Toshiba 8TB N300 Internal Hard Drive – NAS 3.5 Inch
Toshiba 8TB N300 Internal Hard Drive – NAS 3.5 Inch SATA HDD Supports Up to 8 Drive Bays Designed for 24/7 NAS Systems, New Generation (HDWG480UZSVA)
Optimised cache allocation
Toshiba’s Dynamic Cache Technology, a self-contained cache algorithm with on-board buffer management, optimizes how the cache is allocated during read/write to provide the high-level performance demanded by real-time domains.
Reduced noise and energy costs
The 12 TB, 14 TB and 16 TB N300 NAS Hard Drives use a helium-sealed design, achieving low power consumption while increasing storage density. Toshiba Group’s laser welding technology ensures that the helium remains securely sealed inside the drive enclosure. With the environment in mind, the helium-filled N300 models minimize acoustic output to just 20db (typical) in idle mode. The devices are ideal for large scale server systems allowing for rich scalability of up to 8 drives.
BUILT TO DELIVER, DESIGNED TO LAST
Toshiba is renowned the world over for 50 years of leading innovation – and the power behind its range of hard drives is no exception. Designed for high capacity and excellent performance, you can be sure that Toshiba’s wealth of experience in hard drives is at work in your storage system.
 |  |  |  |  | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Suitable for | Enterprise Capacity | NAS | Performance Desktop PC | Surveillance | Surveillance |
| Capacities | 16 TB | 14 TB | 12 TB | 10 TB | 8 TB | 6 TB | 4 TB | 2 TB | 1 TB | 16 TB | 14 TB | 12 TB | 10 TB | 8 TB | 6 TB | 4 TB | 16 TB | 14 TB | 12 TB | 10 TB | 8 TB | 6 TB | 4 TB | 10 TB | 8 TB | 6 TB | 4 TB | 2 TB |
| Form Factor | 3.5-inch | 3.5-inch | 3.5-inch | 3.5-inch | 3.5-inch |
| Interface | SAS 12 Gbit/s | SATA 6 Gbit/s | SATA 6 Gbit/s | SATA 6 Gbit/s | SATA 6 Gbit/s | SATA 6 Gbit/s |
| RPM | 7,200 | 7,200 | 7,200 | 7,200 | 5,400 |
| Buffer | 512 MB | 256 MB | 128 MB | 512 MB | 256 MB | 128 MB | 512 MB | 256 MB | 128 MB | 256 MB | 128 MB |
| 24/7 Operation | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Multi-RAID-systems | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| RV sensor | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Shock sensor | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Weight: | 720 g |
| Dimensions: | 1.4 x 10.16 x 2.61 cm; 720 Grams |
| Brand: | Toshiba |
| Model: | HDWG480UZSVA |
| Colour: | Silver |
| Batteries Included: | No |
| Manufacture: | Toshiba |
| Dimensions: | 1.4 x 10.16 x 2.61 cm; 720 Grams |
Using this in a Synology NAS. Disk appears reliable so far but is very noisy!
12 months ago I bought four of the 6tb versions of this drive for my new NAS and they have been rock sold and reliable. As I now needed more space I was quite happy to replace them with another 4x 8tb Toshiba drives.
Bad mistake as within 24 hours one of the drives showed a S.M.A.R.T error and went faulty and when replacing another, that one made a grinding noise and wasn’t recognised.
So I ordered another two drives to replace them, finished the upgrade and within 12 hours one drive was again reporting as S.M.A.R.T = Bad.
So 75% of the drives I purchased were faulty so I had completely lost faith in Toshiba’s reliability.
Toshiba seemed to have a serious quality control issue or there was a bad batch in circulation.
All the drives came from a batch with Serial Nos beginning 62H0A, from June 2022.
So I gave up on Toshiba as the last thing you want with a NAS is dodgy disks.
Now ordered 4x Seagate Iron Wolf 8tb NAS drives which hopefully will be more reliable.
