Best NAS drives 2023: Reliable HDD, SSD, and M.2 cache

In order to make the most out of the best NAS you can buy, you’ll need at least one drive to store the OS and all your data. You could try to go without any, but I doubt you’d make much progress! I’ve rounded up the best hard disk drives (HDD) and solid-state drives (SSD) for use inside NAS enclosures.

1. Best overall: Seagate IronWolf — ~20TB, ~24 bays, ~285MB/s, ~5-year warranty
2. Runner-up: Western Digital Red — ~18TB, ~24 bays, ~272MB/s, ~5-year warranty
3. Best capacity: Seagate Exos — ~20TB, ~285MB/s, ~5-year warranty
4. Best NAS SSD: Western Digital Red SA500 — ~4TB, ~560MB/s, ~5-year warranty
5. Best Synology NAS SSD: Synology SAT5200 — ~3.8TB, ~530MB/s, ~5-year warranty
6. Best M.2 cache SSD: Seagate IronWolf 510 — ~2TB, ~5,000MB/s, ~5-year warranty
7. Best surveillance: Seagate SkyHawk — ~20TB, 260MB/s, ~5-year warranty

What is the best NAS drive?

The best NAS drive would be one that’s specifically designed for use in servers. You could go all-out and pay big bucks for enterprise-grade drives, but manufacturers including Seagate and Western Digital have NAS-specific HDDs and SSDs. Just don’t go and use your old desktop PC drives.

I’m a big fan of Seagate IronWolf, particularly the Pro range. You have the choice of capacities between 1TB and 16TB, as well as speeds of up to 240MB/s. You don’t need SSD speeds if all you have is a NAS and network that supports 1Gb/s transfer rates. Seagate even rates these drives for workloads of up to 180TB/yr.

Western Digital has its Red series of drives if you want something a little more affordable, but still has similar features to Seagate IronWolf. Seagate Exos is for those who want serious capacity for storing all the data in the world. Then there’s the Synology SAT5200, which is a great choice for a NAS SSD.

We’d usually not recommend an SSD for NAS storage since it’s not the best choice due to how flash storage degrades over time through use. Mechanical drives are better overall and don’t have a finite amount of data that can be written. Where an SSD comes into play inside a NAS is caching, and I’d recommend the Seagate IronWolf 510.

HDD vs. SSD for NAS

Hard drives and solid state drives are both used for storing data, but they use different means to do so. The former makes use of a motor to spin platters that are met by a magnetic arm to read and write data to each plate. An SSD utilizes electricity to charge and discharge transistors.

Hard drives are excellent for long-term storage needs that require high capacities. They’re also far more affordable compared to newer SSD technologies. For NAS, it all depends on how much data you have to store, the type of data you want to store, how frequently you’ll be writing to the disks, and how much money you have to spend.

As aforementioned, hard drives usually offer larger capacities for storing data. You can find drives that offer 20TB of storage space. They’re slower than SSDs, thanks to the motor speed, and they don’t do well with vibrations and movement. For NAS, the latter isn’t an issue until you have twenty or more drives populated inside a single chassis.

This is where NAS-designed drives come into play with various features to help shield them against vibrations and other elements. The same goes for SSDs, which are fantastic for speeds but suffer from weaker endurance in the amount of data that can be written to them over time. NAS SSDs are better in this regard but still aren’t as good as HDDs for heavy writes.

1. Seagate IronWolf: Best overall NAS drive

Our thoughts: The Seagate IronWolf family of hard drives for NAS is split into two sub-categories. You’ve got normal IronWolf drives and IronWolf Pro drives, the latter supporting more bays, higher speeds, increased warranty, and more.

Capacity: 1TB – 20TB | Max bays: 8 / 24 (Pro) | Workload: 180TB/yr or 300TB/yr (Pro) | Warranty: 3 years / 5 years (Pro) | Speed: 180MB/s – 240MB/s or 214MB/s – 285MB/s (Pro)

