Upgrading Storage on Workstation

[drurya96]

I need to upgrade the storage system (HDD) on a workstation. I currently have 8TB (4x2TB in RAID 0). I have 4 unused bays and a budget of $1,000 USD to upgrade, with no exact goal in mind other than "better storage". I would really like to use RAID 5 this time, and two separate partitions is fine if I leave the old drives in place.

 

1) I can't seem to find any 7200 RPM consumer drives above 4TB, should I go with NAS drives for this? Thoughts on Consumer/NAS/Pro?

 

2) If I end up replacing the 4x2TB drives, what can I do with them? Is there something like a NAS but not for network, just to plug into a single machine? What would I search for that? 

[MrMcMuffinJr]

5 minutes ago, drurya96 said:

I need to upgrade the storage system (HDD) on a workstation. I currently have 8TB (4x2TB in RAID 0). I have 4 unused bays and a budget of $1,000 USD to upgrade, with no exact goal in mind other than "better storage". I would really like to use RAID 5 this time, and two separate partitions is fine if I leave the old drives in place.

 

1) I can't seem to find any 7200 RPM consumer drives above 4TB, should I go with NAS drives for this? Thoughts on Consumer/NAS/Pro?

 

2) If I end up replacing the 4x2TB drives, what can I do with them? Is there something like a NAS but not for network, just to plug into a single machine? What would I search for that? 

these drives have the speed you want above 4tb

https://www.newegg.com/red-pro-wd6003ffbx-6tb/p/N82E16822234344

[drurya96]

1 minute ago, MrMcMuffinJr said:

these drives have the speed you want above 4tb

I saw these, but they are NAS drives, right? Does that impact performance as the main storage in a machine? I've never worked with NAS so I don't really know their drawbacks. At the moment, the 4TB version of this is my current thought, but I wanted to get ideas here before buying.

[MrMcMuffinJr]

2 minutes ago, drurya96 said:

I saw these, but they are NAS drives, right? Does that impact performance as the main storage in a machine? I've never worked with NAS so I don't really know their drawbacks. At the moment, the 4TB version of this is my current thought, but I wanted to get ideas here before buying.

there's also Barracuda Pros of that speed which are normal use drives

[drurya96]

2 minutes ago, MrMcMuffinJr said:

there's also Barracuda Pros of that speed which are normal use drives

Does Pro imply anything other than just better performance? I've got no problem with NAS either, I just don't know what's best for a workstation. It won't have consistent read/write, maybe 10-20% of the time? Power usage isn't important on this scale. I just need high capacity, fast, and cheap, which of course means some compromise on these. I just don't know what the compromise is for each type.

[MrMcMuffinJr]

7 minutes ago, drurya96 said:

Does Pro imply anything other than just better performance? I've got no problem with NAS either, I just don't know what's best for a workstation. It won't have consistent read/write, maybe 10-20% of the time? Power usage isn't important on this scale. I just need high capacity, fast, and cheap, which of course means some compromise on these. I just don't know what the compromise is for each type.

Pro is just marketing honestly