Seagate IronWolf 8TB NAS Hard Drive vs Ubiquiti UniFi Switch Lite 16 PoE

What separates them

These two differ on 2 recorded specifications. The Ubiquiti UniFi Switch Lite 16 PoE is $9.01 dearer. They are different kinds of product — nas hard drive against managed poe switch — so read the table as two spec sheets rather than a like-for-like.

Seagate IronWolf 8TB NAS Hard Drive vs Ubiquiti UniFi Switch Lite 16 PoE

Seagate

Seagate IronWolf 8TB NAS Hard Drive

$189.99

This is a CMR drive, not SMR, which is the specification that actually matters in a NAS -- shingled drives can take days to rebuild an array and several vendors shipped them into this class without saying so.

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Ubiquiti

Ubiquiti UniFi Switch Lite 16 PoE

$199.00

Sixteen gigabit ports, but only eight deliver PoE and they share a 45 W budget between them -- that is the number that decides whether this switch fits, not the port count.

Full details →

Who the Seagate IronWolf 8TB NAS Hard Drive is for

Buy it if: NAS and small server arrays that need CMR recording and a rated workload figure.

Avoid it if: Quiet desktop builds and archival storage, where a slower drive is cheaper and cooler.

Who the Ubiquiti UniFi Switch Lite 16 PoE is for

Buy it if: A small office running up to eight access points that wants one silent switch and the UniFi controller.

Avoid it if: Anyone powering cameras or door controllers as well, who needs a larger PoE budget rather than more ports.

Specifications, side by side

2 of 20 rows differ. Differences first.

SpecificationSeagate IronWolf 8TB NAS Hard DriveUbiquiti UniFi Switch Lite 16 PoE
Price$189.99$199.00
Rated powerAbout 8.8 W in operation, 7.0 W idleAbout 7 W with no PoE load, 55 W fully loaded
Warranty3-year limited warranty1-year limited hardware warranty
Annual energy use not publishedAbout 480 kWh a year running continuously, roughly $82 at $0.17 per kWh
Bay supportRated for enclosures up to 8 bays not published
Cache256 MB not published
Capacity8 TB not published
Cooling not publishedFanless, silent
Input voltage not published100 to 240 V AC, external power supply
InterfaceSATA 6 Gb/s not published
Management not publishedUniFi Network controller, self-hosted or Cloud Key
Mounting not publishedDesktop or wall mount, no rack ears supplied
MTBF1 million hours not published
PoE budget not published45 W total across all PoE ports
PoE standards not published802.3af and 802.3at
Port count not published16 x Gigabit Ethernet, 8 with PoE+
Rated workload180 TB per year not published
Recording technologyCMR, conventional magnetic recording not published
Rotational speed7,200 rpm not published
Sustained transfer rateAbout 210 MB/s not published
Switching capacity not published32 Gbps non-blocking

Every row is a figure one or both products record. A blank is a figure the catalogue does not hold, not a zero.

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