- Seagate Exos 2X18 High-Speed 18TB Hard Drive Closes the Gap with SATA SSDs
- Dual-actuator Mach.2 technology delivers 554MB/s reads at enterprise-grade capacities
- The drive is suitable for workloads requiring fast-spinning media rather than pure capacity
The Seagate Exos 2X18 hard drive is available for purchase from Insight for $659.99 – and while it’s not exactly the Black Friday bargain of the year, it’s $19 less than the usual price of $679.
Aimed at data center and enterprise workloads, this 18TB model stands out for more than just its raw capacity: it’s fast.
The Exos 2X18 uses Seagate’s Mach.2 dual actuator design, which splits the drive mechanics into two sets of independent actuators operating in parallel. The result is sequential transfer rates of up to 554 MB/s for reads and 528 MB/s for writes, about double that of a typical 7,200 RPM enterprise hard drive.
Speeds close to SATA SSDs
On paper, this puts this hard drive in the same territory as many SATA SSDs like the Samsung 870 QVO, at least for large sequential transfers.
A SATA SSD is still much faster for random access and latency-sensitive work, but for data streaming or backup tasks, the Exos drive closes the gap much more than standard spinning drives.
The Exos 2X18 uses a 3.5-inch form factor with a 12 Gb/s SAS interface and 256 MB cache. Average latency is 4.16 ms and spindle speed is 7,200 rpm, backed by a claimed MTBF of 2,500,000 hours and a five-year limited warranty.
The drive is listed at 304 IOPS for 4 KB random reads and 560 IOPS for 4 KB random writes. Power consumption ranges from 8 W at idle to 13.5 W during sequential reads.
Helium-filled construction, PowerBalance and Power Choice features all aim to keep temperatures and power consumption predictable in dense racks.
Support for Seagate Secure can help with hardware-based data protection in managed environments, although this is naturally dependent on host integration.
This kind of performance comes at a premium price for a single 18TB drive. For buyers who only need capacity, slower Nearline drives or high-capacity SATA SSDs will work out less per terabyte.
For workloads that are still tied to spinning media but benefit from higher throughput, the Exos 2X18 offers an unusual compromise between traditional hard drives and entry-level SATA SSDs.
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