Help, I'm totally lost in choosing hard drives.

[Musitude]

I’m looking to buy two internal hard drives to set up a mirror config for redundancy in my Windows 10 pc as I’ve had two drives, one solid state and one spinning, die on me over the last few years with the loss of data.

 

At first I was pleased to see on Amazon that I could get a Seagate BarraCuda 6 TB Internal Hard Drive for around £120/$160. But on reading up on them, it seems they use SMR technology and some of them are even shucked from servers and repackaged and sold as if they are new; both facts not being mentioned in the packaging/tech specs.

 

I guess I’m going to have to pay a little more than that for the drives I need but really struggle to identify the best drives for my purpose which is saving large video files as well as lot’s of other files of all kinds.

 

Can anyone recommend an internal hard drive that is between 4 – 8TB which is new and not reconditions from a server and also which doesn't have SMR tech? I don’t mind a 5400 write speed.

 

[EphraimK]

Best SSD (and it's on sale):

https://www.amazon.com/WD_Black-SN850-Internal-Gaming-Solid/dp/B08KFRFL8F/?th=1&tag=hawk-future-20&ascsubtag=pcg-us-1459276558774673400-20

 

HDD Storage:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01IEKG2HM/?tag=gameauthori01-20

[LIGISTX]

10 minutes ago, Musitude said:

I’m looking to buy two internal hard drives to set up a mirror config for redundancy in my Windows 10 pc as I’ve had two drives, one solid state and one spinning, die on me over the last few years with the loss of data.

 

At first I was pleased to see on Amazon that I could get a Seagate BarraCuda 6 TB Internal Hard Drive for around £120/$160. But on reading up on them, it seems they use SMR technology and some of them are even shucked from servers and repackaged and sold as if they are new; both facts not being mentioned in the packaging/tech specs.

 

I guess I’m going to have to pay a little more than that for the drives I need but really struggle to identify the best drives for my purpose which is saving large video files as well as lot’s of other files of all kinds.

 

Can anyone recommend an internal hard drive that is between 4 – 8TB which is new and not reconditions from a server and also which doesn't have SMR tech? I don’t mind a 5400 write speed.

 

Just a reminder, the first three rules of RAID is “RAID is not a backup”. 
 

RAID is intended for high availability and  uptime as it will withstand drive losses, but it’s “not a backup” because if there is a physical event, malware, human accidental deletion, your data will go poof just the same as if it was a single drive. It is certainly a useful tool, I’m not trying to advise don’t do it - just simply reminding it’s just one of the steps to a backup solution.

 

If you want to backup data more securely, cloud backup is the real answer. I use backblaze for PC’s as well as my server, and they allow user side encryption so no one can get to your data except you. 

[OhioYJ]

25 minutes ago, Musitude said:

can anyone recommend an internal hard drive that is between 4 – 8TB which is new and not reconditions from a server and also which doesn't have SMR tech?

 

I've always used the WD Black drives up until the point I needed larger drives than I could get in the black line then I switched to HGST or WD Gold drives. HGST are a little harder to come by newer as an individual in new compared to Gold, but by no means impossible. Also remember with these drives you need to get them from authorized retailers to get the 5 year warranty from WD. 

[EphraimK]

8 hours ago, OhioYJ said:

 

I've always used the WD Black drives up until the point I needed larger drives than I could get in the black line then I switched to HGST or WD Gold drives. HGST are a little harder to come by newer as an individual in new compared to Gold, but by no means impossible. Also remember with these drives you need to get them from authorized retailers to get the 5 year warranty from WD. 

Yeah, these are HDDs.

[Musitude]

1 hour ago, LIGISTX said:

Just a reminder, the first three rules of RAID is “RAID is not a backup”. 
 

RAID is intended for high availability and  uptime as it will withstand drive losses, but it’s “not a backup” because if there is a physical event, malware, human accidental deletion, your data will go poof just the same as if it was a single drive. It is certainly a useful tool, I’m not trying to advise don’t do it - just simply reminding it’s just one of the steps to a backup solution.

 

If you want to backup data more securely, cloud backup is the real answer. I use backblaze for PC’s as well as my server, and they allow user side encryption so no one can get to your data except you. 

That's interesting thanks. 
I guess I focus on drives dying due to some kind of mechanical failure, but I guess malware could be the cause of that failure and with two mirrored drives it would get both of them.
I’m not fond of SSD’s because once they die you lose everything, but data can be salvaged from a damaged spinning drive.

I do have a dropbox but it has a file size limit of just 2GB and some of the video files I want to save will by way more than that. Dropbox is also pretty expensive when you get to 5TB or more in space.

The Backblaze option looks pretty good and a low price for seemingly unlimited data. Do they have any kind of insurance that if they go out of business your data is protected?
I’ve installed the 15 day demo of Backblaze but I’ll probably go for buying one large capacity internal drive (I’m using two 2 terrabyte extern hard drives along with my 500gb C: SSD.
So my large capacity internal mechanical drive recommendation request still stands.  