UPDATE
In the end I decided to give Toshiba drives a 2nd chance as my previous experience with them had been absolutely fine and they are faster than the Seagate Iron Wolf so waited a few days and ordered another another set of four.
This time they had a completely different set of Serial number (6270A) so hopefully from another batch.
And this time everything has been fine so far with no S.M.A.R.T or other issues fingers crossed.
I can only assume that the faulty first batch was an unfortunate one off.
So I am happy to recommend them.
My 4 bay Synology NAS drive started beeping and sending me warning messages saying one of my hard drives was unhealthy (I figured it was just taking after it’s owner). Eventually the messages and beeping got the best of me and I tried to wipe and format the faulty drive, tried removing and reinserting the drive, and it all failed.
I returned the faulty drive to Amazon and wanted to get a replacement, so I looked for the same model as the ones already in the NAS but they were no longer being sold so I choose the cheapest 4TB drive rated for NAS use.
Welcome to my home Toshiba 4TB drive (https://amzn.to/3iiUPgH), it was packaged well, looked brand new and slotted straight into the NAS without any issues. The NAS recognised it immediately and added it to the volume storage pool without any fuss. It’s been in constant use since September 2022 and still says it’s healthy in Jan 2023.
After reading the reviews quite a few said that Amazon’s packaging was awful, to be honest mine arrived in a box cushioned in Foam and worked without issue once placed in a caddy.
The hard drive took seconds to setup in Windows 10 and format, it will be used in a Synology NAS eventually when I get the money together (Synology DS920+). According to Amazon Toshiba offer a 3 year warranty.
Update
Installed in the NAS 4 weeks ago, touch wood have had no problems at all. Am now looking for a 3rd to be utilised in full SHR mode. It’s had a hammering with over 12tb being copied and it now up and running as a media server
I recently heard above Toshiba’s having Disk_Shift Errors but a question on here and no issues, I also haven’t had any issues
So got hard drive, was incorrectly packaged, I left it to get to room temp. As soon as it connected to computer it started to cluck cluck. Would not show up. Biggest issues of getting har drives from amazon there is no care in delivery or packaging. Hope they don’t become another hermes.
I purchased these to replace a couple of WD Reds (I bought a couple of WD Elements drives a few years ago after finding that they contained Reds, which I put in my NAS. Eventually both died after an issue caused by WD, they replaced them but with generic drives). These seem really stable, I installed two in my NAS and ran them for a few weeks and bought two more to fill the empty slots. One unusual bonus was that I had purchased some sponge speaker dampeners a few months ago for the nearfield speakers on my desktop, when I opened the boxes the drives came in the bottom sponge is almost identical to the dampeners I had purchased. So, don’t dispose of them, pop them under your speakers!
Very nice drive were packed very well maybe a little Nosie but as used in a ness that is in a different room not a problem work great very happy so fa
The drive is a bit noisier than other, more expensive drives I have in the PC, but IMO nothing to worry about. The PC is roughly 3 metres away from me and I can’t hear the drive. I can only hear it when I sit next to the PC but even then it isn’t what you’d call excessively noisy. I don’t understand some of the complaints about noise.
All in all, for me, it’s been a great drive giving value for money and with no bad blocks after 4 years of use it looks like it’ll keep going for some time ye
Extremely well packaged (foil wrapping, then foam wrapping, then a box inside an outer box). Unlike some reports these (2) seem very quiet. The 256 buffer and 7200 revs are bonuses for these well priced NAS drives
These are excellent value but you sure do hear them more when major read writes are underway. However the higher rotational speed may account for some of that and they are definitely faster than my previous drives.
Bought this 8TB disk to use as additional storage plugged in to my Synology DS1019+. Formatted fine, and has been running 24/7 for a whole year to Dec ’21. At this point I bought a Yottamaster 5 disk RAID device and bought 4 x 8TB Seagate disks. All 5 disks were added to a RAID5 configuration and connected to my NAS. That has been running 24/7 since Dec’21. No complaints, runs quietly, and fairly cool.
