IronWolf vs IronWolf Pro: What Are the Differences Between Them?

Seagate has 40 years’ experience in the field of hard disk production, which makes Seagate products the reliable storage media for users.  It has various series – BarraCuda, FireCuda, IronWolf, etc.

The IronWolf series is Seagate’s line of professional hard drives. The series is focused on enterprises and prosumers who need high capacity and reliability in storage solutions. There are two options for you – IronWolf and IronWolf Pro. Which one to choose? Continue to read the next part about IronWolf vs IronWolf Pro to find the answers.

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Overview of IronWolf and IronWolf Pro

IronWolf

IronWolf is designed for a variety of Network Attached Storage (NAS). Get robust, ready-to-use, and scalable 24/7 performance for multi-bay NAS environments with a wide range of capacity options.

IronWolf Pro

IronWolf Pro is designed for commercial network-attached storage (NAS), delivering 300TB/year workload rates. Scalable 24/7 performance for multi-bay NAS environments for creative professionals and small businesses.

IronWolf vs IronWolf Pro

Table of IronWolf vs IronWolf Pro is below:

IronWolf vs IronWolf Pro: Features

IronWolf targets home, SOHO and small business NAS drives with up to 8 drive bays. IronWolf Pro is for businesses and digital artists who need extreme performance from a NAS server.

IronWolf vs IronWolf Pro: Capacity

When selecting a NAS drive, the capacity is an important factor. Thus, this part is about IronWolf vs IronWolf Pro for capacity.

Unlike Seagate’s BarraCuda and FireCuda series, the IronWolf series is limited to 3.5-inch hard drive storage. IronWolf series drives offer a staggering number of storage options, starting at just 1TB (the Pro series starts at 2TB) and going up to 20TB per drive. IronWolf includes 1 TB, 2TB, 3 TB, 4TB, 6TB, 8TB, 10TB, 12TB, 14TB, 16TB, and 18TB, while IronWolf Pro includes 4TB, 6TB, 8TB, 10TB, 12TB, 14TB, 16TB, 18 TB, and 20TB.

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IronWolf vs IronWolf Pro: Performance

Although both IronWolf and IronWolf Pro drive deliver great performance, the IronWolf Pro offers some benefits for high-end users looking for a high level of reliability.

At 4TB capacity, the Pro drive offers an additional 40MB/s transfer speed (up to 220MB/s for the Ironwolf Pro vs 180MB/s for the Ironwolf) and double the cache. The Pro variant also boasts an average lifespan of 200,000 hours longer than the standard IronWolf. It provides faster access to your work files and less backup time, a 20% longer average lifespan.

But in real life, which drive is faster will depend on the type of enclosure or rack you’re using. In smaller enclosures, the IronWolf will likely lead, while in larger enclosures or storage racks, the Pro version will have better performance. This can be attributed to the vibration optimization of the Pro version.

IronWolf vs IronWolf Pro: Reliability and Warranty

The Pro drives also have a higher workload rating of 300TB/year, compared to 180TB/year for the Ironwolf. Overall, Seagate seems to be less reliable at lower capacities. IronWolf provides a three-year limited warranty, while IronWolf Pro a five-year limited warranty.

IronWolf vs IronWolf Pro: Price

When choosing an HDD, the budget should also be taken into consideration. Here, we will show you the last difference between IronWolf and IronWolf Pro. It is the price. According to the official site, the 4TB IronWolf Pro is about $129.99, but the price of the 4TB IronWolf is about $84.99.

As for IronWolf vs IronWolf Pro, IronWolf Pro is more expensive than IronWolf.

IronWolf vs IronWolf Pro: Which One to Choose

IronWolf

• IronWolf internal hard drives are the ideal solution for up to 8-bay, multi-user NAS environments that require powerful performance.
• Store more and work faster with NAS-optimized hard drives with 8TB and up to 256 MB of cache.
• IronWolf is designed for NAS enclosures with less wear and tear, little to no noise/vibration, no lag or downtime, improved file sharing performance, and more.
• Easily monitor drive health with the integrated IronWolf health management system and enjoy long-term reliability with an MTBF of 1 million hours.
• Includes three-year limited warranty protection plan.

