Fastest NAS hard drives (7200 RPM)
For a hard drive, speed comes from spindle RPM and areal density. Every drive here spins at 7200 RPM - the quick tier above the 5400-class NAS drives - so they sustain higher sequential throughput, at the cost of a little more heat, noise and power. All CMR, in current production, ranked by measured failure rate.
| Drive | Capacity | Tech | Class | Interface | AFR | £/TB | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
ST16000NM000J
Seagate Exos X18
|
16 TB | CMR | Enterprise | SATA | 0.22% | - | - |
| 2 |
WUH722626ALE6L4
WD Ultrastar DC HC590
|
26 TB | CMR | Enterprise | SATA | 0.40% | £51.97 | £1,351 |
| 3 |
WUH722222ALE6L4
WD Ultrastar DC HC570
|
22 TB | CMR | Enterprise | SATA | 0.47% | £47.59 | £1,047 |
| 4 |
ST16000NM001G
Seagate Exos X16
|
16 TB | CMR | Enterprise | SATA | 0.54% | - | - |
| 5 |
MG10ACA20TE
Toshiba MG10
|
20 TB | CMR | Enterprise | SATA | 0.59% | - | - |
| 6 |
MG11ACA24TE
Toshiba MG11
|
24 TB | CMR | Enterprise | SATA | 0.68% | - | - |
| 7 |
WUH721816ALE6Lx
WD Ultrastar DC HC550
|
16 TB | CMR | Enterprise | SATA | 0.80% | - | - |
| 8 |
WUH721414ALE6L4
WD Ultrastar DC HC530
|
14 TB | CMR | Enterprise | SATA | 0.81% | £28.21 | £395 |
| 9 |
ST12000NM001G
Seagate Exos X16
|
12 TB | CMR | Enterprise | SATA | 0.96% | - | - |
| 10 |
MG07ACA14TE
Toshiba MG07
|
14 TB | CMR | Enterprise | SATA | 1.18% | - | - |
| 11 |
ST14000NM001G
Seagate Exos X16
|
14 TB | CMR | Enterprise | SATA | 1.35% | £27.50 | £385 |
| 12 |
MG08ACA16Tx
Toshiba MG08
|
16 TB | CMR | Enterprise | SATA | 1.48% | £25.22 | £404 |
Ranked by measured failure rate (Backblaze AFR). $/TB shows once live prices are wired.
Speed on a NAS is the network, until it isn't
A single modern hard drive does roughly 150-280 MB/s sequential - enough to fill a 1GbE link several times over. So on a plain gigabit NAS, drive RPM barely shows. Move to 2.5GbE or 10GbE, run several users at once, or edit large files off the array, and the faster 7200 RPM drives start to matter, along with quicker parity rebuilds.
Rank by failure rate, then sanity-check price per TB. A 7200 RPM enterprise drive that prices like a NAS drive (Exos often does) is the sweet spot; pay for speed you'll actually use.
Frequently asked questions
- Do faster NAS drives actually matter?
- For most home use - streaming, backups, file storage - a 5400-class drive already saturates gigabit Ethernet, so 7200 RPM won't feel faster. They pay off on 2.5GbE/10GbE networks, busy multi-user arrays, editing video straight off the NAS, and faster RAID rebuilds. Every enterprise drive (Exos, Ultrastar, MG) is 7200 RPM.
- Are 7200 RPM drives louder and hotter?
- A bit, yes - higher spindle speed means more vibration, noise and power draw than a 5400-class drive. If quiet and cool matter more than raw throughput, check the quietest-drives guide instead and pair it with good enclosure ventilation.