The first one I ordered was badly packaged. As a result it sounded terrible and wasn’t recognised by Windows or my NAS. Sent it back and ordered a second one. It arrived ok. Placed in my NAS it was off and running. Transferred my files to it and so far so good. I don’t think the noise is too bad either. It’s just a lottery how well packaged it is.
As per other reviews, packaging not sufficient to rule out postal damage. Bought two separately, one dead on arrival. Two pieces of foam, top and bottom, but nothing stopping the drive from sliding around and bashing against the sides of the box. Drive is clicky when accessing but not alarmingly so.
One of the drives showed a lot more hours than the other three
As they are stock returns and a lower cost I accepted the extra hours.
One drive has been reported by my Synology nas and the one with the higher hours is reported to have 3 bad sectors.
I’m going to monitor for a few more weeks and see if it gets worse.
Currently set as a live raid drive and one of the other ones as hot spare just in case.
I purchased this to replace WD RED 3TD drives that were failing due to age. The Toshiba drives are faster and as quiet as the WD RED’s from where I sit. I don’t notice any increase in noise. So good that I have purchased another unit. Plan to slowly replace all my WD drives with these Toshiba HDD’s.
As Amazon has an excellent returns policy, I would strongly recommend people to give these NAS drives a go. There will always be bad ones in the batch but from my personal experience, these are good value, quality and work well in my Synology NAS.
Update March 2022: 3 months, I’ve replaced 2x WD RED drives with these and they are working very well and most importantly, quiet. (Just make sure you buy from Amazon so that any issues an be resolved quickly.)
I’ve tried all big names in hard drives with very mixed results, ones i avoid now are Samsung, Seagate and Hitachi…had multiple ones fail.
I have two Toshibas in my pc’s, oldest is 3 going on 4 years, no issues at all, so i figured i’d try them in the NAS too & again, so far very pleased.
I need a couple more soon and i’ll be using Tosh’s again.
I read about the dubious warranty issues people have had, not being able to return directly to Toshiba is a mistake I agree, but hopefully Amazon will return any warranty claims to them on our behalf?
Can’t score or comment on Longevity of these NAS drives as its only been a month, but i’ll update in the future.
The drive performance is very fast, around 250MB/s (a lot better than WD Red Plus models). The price is also good.
However, there was constant very high pitched noise that kills your hearing. If you’re gonna use this in another room then it could be ok. It is also OEM version so warranty seems to be invalid.
As Amazon does, the product listing mixes a “New generation” and “NAS” model.
I’ve three of the original “NAS” model but bought a couple of the “New Generation” models.
The first three have been in use for about 9 months and have been fine so far.
The “New Generation” models seem fine in my Synology NAS.
My only complaint is that (unlike the original model) the Synology NAS doesn’t recognise these as being “compatible” or something similar when you first install them.
In practice (thus far) they seem to work after the initial complaint by the NAS.
One star docked for that compatability warning and Amazon pretending they are the same item.
Otherwise fine.
I’ve a couple of smaller N300 drives which I’ve used for a while and I would be happy to buy more.
my last 8tb drive didn’t go so week but was a completely different make and model hopefully this one last longer. It does seem a tad slow but i haven’t offt benchmarked it’s speed. Overall fairly happy with my purchase
Excellent value for money
Quality fast drive
As good as any top end drive would and have bought more
Faster and quieter than WD in my PC
Noise 7/10
Speed 8.5/10
Quality 9/10
Value 10/10
have bought a number of these drives and never had any problems until recently when one started showing signs of immanent death with reallocated sectors and very poor performance after about 15 months of 24/7 operation. contacted amazon expecting I would have a hard time getting any joy from the 3 year warranty but I was pleasantly surprised when they informed me they would dispatch a replacement immediately along with a return label for the old one. my experience with Toshiba drives over the last 10ish years has been fantastic this is the first one i have had any problems with and with amazon dealing with the issue so efficiently I wont be buying hard drives from anywhere else in the future.
