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Seagate · Data-centre drive · ST12000NM002H

Seagate Exos X24 12TB

Sold for data centres, but underneath it's a standard 3.5in SATA drive and any NAS with a 3.5in bay will take it without complaint.

Capacity
12 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

Should you buy the Exos X24 12 TB?

It's at home in a rack or a garage, where 7,200 rpm of spinning rust can whirr away all day without bothering anyone. Five years of warranty is the other draw, and on a drive you'll leave spinning for most of a decade that's worth having. CMR, thankfully. SMR and parity rebuilds don't get on.

Watch out for

Being 7,200 rpm, it's in the noisier, warmer class of drive, and you'll want it somewhere you don't sit.

There's no Backblaze data worth quoting here. On paper it makes 28 dB at idle and 32 dB seeking. Seagate lists 6.3 W at idle, which comes to 55 kWh a year for a drive that idles around the clock. Four of them in SHR or RAID 5 give 36 TB usable, or 32.7 TB once Windows has done its binary maths on it.