Drive	Bays	Speed	Workload	Warranty	Price	$ per GB
Seagate IronWolf 1TB	8	180MB/s	180 TB/yr	3 years	$60	$0.06
Seagate IronWolf 2TB	8	180MB/s	180 TB/yr	3 years	$80	$0.04
Seagate IronWolf 3TB	8	180MB/s	180 TB/yr	3 years	$95	$0.03
Seagate IronWolf 4TB	8	180MB/s	180 TB/yr	3 years	$83	$0.03
Seagate IronWolf 6TB	8	180MB/s	180 TB/yr	3 years	$135	$0.03
Seagate IronWolf 8TB	8	180MB/s	180 TB/yr	3 years	$185	$0.03
Seagate IronWolf 10TB	8	180MB/s	180 TB/yr	3 years	$237	$0.03
Seagate IronWolf 12TB	8	180MB/s	180 TB/yr	3 years	$290	$0.03
Seagate IronWolf 16TB	8	240MB/s	180 TB/yr	3 years	$330	$0.03
Seagate IronWolf Pro 4TB	24	214MB/s	300 TB/yr	5 years	$130	$0.03
Seagate IronWolf Pro 6TB	24	214MB/s	300 TB/yr	5 years	$180	$0.03
Seagate IronWolf Pro 8TB	24	214MB/s	300 TB/yr	5 years	$260	$0.03
Seagate IronWolf Pro 10TB	24	250MB/s	300 TB/yr	5 years	$270	$0.03
Seagate IronWolf Pro 12TB	24	250MB/s	300 TB/yr	5 years	$320	$0.03
Seagate IronWolf Pro 14TB	24	250MB/s	300 TB/yr	5 years	$360	$0.03
Seagate IronWolf Pro 16TB	24	260MB/s	300 TB/yr	5 years	$368	$0.03
Seagate IronWolf Pro 18TB	24	285MB/s	300 TB/yr	5 years	$420	$0.03
Seagate IronWolf Pro 20TB	24	285MB/s	300 TB/yr	5 years	$430	$0.03

The Seagate IronWolf series of drives are excellent for NAS. Capacities range between 1TB and 16TB and can be installed inside a NAS enclosure with up to eight drive bays. Seagate rates them with a workload of 180TB/yr, meaning you should be able to write plenty of data to them before encountering issues.

Then there’s the three-year warranty, a transfer speed of up to 240MB/s, and prices starting from just $60. If you’re just starting out, I’d recommend two 2TB drives to enable RAID support and shield yourself against data loss. Once you’re comfortable with your server and have a few years of experience, Seagate’s IronWolf Pro is your next stop.

These Pro drives come with a five-year warranty, a workload rate of 300TB/yr, and increased speeds with support for up to 24 drive bays. You will need to pay a little more for these more advanced features, however.

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2. Western Digital Red: Runner-up

Our thoughts: The Western Digital Red series of NAS drives are very similar to Seagate’s offering and you should consider these if you can find them at more affordable prices. WD splits its NAS drives into three sub-categories, normal, Plus, and Pro.

Capacity: 1TB – 22TB | Max bays: 8 / 24 (Pro) | Workload: 180TB/yr or 300TB/yr (Pro) | Warranty: 3 years / 5 years (Pro) | Speed: 180MB/s – 210MB/s or 164MB/s – 272MB/s (Pro)

Drive	Bays	Speed	Workload	Warranty	Price	$ per GB
Western Digital Red 2TB	8	180MB/s	180 TB/yr	3 years	$55	$0.03
Western Digital Red 3TB	8	180MB/s	180 TB/yr	3 years	$69	$0.02
Western Digital Red 4TB	8	180MB/s	180 TB/yr	3 years	$95	$0.02
Western Digital Red 6TB	8	180MB/s	180 TB/yr	3 years	$130	$0.02
Western Digital Red Plus 1TB	8	150MB/s	180 TB/yr	3 years	$50	$0.05
Western Digital Red Plus 2TB	8	175MB/s	180 TB/yr	3 years	$65	$0.03
Western Digital Red Plus 3TB	8	175MB/s	180 TB/yr	3 years	$70	$0.03
Western Digital Red Plus 4TB	8	175MB/s	180 TB/yr	3 years	$83	$0.02
Western Digital Red Plus 6TB	8	185MB/s	180 TB/yr	3 years	$120	$0.02
Western Digital Red Plus 8TB	8	210MB/s	180 TB/yr	3 years	$170	$0.03
Western Digital Red Plus 10TB	8	215MB/s	180 TB/yr	3 years	$210	$0.02
Western Digital Red Plus 12TB	8	196MB/s	180 TB/yr	3 years	$269	$0.02
Western Digital Red Plus 14TB	8	210MB/s	180 TB/yr	3 years	$283	$0.02
Western Digital Red Pro 2TB	24	164MB/s	300 TB/yr	5 years	$84	$0.04
Western Digital Red Pro 4TB	24	217MB/s	300 TB/yr	5 years	$130	$0.04
Western Digital Red Pro 6TB	24	238MB/s	300 TB/yr	5 years	$200	$0.03
Western Digital Red Pro 8TB	24	235MB/s	300 TB/yr	5 years	$248	$0.03
Western Digital Red Pro 10TB	24	265MB/s	300 TB/yr	5 years	$282	$0.03
Western Digital Red Pro 12TB	24	240MB/s	300 TB/yr	5 years	$320	$0.03
Western Digital Red Pro 14TB	24	255MB/s	300 TB/yr	5 years	$304	$0.03
Western Digital Red Pro 16TB	24	259MB/s	300 TB/yr	5 years	$300	$0.02
Western Digital Red Pro 18TB	24	272MB/s	300 TB/yr	5 years	$410	$0.02
Western Digital Red Pro 20TB	24	268MB/s	300 TB/yr	5 years	$500	$0.02
Western Digital Red Pro 22TB	24	265MB/s	300 TB/yr	5 years	$600	$0.02

Western Digital makes some great drives and the Red range of HDDs are designed for NAS use. You can find capacities between 1TB and 18TB, depending on your needs. The Red and Red Plus series are restricted to NAS with up to eight drive bays. You’ll need to go with the Pro series for up to 24 bays.

