Trying to compare hdds

[tinpanalley]

I'm looking at two really great deals, and one is for a straight up 4TB Seagate Barracuda. But the other is for something I've never owned, an external 8TB WD Elements. My question is how will the external compare to the internal in terms of transfer speeds?  This will only be used to backup media, not likely to be used for actually accessing for playback. So, several gigabytes at a time of transfers. Just wondering if I'm not better off going for something that connects SATA internally.

Any thoughts?

[Zonal]

13 minutes ago, tinpanalley said:

I'm looking at two really great deals, and one is for a straight up 4TB Seagate Barracuda. But the other is for something I've never owned, an external 8TB WD Elements. My question is how will the external compare to the internal in terms of transfer speeds?  This will only be used to backup media, not likely to be used for actually accessing for playback. So, several gigabytes at a time of transfers. Just wondering if I'm not better off going for something that connects SATA internally.

Any thoughts?

I don’t know much about storage but the internal one is gonna be a lot faster, if you are willing to wait for it transfer though than external will be just fine. The barracuda is known as a pretty good and fast hdd but wd is probably a little more reliable. If you’re just backing stuff up, I’d go with the wd.

[Electronics Wizardy]

15 minutes ago, tinpanalley said:

y question is how will the external compare to the internal in terms of transfer speeds? 

External should be faster, bigger hdds tend to be faster, and both will be 5400rpm(or rated as 5400, some of those externalls are really 7200). The barracuda is smr, but that shouldn't be a big issue here, but might as well get the non smr drive.

[tinpanalley]

21 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

External should be faster, bigger hdds tend to be faster, and both will be 5400rpm(or rated as 5400, some of those externalls are really 7200). The barracuda is smr, but that shouldn't be a big issue here, but might as well get the non smr drive.

And SMR is a problem why? Sorry, don't know about this spec.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, tinpanalley said:

And SMR is a problem why? Sorry, don't know about this spec.

Smr mean writes, esp random writes are much slower.  It lets them make cheaper hdds though.

[tinpanalley]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

Smr mean writes, esp random writes are much slower.  It lets them make cheaper hdds though.

And that will matter more than even rpm?

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, tinpanalley said:

And that will matter more than even rpm?

Well there both 5400 rpm dirves(maybe external is 7200).

 

The external is gonna be faster, get it if you want speed. You cna use it as a internal drive if you want too by taking the case off.

[tinpanalley]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

Well there both 5400 rpm dirves(maybe external is 7200).

 

The external is gonna be faster, get it if you want speed. You cna use it as a internal drive if you want too by taking the case off.

Yeah, I just thought... the option to make it internal now or in the future, the great price for the size, they're both 5400 anyway... sounds like a great idea. That's why I wanted to ask if anyone knew of anything that made one particularly overly superior to the other.

[manikyath]

16 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

External should be faster, bigger hdds tend to be faster, and both will be 5400rpm(or rated as 5400, some of those externalls are really 7200). The barracuda is smr, but that shouldn't be a big issue here, but might as well get the non smr drive.

one thing i'd like to add to this, is that the WD elements 8TB uses a micro usb 3.0, which may as well be widely regarded as one of the worst connectors ever designed.

 

as for actual advice...

from experience:

- usb 3.0 will probably not be any notable bottleneck on the experience.. until you start to do large bulks of overwriting small files, that's where the increased seek times on usb really get you... but at that point performance goes to pot anyways

- backups belong on an external drive, which is offline (which means unplugged) when you're not doing backups, otherwise anything that'll make your system fail catastrophically (lightning strike, cryptolockers, etc.) will most likely also nuke your backup.

- to do any sort of multi-TB backup on any sort of single disk, even fast ones, will take a good long while. it really is an overnight activity.

- backup means two places. if you're just offloading stuff to this drive to have it off of your system, that's not a backup, that's archival.

 

so.. in my opinion, making backups on an internal drive is stupid. but.. that said.. if you're talking just a drive to offload stuff you dont want on your main drive, you're probably better off with an internal drive. The latter does not take away that i tend to recommend based on the following quote:

Quote

There is no question, you either have a backup of important data (backup == storing in two seperate places), or you do not have important data.

 

[tinpanalley]

26 minutes ago, manikyath said:

- backup means two places. if you're just offloading stuff to this drive to have it off of your system, that's not a backup, that's archival.

so.. in my opinion, making backups on an internal drive is stupid. but.. that said.. if you're talking just a drive to offload stuff you dont want on your main drive, you're probably better off with an internal drive. The latter does not take away that i tend to recommend based on the following quote:

 

Wow... lots of assumptions about my knowledge of backing up vs archiving and presumed knowledge of how I use internals. Thank you nevertheless for the input on the question I actually asked about.

[Archer42]

One important question is - does this WD drive use usb-sata adapter, or does it have usb directly on hdd? Try googling it, but wd generally tends to go with second option, which is bad, because broken connector mans lost data.

 

If that's the case I'd personally go with this one for that reason alone. Also if you get 10TB+ ones it is very likely to be good not SMR hdd, because seagate has no smr hdd-s above 8TB (which may change at any point obviously).

 

Other than this considerations IMO external will be better for the job.

[tinpanalley]

43 minutes ago, Archer42 said:

Other than this considerations IMO external will be better for the job.

I use internals by connecting them to the computer, backing up what I need to and then storing the backup hdds again. I keep 3 though, not 2. Those are all already in place. They get updated every few months. In this particular case, I like the idea that 8TB is so big that I can choose to use it to expand my current storage but I'm wondering if being external that'll just be a pain because that will dictate its use. You're not gonna go turn on a drive every time you wanna go find something. External is probably best for infrequent use.

[Archer42]

1 hour ago, tinpanalley said:

I'm wondering if being external that'll just be a pain because that will dictate its use. You're not gonna go turn on a drive every time you wanna go find something. External is probably best for infrequent use.

There is no reason why you cannot keep usb hdd always on if that's what you want/need at any given moment. And then it will work exactly the same as internal one.

Or you can just disassemble the box, take hdd out and connect it internally (as long as hdd inside does not have usb-sata bridge soldered directly on controller board). In fact this is often the cheapest way to get hdd-s, as external ones are often significantly cheaper while containing exactly the same hdd-s.

[tinpanalley]

1 hour ago, Archer42 said:

(as long as hdd inside does not have usb-sata bridge soldered directly on controller board)

Well, I can confirm that this one doesn't have a soldered bridge. I've seen people take it apart. I just wanted to know if WD vs Seagate mattered in these models. I thought Seagate was always more reliable but then I have to admit the transfer specs were more important to me.

[tinpanalley]

3 hours ago, Archer42 said:

I'd personally go with this one

This one is SMR by the way.

[tinpanalley]

I'm looking at this Seagate and this WD.

Thanks for everyone's help.