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Seagate · Data-centre drive · ST18000NM003D

Seagate Exos X20 18TB

Seagate builds this one for data-centre racks; in a home NAS it's simply a big 7,200 rpm SATA drive with five years' cover.

Capacity
18 TB
Recording
CMR
Speed
7,200 rpm
Warranty
5 years
Workload
550 TB/yr
Failure rate
No failure data

Good for

  • Busy arrays (550 TB a year)
  • Big media libraries
  • RAID, SHR and ZFS rebuilds
  • 5 years' warranty

Not for

  • A desk or bedroom (7,200 rpm is the louder class)

Updated 27 Oct 2026 · Method 2.0

Who the Exos X20 18 TB is for

Pick it for raw capacity in a box that lives out of earshot, because 7,200 rpm enterprise drives are built to run flat out all day, every day. You also get five years' warranty, two more than the cheapest NAS lines. It's CMR, which is what you want anywhere near a RAID or ZFS rebuild.

Watch out for

At 7,200 rpm it's from the louder, warmer class. Fine in a cupboard, less fun on a desk.

No Backblaze failure rate for this one. They don't run enough of them, if any, for a figure worth quoting. On paper it makes 28 dB at idle and 32 dB seeking. Seagate lists 5.4 W at idle, which comes to 47 kWh a year for a drive that idles around the clock. A 4-bay box full of these gives 54 TB after one drive's worth of parity.