Should you use special NAS SSDs?

[kev507]

I’m considering building an all-flash NAS for homelab use, is there a strong reason to pay extra for something like Seagate’s Ironwolf 125 NAS SSD product vs any other quality SSD like a Samsung 870 evo which is roughly half the price?

I’m generally sold on using dedicated NAS HDDs for benefits like vibration management, firmware optimization to avoid weird timeout issues, etc, but it’s not clear to me what would make a dedicated NAS SSD worth the extra expense over a normal SSD with good performance and endurance. Seems to be mostly soft extras like longer warranty & data recovery policy included rather than hard technical reasons to use them.

[2bitmarksman]

The NAS SSDs have been tested and validated for the condition they’re sold for, and may have some firmware tweaks that make them better for say continous writing, or have power-loss protection. If this is a less serious environment for homelabing, I’d say just go for SSDs that have an onboard DRAM cache on them. Samsung 870, or Crucial MX500 come to mind as immediate recommendations.

[Mastic_Warrior]

I personally swear by Crucial/Micron. I use them in the enterprise and I use the consumer ones at home. They have the capacitors on both tiers so that during power loss your stuff is still properly written to flash.

[ChristianMorris]

@kev507

I’m considering building an all-flash NAS for homelab use, is there a strong reason to pay extra for something like Seagate’s Ironwolf 125 NAS SSD product vs any other quality SSD like a Samsung 870 evo which is roughly half the price?

I’m generally sold on using dedicated NAS HDDs for benefits like vibration management, firmware optimization to avoid weird timeout issues, etc, but it’s not clear to me what would make a dedicated NAS SSD worth the extra expense over a normal SSD with good performance and endurance. Seems to be mostly soft extras like longer warranty & data recovery policy included rather than hard technical reasons to use them.

Seagate’s Ironwolf 125 NAS SSD is designed specifically for use in network-attached storage (NAS) systems, and it is optimized for use in a multi-drive environment. It may offer features such as vibration management and firmware optimization to improve performance and stability in a NAS system. However, the main difference with a Samsung 870 EVO or other consumer SSDs is that the Ironwolf NAS SSDs are built with a higher workload rate, which means they can handle a higher level of write and read operations per day. Additionally, Ironwolf NAS SSDs come with a longer warranty and data recovery services, which may be beneficial in a homelab setting.

In summary, if you are looking for a SSD that can handle a high level of write and read operations per day and come with a longer warranty and data recovery services, Ironwolf NAS SSDs may be a good choice. If you are looking for a SSD that is cheaper and also good performance, other consumer SSDs like Samsung 870 EVO may be a good choice.