So far 0 issues (though it’s still early, I know). Works very well, low vibration, no obtrusive noise (though you can hear heads moving inside), faster than expected for a NAS drive.
Bought for a NAS drive. I’ve always had WD Red before but had this in the drive for almost a year now and no issues. Was good value for money at the time too.
I purchased this unit a month ago after a receiving a faulty model from another supplier. This is a NAS oriented 7200RPM HDD, easy to install and operate. This product comes with a 3 year warranty. As it has only been installed for a month There is no longevity usage to report. 128MB cache is useful in operational use.
The drive is a bit noisy, but it’s also rock solid and runs at 7200rpm for a good price.
Therefore it is a good pick for me. As an example I have written over 8tb of data to it over the last week and it’s not caused an error yet.
Bear in mind it does use more power than smaller drives so if you use a HDD switcher make sure it can supply the amps the HDD needs.
I read all the other reviews and thought the noise can’t be that bad, but my god these are noisey drives! I’m used to 5400rpm WD Red drives which are quiet. I got these to go in an old DNS320 I have recently re-purposed so I know some of the noise is down to the casing being old and with some sound damping material I could make then quieter but that would increase the temprature of the drives.
Overall the drives do what they do, but are noisey.
I bought two of those 4TB HDDs for my Synology DS720+
They work fine, their speed is okay i suppose (for a NAS) but they are pretty noisy in some operational modes! So far i am happy with the purchase, sometimes i wish they would be less noisy but in comparison with my old 1TB external USB drive they are quiet!
Quiet and fast. I used this to replace some non compliant drives i was using in a Terra Master NAS (they are very fussy about the drives in use) and all of my issue went away after I added 2 of these drives and put them as primary drives. This was the original model, which has since been replaced with “new generation”.
Later I bought two more, through warehouse. Sadly one was faulty and waiting for my refund to cube through. Thankfully Amazon has good returns policies on these drives. I would still recommend these drives and use them, but would confirm that the packaging is far from what I would expect for these devices – head damage is often the result of dropped or poorly packaged drives and there was nothing obvious on the box to indicate that the devices were delicate. That said, they are a good model for the price and I’ve had 3 good drives out of 4, so its 4 star for me.
I did replace the faulty drive with a brand new one and no issues since.
Very good value for money, however it is far too early to comment on its performance. If it still continues to perform as well as it is for at least a year, then I would be able to provide a more detailed summary of its overall performance.
Obviously, my need was urgent so, I paid a bit more for these 2 disks when compared with other supposedly “Prime” offerings on Amazon. Indeed, Scan Computers were the only sellers offering next day (Saturday morning) delivery (despite not being a Prime offering).
Given the late hour on a Friday afternoon, I was dubious but they delivered – and my NAS is now fixed. Thank you Scan Computers and sorry I doubted you!
I recovered one HDD at a time which is easy but not quick! Head movement is rather noisy and they run a tad hotter than the WD they replaced. However, I had expected this and a worst case 42 degC is more than reasonable. The units were factory sealed, well packaged with a manufacturing date of June 2020.
So, I have no complaints – indeed, I am most chuffed!
Amazon guided me to Toshiba’s support to avail of the manufacturer’s warrant, and I just RMA’d the drive.
I wish I had taken pictures of the packaging, though. There were two boxes: the inner Toshiba one (sealed) containing the drive in its sealed anti-static bag bearing a sticker matching the drive’s serial number, and the outer one provided by Amazon. Both of them had a very scant amount of paper filler on just one side of the drive / inner box. It seems likely that the drive could have been damaged during transport due to inadequate packaging. The RMA instructions were quite precise about how to package the drive in order to return it. I’m sure the original packaging wouldn’t have qualified.