Like Seagate’s IronWolf, you can expect to enjoy a workload rating of up to 180TB/yr with Western Digital Red drives. If you’re going to be writing a lot of data, you may want to consider the Pro range, which bumps this up to 300TB/yr. I’d go with 2TB Red Plus drives to start with.

Regardless of which Red hard drive you choose, you’re going to have a great time with your new NAS.

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3. Seagate Exos: Best capacity

Our thoughts: Seagate Exos is serious business. Speeds can hit 272MB/s and the 550TB/yr workload limit is fantastic for NAS and other server applications. Backed by a 5-year warranty, you’ll have peace of mind your data is safe.

Capacity: 1TB – 20TB | Max bays: – | Workload: 550TB/yr | Warranty: 5 years | Speed: 194MB/s – 285MB/s

Drive	Bays	Speed	Workload	Warranty	Price	$ per GB
Seagate Exos 7E2 1TB	–	194MB/s	550 TB/yr	5 years	$80	$0.08
Seagate Exos 7E2 2TB	–	194MB/s	550 TB/yr	5 years	$145	$0.07
Seagate Exos 7E8 4TB	–	215MB/s	550 TB/yr	5 years	$160	$0.04
Seagate Exos 7E8 6TB	–	226MB/s	550 TB/yr	5 years	$155	$0.03
Seagate Exos 7E8 8TB	–	249MB/s	550 TB/yr	5 years	$249	$0.03
Seagate Exos X16 10TB	–	249MB/s	550 TB/yr	5 years	$175	$0.03
Seagate Exos X16 12TB	–	261MB/s	550 TB/yr	5 years	$260	$0.02
Seagate Exos X16 14TB	–	261MB/s	550 TB/yr	5 years	$245	$0.02
Seagate Exos X16 16TB	–	261MB/s	550 TB/yr	5 years	$278	$0.02
Seagate Exos X18 18TB	–	270MB/s	550 TB/yr	5 years	$322	$0.02
Seagate Exos X20 20TB	–	285MB/s	550 TB/yr	5 years	$460	$0.02

Seagate Exos is a premium series of drives from the company. They’re even more advanced than IronWolf Pro and are best suited for server environments. They sport incredible levels of performance and reliability, including a workload rate of 550TB per year.

The 7E2 series takes you from 1TB up to 10TB, which is where the X16 and X18 families take over. The X18 can go all the way up to 18TB, which is more than enough for most home or small NAS enclosure setups. These drives come with a workload rate of 550TB per year and have a warranty of five years.

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4. Western Digital Red SA500: Best NAS SSD

Our thoughts: I’m a huge fan of Western Digital’s Red SA500 series of SSDs. They’re excellent for NAS use thanks to advanced features and excellent data transfer speeds. If you’re looking to upgrade from HDDs, this is a good place to start.

Capacity: 500GB – 4TB | Max bays: – | Workload: ~2,500 TBW | Warranty: 5 years | Speed: ~560MB/s

Drive	Bays	Speed	Workload	Warranty	Price	$ per GB
Western Digital Red SA500 500GB	–	560MB/s	350 TBW	5 years	$80	$0.15
Western Digital Red SA500 1TB	–	560MB/s	600 TBW	5 years	$125	$0.13
Western Digital Red SA500 2TB	–	560MB/s	1,300 TBW	5 years	$244	$0.12
Western Digital Red SA500 4TB	–	560MB/s	2,500 TBW	5 years	$530	$0.13

SSDs like the Western Digital Red SA500 is available to those who require storage with increased transfer speeds for data. These capable drives offer speeds of up to 560MB/s, making them an ideal upgrade compared to mechanical drives, so long as you require the additional speed.

These drives are strong too. The 500GB is capable of writing 350TB total and this increases with each incremental model, hitting 2,500TB with the 4TB Western Digital Red SA500. The price per GB isn’t ridiculous too, starting at $0.15.

It’s the reliability of SSDs where these drives make the most sense. If you’re not a fan of mechanical drives, don’t have too much data to store, or just want something a little faster, solid-state drives are excellent upgrades.

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5. Synology SAT5210: Best Synology NAS SSD

Our thoughts: SSDs are a little more niche when it comes to NAS servers. If you have a network that can handle 530MB/s, solid-state drives will make more sense. Just watch out for the finite write limit and even wear.

