XS3840SE70004 Seagate 3.84TB SAS-12GBPS eTLC SFF SSD

Seagate XS3840SE70004 Nytro 3331 SSD

General Information

• Manufacturer: Seagate
• Part Number: XS3840SE70004
• Product Line: Nytro 3331 Series
• Product Type: Solid State Drive
• Product Name: Nytro 3331 eTLC SFF SSD

Technical Features

• Capacity: 3.84 TB
• Interface: Dual SAS-12GBPS
• Form Factor: 2.5" x 15mm
• Flash Type: 3D eTLC NAND
• Annual Failure Rate: 0.35% (AFR)

Best-Fit Cases

• Server Virtualization
• OLTP Databases
• Software-defined Storage (SDS)
• All-Flash Arrays
• Caching and Data Tiering

Single-Port Performance (12GBPS)

• Sequential Read: Up to 1100 MB/s (128KB)
• Sequential Write: Up to 1000 MB/s (128KB)
• Random Read: 180,000 IOPS (4KB)
• Random Write: 80,000 IOPS (4KB)
• Random 30% Write: 150,000 IOPS (4KB)

Dual-Port Performance (12GBPS)

• Sequential Read: Up to 2200 MB/s (128KB)
• Sequential Write: Up to 1550 MB/s (128KB)
• Random Read: 230,000 IOPS (4KB)
• Random Write: 80,000 IOPS (4KB)
• Random 30% Write: 160,000 IOPS (4KB)

Seagate Nytro 3331 SSD Overview

The Seagate Nytro 3331 XS3840SE70004 is presented in this category as a purpose-built enterprise SAS solid-state drive engineered for mixed workload data-center environments where consistent latency, predictable throughput, and endurance across sustained writes matter more than consumer-style peak burst metrics. This specific model combines a 3.84-terabyte raw capacity in a 2.5-inch, 15 mm profile with a dual-port SAS interface (12 Gb/s per port), a scaled-endurance 3D eTLC NAND implementation, and firmware tuned for datacenter-level data integrity and deterministic behavior under heavy I/O. The drive sits in the Nytro 3000 family that Seagate designed to span multiple endurance points and capacities so storage architects can match endurance to workload while retaining a common mechanical and protocol footprint for easy deployment.

Technical

As part of the Nytro 3000 series, the XS3840SE70004 is characterized by enterprise-grade features such as T10 Data Integrity Field (DIF) support, power-loss protection mechanisms, and robust internal and external data-path protection intended to reduce the probability of silent data corruption during transient faults. The drive’s firmware supports enterprise features expected by controllers, arrays, and hyperconverged infrastructure platforms—features that help system integrators maintain predictable behavior in virtualized or database heavy workloads. Seagate’s positioning of the 3331 family emphasizes the balance between cost per gigabyte and endurance, targeting use cases where scaled endurance (SE) makes financial sense without sacrificing the SAS protocol’s benefits for multipath, dual-ported high-availability topologies.

Performance

Performance for the XS3840SE70004 should be judged both by its peak sequential throughput and, more importantly for enterprise consumers, by the sustained random IOPS under mixed read/write ratios. Seagate documents that single-port sequential throughput for the 3331 family typically reaches up to around 1.1 GB/s for large-block reads and up to about 1.0 GB/s for large-block writes in typical single-port configurations. In multi-path or dual-port scenarios, platform-level aggregation and dual-port dynamic configurations can in practice allow the series to saturate greater effective SAS bandwidth in the aggregate, with datasheet-level figures describing the series’ ability to drive overall system responsiveness that approaches combined 24 Gb/s effective interface bandwidth under dual-port dynamics. For random I/O workloads the Nytro 3331 series delivers strong small-block read IOPS—numbers that are suitable for virtualized server environments and OLTP databases—and achieves sustained random write performance metrics designed around the scaled endurance profile.

Latency

Enterprises buying the Nytro 3331 category are typically focused on consistent latency rather than on single-threaded peak throughput. The XS3840SE70004 and its siblings are tuned to minimize tail latency under loaded conditions, preserving application-level QoS. For virtualization and multi-tenant workloads this deterministic latency characteristic reduces variance in query times and improves predictability for service-level objectives. The drive’s controller and firmware work with enterprise host controllers, NCQ-like command queuing semantics, and SAS multi-pathing to maintain consistent command completion times, even as wear-leveling and background maintenance tasks execute. These behaviors are critical in environments where percentiles—such as the 99th or 99.9th latency percentile—drive user experience more than median latency.

Endurance

The scaled endurance (SE) designation in the model name indicates a specific endurance tiering approach: the drive is intended to provide a balance between cost per gigabyte and endurance measured in drive writes per day (DWPD). Seagate’s documentation places Nytro 3331 variants in endurance ranges appropriate for mixed read/write datacenter workloads. The Nytro 3000 family embeds error detection and correction strategies across the internal datapath and supports enterprise-level encryption options in firmware, which together lower risk and help meet data compliance regimes where cryptographic protection and data integrity guarantees are required.

Form Factor

The XS3840SE70004 is a 2.5-inch drive with a 15 mm Z-height, a common enterprise mechanical profile that allows dense packaging in rack-mounted enclosures and blade systems that accept 15 mm drives. Mechanical integration is straightforward in modern server chassis designed for enterprise SAS 2.5-inch devices, but care should be taken with sled adapters, caddies, and chassis backplane compatibility since the 15 mm height can be incompatible with slimmer 7 mm or 9.5 mm bays. Physical robustness, vibration tolerance, and shock handling are specified in the product documentation; systems intended for high-vibration environments should validate drives under expected operational vibration profiles. Typical weight and dimensions published by resellers and datasheets show a drive that fits standard enterprise trays and that is designed for hot-swap insertion in supported enclosures.

Thermal

Enterprise SSDs dissipate heat that must be managed by chassis airflow and, in some deployments, by chassis-level ducting or fans. The Nytro 3331 series has a specified operating temperature range and thermal characteristics that should be observed; sustained heavy write workloads will generate higher heat flux than idle or read-heavy patterns. Administrators should consult the vendor’s thermal and mounting guidelines when populating high-density arrays, and monitoring systems should correlate temperature telemetry with performance to detect thermal-induced throttling or accelerated wear. SSD controllers typically implement thermal throttling to protect NAND at high temperatures, and understanding where those throttles engage is essential to maintaining application performance under heavy load.

Integration

When integrated into RAID arrays or erasure-coded pools, the drive’s deterministic behavior eases rebuild window planning and the calculation of degraded-mode performance. Software-defined storage frameworks can treat these drives as a defined tier with predictable endurance and performance characteristics, enabling dynamic data placement policies that move hot data to higher-DWPD devices and colder data to lower-cost media. The drive’s dual-port SAS connectivity is especially valuable in shared-storage architectures where multipathing and active/active topologies are used to minimize the impact of a single path or controller failure. Administrators should validate rebuild behavior and worst-case rebuild performance using the actual host stack they plan to deploy to understand the impact on cluster performance during failure scenarios.

Comparison

Within the Nytro 3000 family, neighboring SKUs provide different trade-offs of capacity, endurance, and performance. Operators should compare the 3331 SE-class models to higher-endurance 3531 or 3731 models when write-intensity is higher, or to lower-endurance SKUs when read-heavy or archival duties imply longer economic life for less expensive NAND. Selecting the correct model involves mapping the application’s IOPS, average I/O size, and daily written bytes into a DWPD requirement, and then choosing the SKU whose endurance guarantees satisfy that requirement while minimizing cost per usable gigabyte.