Update: I got the replacement from the RMA in a couple of days, properly packaged. Detected, no weird noises. It’s not even loud as some other reviews suggest. It passed the SMART long test and is now working as expected as part of my NAS’s btrfs volume. So I upgraded it to 4 stars. It’d have been five starts if I didn’t have to get the replacement.
I have held off this review for a long while as with HDD’s they often wont show any problems right from the start.
I bought this drive for my QNAP NAS server as one of my old HDD’s was failing. The drive arrived next day and has been working perfectly for nearly a year now. It is smooth, quiet and has not caused any sign of malfunction.
I am that pleased that I am planning on replacing all the drives in my NAS server with these in the near future.
Would recommend this product highly
The drives were the lowest cost per TB and I’m pleased with the capacity improvement and performance. The only issue is the N300s make significantly more noise than my WD Reds. It is normal hard drive access noise rather than spindle or bearing noise, not a problem for me as my nas lives in my lounge. This could be a problem for a bedroom or quiet study location.
Works as anticipated. Managed to snag a good price. Noisy in operation & temperature get a little high when constantly reading/writing. Mine climbed to 47oC with fans on full tilt but the specs say can operate up to 65oC.
Purchased at 208.99.
Bought this drive to go into a NAS for media storage. The drive comes in a nondescript box/packaging as it was bought as part of a larger order and resold but warranty applies as normal (confirmed with Toshiba).
This is the first Toshiba drive I’ve bought and it sits alongside several Seagate Ironwolf’s and honestly, the quality of the drive is just as good. Read/write speeds are respectable and more than sufficient for a NAS.
The only drawback is the Ironwolf’s have Seagate’s health management suite on my NAS whereas this Toshiba doesn’t. This does not affect the usability or quality of the drive at all. For the performance to price ratio, this is an exceptional drive!
I’ve now had 5x 4TB N300 drives running continuously between three and three and a half years across my two NAS’, and thus far all of them have been operating smoothly. 2x 8TB N300 drives have been running for more than 10k hours, so a bit over a year, similarly without issue. So no issue with longevity to-date.
Some of my HGST drives have now been running for more than 6 years, so will probably pre-emptively order a drive or two as replacements.
*** Update ~ six months in
I now have four 4TB N300 drives running across my two active NAS servers (the DS1019+ and 412+), and so far they have been running flawlessly. They seem to run around 2-3 degrees cooler than the 4TB HGST drives they are now mostly paired with (39-40 degrees, vs. 42-43 for the HGSTs), though obviously a bit warmer than the remaining 5400rpm Seagate drive (at 36 degrees).
*** Original review
I previously used a mix of 7200rpm HGST and 5x00rpm Seagate NAS drives and Samsung EcoGreen ones in my NAS servers (Synology DS1019+, 412+ and an older QNAP TS-210). These have replaced the Samsung ones, and I will probably get some more to replace some of the Seagate ones as they have been in continuous daily use for over five years.
After around two months of use I can’t comment on longevity or reliability, but in terms of performance they have been a big improvement in the older 5x00rpm drives, and they haven’t increased the noise levels (which means at least they are quieter than the 7200rpm HGST drives).
The ‘bulk’ drives just came in individual simple cardboard boxes with padding to stop the drives moving around – which is a step up from a single cardboard box for three drives with no padding I got most of my previous Seagate drives in.
Performance is fine, as is the build quality. During normal operation, a bit of light r/w they’re not noticeable but at period of heavy io there’s a fair bit of servo noise going on which would not be a problem in the right environment but for home use? In comparison to the WD Red drives they replaced, they are loud! I only purchased these as the WD Reds were on a long lead time, the price was much the same.
Much faster than my previous WD 2TB unit. I will admit it is a bit noisier but if you want complete quiet, get an ssd. Make sure to mount it properly. Makes a great large data drive. For boot and apps – always SSD or M2.