[LIGISTX]

4 minutes ago, Musitude said:

That's interesting thanks. 
I guess I focus on drives dying due to some kind of mechanical failure, but I guess malware could be the cause of that failure and with two mirrored drives it would get both of them.
I’m not fond of SSD’s because once they die you lose everything, but data can be salvaged from a damaged spinning drive.

I do have a dropbox but it has a file size limit of just 2GB and some of the video files I want to save will by way more than that. Dropbox is also pretty expensive when you get to 5TB or more in space.

The Backblaze option looks pretty good and a low price for seemingly unlimited data. Do they have any kind of insurance that if they go out of business your data is protected?
I’ve installed the 15 day demo of Backblaze but I’ll probably go for buying one large capacity internal drive (I’m using two 2 terrabyte extern hard drives along with my 500gb C: SSD.
So my large capacity internal mechanical drive recommendation request still stands.  

Yea, backblaze is unlimited storage, and it’s likely not going anywhere anytime soon. They have a massive customer base. I imagine they don’t have any insurances, but if they start to crumble I am sure the community will be vocal about it which would give folks time to find new backup solutions. 
 

I would just grab whatever new drive you can. Longevity is a total crap shoot. No manufacturer is statistically more reliable then another. It just comes down to batches and luck. Backblaze actually does quarterly reviews and publishes them publicly with detained statistics on all their drivers, failure rates, etc. (they really are a cool company, providing this info to the public is fantastic!). And that plus some data google has released, it’s pretty safe to say all manufacturers are fine, just buy whatever is cheapest (but still actually new and not used or shucked). Seagate barracuda, WD Blue or Green (or red or purple…. Or gold if your heart desires, although honestly there is no need in your situation), and you will be fine. 
 

The main difference between reds, purples, golds, and similar for seagate NAS line of drives is they have firmware that changes the head parking characteristics so they don’t have issues in RAID arrays, and have a bit more resiliency to 24 discs in a single chassis all spinning and creating vibrations. For normal use case, a normal consumer drive really is just fine. At this level (handfuls of drives), failures are much more dictated by bad luck then anything else. 

[Musitude]

51 minutes ago, LIGISTX said:

Yea, backblaze is unlimited storage, and it’s likely not going anywhere anytime soon. They have a massive customer base. I imagine they don’t have any insurances, but if they start to crumble I am sure the community will be vocal about it which would give folks time to find new backup solutions. 
 

I would just grab whatever new drive you can. Longevity is a total crap shoot. No manufacturer is statistically more reliable then another. It just comes down to batches and luck. Backblaze actually does quarterly reviews and publishes them publicly with detained statistics on all their drivers, failure rates, etc. (they really are a cool company, providing this info to the public is fantastic!). And that plus some data google has released, it’s pretty safe to say all manufacturers are fine, just buy whatever is cheapest (but still actually new and not used or shucked). Seagate barracuda, WD Blue or Green (or red or purple…. Or gold if your heart desires, although honestly there is no need in your situation), and you will be fine. 
 

The main difference between reds, purples, golds, and similar for seagate NAS line of drives is they have firmware that changes the head parking characteristics so they don’t have issues in RAID arrays, and have a bit more resiliency to 24 discs in a single chassis all spinning and creating vibrations. For normal use case, a normal consumer drive really is just fine. At this level (handfuls of drives), failures are much more dictated by bad luck then anything else. 

Great advice again. 
My remaining questions would be:
- How do check to make sure it's not an SMR drive?
- Does it matter if it is 128 or 256 cache?
- How do I verify it's not a shucked drive? 
- Should I buy on the manufacturers web site rather than Amazon to ensure it's under warranty? 

[Musitude]

What's the difference between WD red, gold and blue hard drives? 
I can get red, gold or blue 8TB WD drives for around £280 but Toshiba has 18TB 'enterprise' drives for £349
What does 'enterprise' mean? 

[fonzz1e]

8 hours ago, Musitude said:

What's the difference between WD red, gold and blue hard drives? 
I can get red, gold or blue 8TB WD drives for around £280 but Toshiba has 18TB 'enterprise' drives for £349
What does 'enterprise' mean? 

AFAIK longer warranty years, some may offer data recovery BUT you're RAID them it's gonna be hard to recover data

 

i'm using seagate ironwolfs in my NAS (built from old 4770k rig using unraid)

[Musitude]

Looks like a single high capacity HD in my PC and a Backblaze account is a good solution for me. 
I created a free 15 day trial account yesterday and got an email from them that they have having a Black Friday 50% sale so I just paid for a year up front for $42. 

[LIGISTX]

10 hours ago, Musitude said:

Looks like a single high capacity HD in my PC and a Backblaze account is a good solution for me. 
I created a free 15 day trial account yesterday and got an email from them that they have having a Black Friday 50% sale so I just paid for a year up front for $42. 

Nice, I think that is a fantastic option!

 

As far as type of drive.... can't go wrong with a red, gold, or really blue lol. As far as SMR or not, I don't even know how to tell anymore because WD did a bunch of funky BS "hiding" what the technology the drives used was. I am sure if you google it you can find answers. That said, gold's almost FOR SURE won't be SMR, but, ya know, these days, I don't even know if that is fully true either.