Even though the WD Gold offers a wide range of products and large storage capacity, it still doesn’t justify its comparatively very high price. The Exos X18 on the flip side, defends its price as it has faster data transfer speed, lower power usage, supports a superior 12 Gb/s SAS interface, and is lighter in weight.
Still both hard disk drives deliver superior levels of steadiness and permanence with up to 2.5M hours MTBF. They are highly reliable for heavy workload environments of up to 550TB per year. Let’s have a quick look at these devices before diving in:
If we talk about the common things between them, then both devices:
- have an equivalent ideal operating temperature.
- have an equivalent RPM of 7200.
- have an extended warranty period of 5 years.
- support SATA 6Gbs interface.
Here the Seagate Exos X18:
- has a faster data transfer speed.
- consumes less power usage.
- supports superior 12 Gb/s SAS interface.
- is lighter in weight.
- is relatively cost-effective.
And on the flip side, the WD Gold:
- has a larger cache memory.
- has a versatile product range.
- is relatively expensive.
- has a massive storage capacity of up to 22 TB.
Compared to Seagate Exos X18, the WD Gold has a massive storage capacity of up to 22TB, offers more product versatility, and has a larger cache memory. On the contrary, X18 has a faster data transfer speed, lower power usage, supports a superior 12 Gb/s SAS interface, lighter in weight, and is a more cost-effective choice.
Table of Contents
Side By Side Comparison:
| Technical Specifications | Seagate X18 | Gold |
| Device type | Hard Drive | Enterprise Hard drive |
| AES Hardware Encryption | Yes | Yes |
| Form Factor | 3.5 inch | 3.5 inch |
| Interface | SATA & SAS | SATA |
| RoHS complaint | No | Yes |
| Limited Warranty (years) | 5 | 5 |
| Cost of 18TB | 305.95$ | 509.51$ |
Overview of both these devices:
Seagate Exos X18 hard drive supports highly scalable applications with a high-capacity density RAID storage.
It consists of Hadoop and Ceph, distributed file systems with centralized monitoring of data.
It is the high rack space efficiency hard drive that includes customized power consumption which helps in delivering an innovative and reliable performance.
On the other hand, the WD Gold is an Enterprise-class hard drive that is precisely aimed for use in enterprise-class data centers and storage systems.
It comes with an enormous storage capacity of up to 22TB with OptiNAND technology that integrates leading NAND to flash with our world-class HDDs that will enable innovations, forming the basis for future capacity, performance, and reliability.
It is a highly reliable solution with unique Vibration Protection Technology.
Features of Seagate Exos X18
- Run big data applications as well as maintain data analytics proficiencies and other denser structural designs to meet the highest rack space competence.
- Customized power consumption in idle and use state with PowerChoice and PowerBalance.
- Hyperscale SATA model ensures enormous data transfers.
- Helium side-sealing weld technology handles heftiness and provides leak protection.
- Monitor internal drive situations are observed for ideal operation and performance with Digital environmental sensors.
- Seagate Secure enables a Password protection feature and AES-256 hardware encryption.
Features of Western Digital WD Gold:
- Highly compatible with chief enterprise operating systems.
- Versatile storage capacity of up to 22TB utilizing OptiNAND Technology.
- Exceptional performance with Vibration Protection Technology.
- High capacities with the least power consumption are ensured with HelioSeal Technology for 12TB and above the storage.
- The pioneering ArmorCache feature provides a shield against power loss protection of your data in write-cache enabled (WCE) mode.
From the above features, we can conclude that WD Gold is relatively a better choice that delivers the expected world-class performance.
What’s in their Design & Hardware?
Both the contenders are having slip rectangular-shaped designs.
Seagate Exos X18 has a silver background with a front of up to one third-portion covered with black color, having a Seagate logo and an EXOS specific plane-shaped logo on the top.
The remaining two-thirds portion has a shiny green color with its name and capacity mentioned.