IronWolf Pro

• IronWolf internal hard drives are the ideal solution for up to 24-bay, multi-user NAS server environments requiring powerful performance.
• Store more, work faster with a massive 12TB NAS hard drive with speeds up to 250MB/s.
• Engineered for reduced wear and tear, virtually no noise/vibration, no lag or downtime, improved file sharing performance, lower power consumption, and additional data protection – even in the event of a power outage.
• Easily monitor NAS drive health with the integrated IronWolf health management system and enjoy long-term reliability with a 1.2 million hour MTBF.
• Includes five-year limited warranty and two-year Rescue data recovery service.

In short, IronWolf Pro drives will give you greater reliability, faster speeds, and a longer life span. But, it has a higher price.

How to Clone System to Your Hard Drive

If you have gotten the IronWolf or IronWolf Pro, you may want to transfer your system to the new hard drive. To migrate the system and files from an original hard drive to IronWolf or IronWolf Pro without data loss, the clone tool is required. So, the professional SSD cloning software – MiniTool ShadowMaker is strongly recommended.

To clone OS to the new hard drive, MiniTool ShadowMaker is competent with the Clone Disk feature. And now, we will show you how to migrate the operating system to the IronWolf or IronWolf Pro with MiniTool ShadowMaker.

Step 1: Connect the hard drive to your computer. After downloading MiniTool ShadowMaker Trial Edition, double-click the .exe file and install it on your PC by following prompts on the screen.

MiniTool ShadowMaker TrialClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

Step 2: Double-click the desktop shortcut of this software to launch it.

Step 3: Click Keep Trial to go on.

Step 4: Navigate to the Tools tab, you can see the Clone Disk feature. Just click it to continue.

Step 5: In the new interface, click Source to choose a hard drive as the source disk – here you should choose the system disk. Besides, click Destination to select a hard drive as the target disk.

Step 6: MiniTool ShadowMaker is starting cloning the system disk to your hard drive. After cloning, you will get the following information window.

Due to the same disk signature, one disk is marked as offline. To boot your computer from the cloned hard drive, you should shut it down, open the case, remove the original disk, and put the new disk in the original place. If you clone a hard drive for backup, you can disconnect the target disk and put it in a safe location.

In the above part, we show you how to clone the system free with MiniTool ShadowMaker. In addition to MiniTool ShadowMaker, MiniTool Partition Wizard is also a great tool to clone a hard drive. Here is how to clone the system with MiniTool Partition Wizard.

Step 1: Download and install MiniTool Partition Wizard.

MiniTool Partition Wizard DemoClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

Step 2: After entering its main interface, choose the hard drive you want to clone. Then, click Migrate OS to SSD/HD Wizard from Wizard in the action panel. Then, you need to choose a migration method. If you only want to migrate OS to your new hard drive, choose option B that can copy the system-required partitions only.

Step 3: Choose the target drive to copy the content of the source drive to. Then, you will receive a warning message – All data on the disk will be destroyed. Click Yes to continue.

Step 4: On the next page, you can check some copy options, the layout of the target disk, change the size of the selected partition. Then, click Next to continue.

Advanced settings:

1. For an advanced format disk or SSD, you can choose to align partitions to 1 MB to improve the performance.
2. If you want to migrate the system to GPT, check the box of Use GUID Partition Table for the target disk. (Related article: The Best Way to Clone MBR to GPT without Boot Issue)
3. If you migrate Windows that is installed on a GPT disk, ignore the above two points since there are no options.

Step 5: You will receive a warning message – To boot your computer from the destination drive, change the boot order in the BIOS settings. To only copy the hard drive, ignore this warning.

Step 6: Preview and ensure all partitions are being copied to your new hard drive. If everything is okay, click Apply. It requires you to reboot the computer and you need to wait for the process to be finished.

Bottom Line

Now, do you have a better understanding of IronWolf vs IronWolf Pro? If you have different opinions on IronWolf vs IronWolf Pro, please don’t hesitate to share them with us.

If you have encountered any issues when using MiniTool ShadowMaker or MiniTool Partition Wizard, you can leave a message on the following comment zone and we will reply as soon as possible. If you need any help when using MiniTool software, you may contact us via [email protected].