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Seagate IronWolf 110 240GB NAS SSD Review

On the surface, all SSDs look the same. But underneath, there can be huge differences. Today we’re looking at something which isn’t like most, Seagate‘s IronWolf 110 SSD designed for 24/7 multi-user setups such as in NAS devices.

Seagate IronWolf 110

The IronWolf 110 comes in quite a few capacity options, allowing you to pick the one that’s right for you without having to spend more than you need to. It starts with the 240GB model which I’m testing today and from there it moves over 480GB, 960GB and 1.9TB all the way to 3.8TB. That’s a lot of capacity in a small form factor.

Thanks to the standard SATA3 interface, it’s easily compatible with almost any NAS device on the market. There are a few which don’t support 2.5″ drives, but they aren’t common. Still, you should make sure that yours does before you get the drives.

Endurance and Performance

Naturally, there’s quite a bit of difference between the performance and endurance ratings of this drive. After all, there is a huge difference in capacity too. But since I’m testing the 240GB model today, we’ll focus on that one. For the other capacity options, you can check the specifications sheet further down.

In numbers, the 240GB IronWolf 110 SSD delivers 560MB/s and 55K IOPS when reading. When writing, it comes in at 345MB/s and 30K IOPS. Naturally, those numbers don’t come close to NVMe drives, but that’s not the goal. Once you get up in the capacity to 480GB and higher, you get better figures which are comparable to other same-sized SATA SSDs on the market.

The strength of the IronWolf 110 SSD is endurance. A NAS drive needs that more than pure performance and cache-boosted figures. The 240GB model is rated at 435TB TBW while it also features a 2 million hours MTBF.

Seagate backs the drive with a 5-year warranty and also throws in a 2-year rescue date recovery service.

Features

There is a lot more to making an SSD than simply slapping components onto a PCB and marketing it. Seagate is utilising their knowledge and added some great things to the IronWolf 110. One of the main features is the DuraWrite™ lossless data reduction technology. This kind of technology isn’t new, in fact, it’s been around for about 10 years now. But it is great to keep up the endurance of the NAND by writing less data without losing anything.

Another vital feature for a drive such as this which is rated for 24/7 usage is power loss data protection. Even in the event of a power loss of the system, the drive has enough power stored to flush all data in progress to the NAND – thus preventing data loss.

Last but not least, the IronWolf 110 features tunable capacity for performance or capacity-optimised SSD solutions.

What Did Seagate Have to Say?

Seagate IronWolf 110 SSD is built for NAS with capacities from 240 GB to 3.84 TB. Each drive includes AgileArray firmware to keep your NAS enclosure maximised for demanding 24×7 and multi-user environments, and can be used in an all-flash array (AFA) or in a NAS capable of tiered caching.