is slightly faster than Western Digital’s entry and can also handle heavier workloads (550 TB per year vs 300 TB per year). However, the ironWolf is less efficient, consuming 6 watts when idling compared to 3.4 watts for the WD Red Pro. We also note that Western Digital has another drive in its portfolio with the same capacity but higher performance, the WD Gold 22 TB.

CMR, SMR and HAMR

The drive is characterized by its high capacity in combination with conventional magnetic recording (CMR) technology. The ironWolf Pro therefore does not use it shingled magnetic recording (SMR) or more modern heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR). The HDD is the first of its kind in the Seagate portfolio with a capacity of 22 TB.

SMR, in particular, is a somewhat controversial technology because it increases drive capacity at the expense of performance. That’s not a problem in itself, but Western Digital hasn’t always been transparent about the technology it’s using in 2020. By using CMR, Seagate guarantees good performance for HDD conditions despite the high capacity.

price and availability

The Seagate IronWolf 22TB should be available soon, but we can’t find the drive online just yet. Seagate hasn’t communicated a recommended retail price in euros either. Expect a price of around 600 euros including VAT.