Capacity: 480GB – 3.8TB | Max bays: – | Workload: 1.3 DWPD | Warranty: 5 years | Speed: ~530MB/s

Drive	Bays	Speed	Workload	Warranty	Price	$ per GB
Synology SAT5210 480GB	–	530MB/s	1.3 DWPD	5 years	$180	$0.37
Synology SAT5210 960GB	–	530MB/s	1.3 DWPD	5 years	$350	$0.33
Synology SAT5210 1.9TB	–	530MB/s	1.3 DWPD	5 years	$600	$0.36
Synology SAT5210 3.8TB	–	530MB/s	1.3 DWPD	5 years	$1,100	$0.29

Not happy with the hard drive performance inside your NAS? Want a quieter enclosure without vibrations? You’ll want to consider an SSD. Like desktop-class flash storage, SSDs are great for quick access and quiet operation, but they’re often incredibly more expensive and the same goes for NAS servers.

The Synology SAT5210 series of SSDs are designed for use inside NAS enclosures. Making use of the same 6GB/s SATA interface, it’s possible to achieve read and write speeds of 530MB/s and 500MB/s, respectively. This won’t make a difference if your network is limited to a 1Gb connection.

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6. Seagate IronWolf 525: Best M.2 cache SSD

Our thoughts: If you want considerably better read and write speeds for your already installed hard drives, you can use available M.2 slots to give them both a bump. It’s the best of both worlds without having to spend literal thousands on SSD drives.

Capacity: 500GB – 2TB | Max bays: – | Workload: 0.7 DWPD | Warranty: 5 years | Speed: ~5,000MB/s

Drive	Bays	Speed	Workload	Warranty	Price	$ per GB
Seagate IronWolf 525 500GB	–	5,000MB/s	0.7 DWPD	5 years	$155	$0.27
Seagate IronWolf 525 1TB	–	5,000MB/s	0.7 DWPD	5 years	$243	$0.18
Seagate IronWolf 525 2TB	–	5,000MB/s	0.7 DWPD	5 years	$290	$0.17

Hard drives don’t have a particularly good read and write speeds. To help alleviate this issue, you can either replace the HDDs with SSDs, which quickly becomes expensive or use an M.2 SSD drive as a cache. I’d recommend the Seagate IronWolf 525.

With speeds of up to 5,000MB/s, thanks to PCIe 4.0 support, your NAS will be able to take full advantage of this faster storage and use it for frequently accessed data. You won’t be using these drives to increase capacity, but it does allow you to use more HDDs and save some in the process.

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7. Seagate SkyHawk: Best surveillance drives

Our thoughts: If you plan on running a security system and saving recorded footage to a NAS or DVR, you’ll want to look at some drives specifically designed for such scenarios. Seagate’s SkyHawk range is just what you’ll need.

Capacity: 1TB – 20TB | Max bays: – | Workload: 550TB/yr | Warranty: 5 years | Speed: 180MB/s – 260MB/s

Drive	Bays	Speed	Workload	Warranty	Price	$ per GB
Seagate SkyHawk 1TB	–	180MB/s	180 TB/yr	5 years	$53	$0.05
Seagate SkyHawk 2TB	–	180MB/s	180 TB/yr	5 years	$70	$0.04
Seagate SkyHawk 4TB	–	180MB/s	180 TB/yr	5 years	$98	$0.02
Seagate SkyHawk 6TB	–	180MB/s	180 TB/yr	5 years	$150	$0.02
Seagate SkyHawk 8TB	–	210MB/s	180 TB/yr	5 years	$170	$0.02
Seagate SkyHawk AI 8TB	–	245MB/s	550 TB/yr	5 years	$218	$0.02
Seagate SkyHawk AI 10TB	–	245MB/s	550 TB/yr	5 years	$274	$0.03
Seagate SkyHawk AI 12TB	–	250MB/s	550 TB/yr	5 years	$300	$0.03
Seagate SkyHawk AI 16TB	–	250MB/s	550 TB/yr	5 years	$410	$0.03
Seagate SkyHawk AI 18TB	–	260MB/s	550 TB/yr	5 years	$480	$0.03
Seagate SkyHawk AI 20TB	–	260MB/s	550 TB/yr	5 years	$529	$0.03

Seagate SkyHawk is designed with surveillance systems in mind. Should you be recording footage to your NAS or DVR setup, these drives will be perfect for storing and accessing saved streams. The basic drives are rated for 180TB per year, but the SkyHawk AI drives are capable of handling up to 500TB per year.

Like other NAS drives, there are rotational vibration sensors to help maintain performance and prevent damage from occurring to the internal components. You should be able to save up to 10,000 hours of footage on a 10TB drive, allowing you to store a lot before needing to overwrite the drive.