WD Gold has a silver background with a front of up to one third-portion covered with a lustrous and attractive gold color having its name written along with its description.
The lower portion has a white color with western digital written and on the lower left side, capacity is mentioned.
Both competitors have an attractive appearance.
Both HDDs have a slimmer look and smarter body shape and are rectangular in dimensions.
But still, the Seagate Exos X18 is comparatively lighter in weight than its opponent.
Hence, it leads in this contest for being more compact and lighter in weight.
| Parameter | X18 (18TB) | Gold (18TB) |
| Dimension in inches (LxWxD) | 1.028 x 4 x 5.787 | 1.028 x 4 x 5.787 |
| Weight, g | 670 | 689 |
| Color | Silver | Gold |
Which has better interface?
SATA, short for Serial Advanced Technology Attachment, is an interface for transporting data amid a computer’s central circuit board and storage devices.
SATA 6 Gb/s transfers the data at six gigabits per second.
WD Gold and one of the models of Seagate Exos X18 also support the SATA 6 Gb/s interface.
Another model of Seagate X18 supports an interface of 12 Gb/s SAS that delivers exceptional performance of 12 Gigabits per second, twice the speed of the SATA 6 Gb/s.
Hence it wins the race for supporting a superior 12 Gb/s SAS interface.
MTBF (the measure of reliability of these devices):
MTBF short for mean time between failures is a reliability measure of an HDD.
It is an interval between two consecutive failures.
Both contenders have an equivalent MTBF, hence both are equally reliable.
Their Rotational Speeds:
RPM short for revolutions per minute is a parameter used to measure how many revolutions per minute a computer’s hard drive platter completes.
The greater value of rpm indicates a faster data access rate.
Both contenders have an equivalent rpm of 7200 hence both will deliver alike performance.
More power means More Heating Up:
A higher value of power consumption indicates high use of power which is eventually a cause of a high electricity bill.
On analysis of both the competitors, it is observed that Seagate Exos X18 relatively consumes lower power than the other.
Hence making it a cost-efficient and reliable choice.
| Parameter | X18 | Gold |
| Power Consumption Idle Average (W) | 18TB = 5.3 | 18TB = 5.6 |
Which device has more Cache Memory?
The cache functions by identifying information used repeatedly and storing it so it can be retrieved faster.
A larger cache memory manages more information with minimal loading time.
WD Gold has a comparatively larger cache memory than its contender hence storing more information.
Thus it is concluded that this device is a better choice in terms of cache memory
| Parameter | X18 | Gold |
| Cache Memory | 18TB = 256MB | 18TB = 512MB |
Data Transfer Speed Differences:
The simultaneous transmission of data across computing devices by multiple users in a given amount of time is determined by the data transfer speed.
Seagate X18 has a slightly higher data transfer rate as compared to its contender.
Hence, it will transfer the data at a faster speed than gold.
| Parameter | X18 | Gold |
| Data Transfer Speed | 18TB = 270Mb/s | 18TB = 269Mb/s |
Storage Capacity: which has better?
WD Gold offers more flexible options in its product range with up to 12 different capacities while its opponents is offering only 5 capacity choices.
It has a massive storage capacity of up to 22TB while its competitor ends up to 18TB of storage capacity.
Hence, in this regard, the device wins both races of being versatile in product range as well as for being a massive storage capacity hard drive.
| Parameter | X18 | Gold |
| Capacity | 10TB 12TB 14TB 16TB 18TB | 1TB 2TB 4TB 6TB 8TB 10TB 12TB 14TB 16TB 18TB 20TB 22TB |
Operational Temperature of these devices:
An operating temperature is the tolerable temperature range in which a device operates.
A safer operating temperature ranges between 5 to 50°C.
Hard drives will be exaggerated when the temperature surpasses threshold levels.
Both contenders have an equivalent controlled operating temperature starting from 5°C which is an ideal room temperature.
Hence, both will deliver uniform efficiency.
