No. The current 1TB BarraCuda is shingled, and Seagate positions the whole BarraCuda line as desktop and compute storage rather than NAS storage. In a parity array, a shingled drive can turn a rebuild into a much longer and riskier operation than it needs to be.
Shingled recording overlaps data tracks like roof tiles to raise density. Reading is unaffected. Writing is affected when the drive has to modify data underneath an existing track, because the tracks laid over it may have to be rewritten too. That penalty is invisible for sequential work and severe for sustained random writing, which is what a rebuild or a resilver actually is.
A RAID rebuild or a ZFS resilver is the worst version of that workload: hours of continuous writing with no idle time for the drive to reorganise in the background. Rebuild windows that would be measured in hours on a conventional drive can extend dramatically, and the rebuild window is exactly the period during which the array has no redundancy left. A longer window is a longer exposure to a second failure taking everything.
This is not a theoretical concern invented by people who like arrays. It is why the 2020 episode of shingled drives arriving in NAS-marketed product lines produced lasting anger rather than a shrug, and why Western Digital ended up publishing the model-level SMR list we cite throughout this site.
Even the conventionally-recorded BarraCuda models are not NAS drives, and it is worth separating that from the shingling argument.
Seagate positions BarraCuda as desktop and compute storage. The line carries a two-year warranty and a workload rating in the region of 55TB per year, with a power-on-hours expectation of about 2400 hours annually, roughly a machine that is on during the working day rather than one that never switches off. A NAS runs continuously, which is 8760 hours a year.
So a BarraCuda in a NAS is outside its rated duty cycle before the recording technology enters the conversation. Seagate's IronWolf line is the same manufacturer's answer for this role, rated for 180TB per year with a three-year warranty, and IronWolf Pro extends both further.
At small capacities the NAS-rated options are IronWolf, WD Red Plus and Toshiba N300, and all three are conventionally recorded across the line. The live table below shows what is in stock right now with prices.
There is a capacity argument worth making at the same time. 1TB is a small drive for an array, and the cost per terabyte at that size is poor. If you are building a NAS, buying larger drives generally costs less per terabyte and defers the rebuild-and-replace cycle, which is the operation you least want to repeat.
The one legitimate use for a BarraCuda near a NAS is as a single external backup target for the array, sitting outside it. That is a sequential write workload on a drive with no parity relationship to anything, which is exactly what the line is built for.
| Model | Capacity | Recording | Live price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ST1000DM014 Seagate BarraCuda | 1TB | SMR | — | Not in stock |
| WD20EFZX WD WD Red Plus | 2TB | CMR | — | Not in stock |
A dash under live price means we do not currently track that exact model in stock. The recording badge comes from the manufacturer document linked on each model's page.
| Drive | Capacity | Recording | $/TB | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ST31000640SS 1TB SAS | 1TB | CMR | $14.99 | $15 | Buy |
| 508011-001 1TB 6G SAS | 1TB | CMR | $26.99 | $27 | Buy |
| Dell 9W5WV 1TB SAS 2.5 | 1TB | CMR | $37.62 | $38 | Buy |
| BarraCuda 1TB ST1000DM010 | 1TB | CMR | $59.99 | $60 | Buy |
| 1TB NL SAS 12G 2.5 | 1TB | CMR | $65.00 | $65 | Buy |
It will be recognised and it will store data. The problem appears during a rebuild, when a shingled drive can extend the window in which the array has no redundancy. The line is also rated for a duty cycle well below continuous operation, so it is outside specification before the recording technology matters.
Positioning and rating. Seagate rates IronWolf for 180TB per year with a three-year warranty and builds it for continuous multi-bay operation; BarraCuda carries a two-year warranty, a workload rating around 55TB per year and an expectation of about 2400 powered hours a year. IronWolf is also conventionally recorded across the line.
Better than the shingled model, and still not a NAS drive. The duty cycle, workload rating and warranty are all desktop-class, and the drive is discontinued. If you already own one, using it in a low-stakes array with good backups is a decision you can make with open eyes; buying one for that purpose is not sensible.
Technically yes, and the array will behave like its weakest member during a rebuild. Mixing a shingled drive into a parity array reintroduces the rebuild problem for the whole array rather than for one drive, which defeats the point of the other drives being conventional.