Had this running for a day now with some observations:-
When installing via a USB to SATA adaptor (thought I’d try it externally first before fitting into a machine), it only detects about 1TB of data. I was a bit worried but it’s fine once installed internally into a machine’s SATA port, which would then see the full 8TB. I formatted as GPT rather than MBR.
Pros
Great storage capacity for the money (bought significantly cheaper than other 8TB drives, even the SMR drives).
Seems reasonably speedy
Arrived in nicely padded packaging – it would seem Amazon have improved since some of the other reviews!
Cons
Seems to run hotter than other drives (the 9w rating vs most other drives 6w would explain this, but note this run)
Noisier than other drives I have. I wouldn’t say as bad as some reviews make out, but you can definitely heard the clunk of writing and the whirr of the drive spinning.
In summary, I’m on the fence still whether to buy a second on of these, or spend more money on a quieter drive… My one doesn’t seem as bad as some of the comments make out, however sufficient for me not to rush out and buy a second one just yet…
Will update in future if there are any changes.
Update (1 week): I decided to buy a second one more because I couldn’t be bothered with the hassle of taking the first one out of the machine it was in to put into a second machine and copying all the files around.
Noise wise, once setup and have the drive sleep after an hour of in activity, does make it better however I can understand for a lot of people it probably doesn’t work for them.
So my summary persists for now
An average drive but noisy and emits heat, however it is currently priced better than the competition to compensate…
Update Nov 2019: 6 months in and both drives working fine. Main one is one 24/7. Noise levels are no worse than originally..
Update April 2020: 12 months on and both drives still working fine. Main one has still been running 24/7. Once again, noise levels are no worse than before. Raising my rating to 4 stars, since although not perfect due to increased noise and heat, they have been good value and worked well and proven reliable so far.
Update August 2020: over a year on, both drives have been running 24/7 now and touch wood, both perfectly reliable. Given their price point and the fact they’ve been running now in machines in a warm, humid cellar (25c-30c with around 70-90pct humidity), these drives have now in my eyes eventually earned a well deserved 5 star rating despite my original misgivings…
So the conclusion is this: If you don’t mind the noise, these drives are fast and work well. If you’re annoyed by the noise, as I am and if you want something comparable in speed, you’ll simply have to fork out the extra and buy the Seagate Ironwolf Pro drives, or if you don’t mind sacrificing a bit of speed for less noise, then the Ironwolf is only a little more expensive than the N300.
Bought this as a replacement for a failed WD drive in my NAS. Performance seems similar and no issues with the drive as it was received. Only complaint is that it is noticeably noisier than the other drives and runs hotter, probably to be expected with the higher dial speed.
Used in a PC Installed 2 as RAID 1 array, (run cool & quiet – which is good)
may be overkill but I just lost a disk that failed completely without any warning & is now unrecognized – Data death & head in hands – now safety first!
And I’d buy these again, happy
Seems to be fine so far, but a word of warning, it’s noisy and it runs hotter than other NAS drives, which to be fair is expected given that it’s a 7200rpm drive.
Another minus for the Toshiba N300 is that the 4TB model has 512byte sectors, but performance is pretty good.
I can’t really talk about reliability, but I’ll update my review if anything happens.
Somehow managed to get six of these drives when Amazon had them for only 109 each. I use them as RAID 0 pairs in a TerraMaster 4-bay RAID enclosure. The only concern is that they run hot, but after several weeks of use, often running days at a time, I haven’t had any performance issues. So far I’m very pleased—especially for the money spent.
I added this to my QNAP NAS and the performance and temperatures were great. Unfortunately, it was very very loud – that dull mechanical hard drive noise was easily audible across the room, despite the drive being inside a NAS and in a cabinet with a closed door. As my NAS lives in the lounge it was just too loud to live with so I had to return it.