I have two 6tb Seagate Ironwolf drives in my NAS. It’s only used to backup a couple computers.

I really need more space and since they are now 5 years old it seems like a good time to start researching this.

The current drives have been reliable but when in use they sound like gravel being poured from a metal bucket.

Are any actually quiet? I’m probably looking for a pair in the 12-14tb range depending on which is the most economical.

Obviously, SSDs are out due to their lower capacity.

The WD Cheetah line are very quiet, but these are SAS and are significantly more expensive than SATA drives, they don't come in the 12-14TB range either (biggest I've seen is 2TB). I am basing this on a Dell server I have with 8x500GB Cheetah drives. Can't hear the drives at all due to the chassis fans .

I am pretty sure that the drive manufacturers publish noise specs, although retailers may not repeat them on their product pages.

If you are redoing your drive sub-system you might want to look at NVMe drives rather than SATA. Much faster transfer speeds.

I’ve been using 8TB Red plus and 14TB Red pro WD drives in my Synology NAS units. The 8’s are at least 6 or 7 years old and the 14’s have been in use for about a year. They don’t make much noise, IMHO. WD has both CMR and SMR in certain sizes so make sure you don’t get SMRs.

Another vote for Western Digital Red Plus and Synology NAS.

12 TB SATA https://www.westerndigital.com...-5-hdd?sku=WD120EFBX

14 TB SATA https://www.westerndigital.com...-5-hdd?sku=WD140EFGX