Best hard drivers for NAS and long - very long life expectancy.

[keavlar]

Hey, 

I'll brief, I wanna store all my videos, and movies on the hard drive, and I want them to be available even after 20 years, for my kids to watch it. 

Which hard drive I should get, also prefer sizes over 10 TB , 8TB is fine 2. 

Its true NAS will work 24-7 , but I do not think that we will read form 24-7. Maybe few hours a day. 

 

 

 

[ToboRobot]

Just now, keavlar said:

Hey, 

I'll brief, I wanna store all my videos, and movies on the hard drive, and I want them to be available even after 20 years, for my kids to watch it. 

Which hard drive I should get, also prefer sizes over 10 TB , 8TB is fine 2. 

Its true NAS will work 24-7 , but I do not think that we will read form 24-7. Maybe few hours a day. 

 

 

 

There aren't any hard drives that are guaranteed to work in 20 years. 

The best solution is a system to backup and store files, that allows you to over time replace devices that are failing before the data is lost.

No magic bullet, just planning and effort.

[Alex Atkin UK]

3 minutes ago, keavlar said:

Hey, 

I'll brief, I wanna store all my videos, and movies on the hard drive, and I want them to be available even after 20 years, for my kids to watch it. 

Which hard drive I should get, also prefer sizes over 10 TB , 8TB is fine 2. 

Its true NAS will work 24-7 , but I do not think that we will read form 24-7. Maybe few hours a day. 

 

 

 

There is no such thing, having a NAS means periodically replacing the HDDs after 5-7 years and always having a backup or two in addition to that.

 

I've lost a lot of photos over the years due to not being able to afford to do that in my early 20s.

[keavlar]

Just now, Alex Atkin UK said:

There is no such thing, having a NAS means periodically replacing the HDDs after 5-7 years and always having a backup or two in addition to that.

I have WD working for 10 years now. 

 

[ToboRobot]

Just now, keavlar said:

I have WD working for 10 years now. 

 

I have old drives that survived as well.  But I have more drives that died in that same time span.

Statistically some will survive, but most will not.

 

But I guess you know better, so just go buy WD drives and hope they last for over 10 years.  Problem solved!  No need to listen to anyone's advice.

[Alex Atkin UK]

5 minutes ago, keavlar said:

I have WD working for 10 years now. 

 

And I have HDDs 20 years old, yet I lost a large chunk of my photos to failed HDDs and CD-Rs.

Nobody is saying they can't last a long time, but the failure rate climbs dramatically after 5-7 years and you should never assume any drive is not going to fail tomorrow.

[keavlar]

1 minute ago, ToboRobot said:

I have old drives that survived as well.  But I have more drives that died in that same time span.

Statistically some will survive, but most will not.

 

But I guess you know better, so just go buy WD drives and hope they last for over 10 years.  Problem solved!  No need to listen to anyone's advice.

I am informing you, so you can tell me in advance, " hey dude its awesome, but I suggest you back up your sht as it will prob will die soon" 

Was it that hard? You had to be sarcastic? I said you were wrong?
Jesus, ye txh for help. 
 

[keavlar]

3 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

And I have HDDs 20 years old, yet I lost all my photos before 1994 to failed HDDs and CD-Rs.

Nobody is saying they can't last a long time, but the failure rate climbs dramatically after 5-7 years and you should never assume any drive is not going to fail tomorrow.

Your suggestion to back up the files before hdd dies?
ALso, if i store them on Hdd for 10 years without using it the HDD i mean, like a caset will it still work with its life span? Or it can go bad with time, like a potato. ( i am talking if not stored correctly like bad temps, humid, etc )  

[keavlar]

6 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

And I have HDDs 20 years old, yet I lost all my photos before 1994 to failed HDDs and CD-Rs.

Nobody is saying they can't last a long time, but the failure rate climbs dramatically after 5-7 years and you should never assume any drive is not going to fail tomorrow.

And PS> ok you said sarcastly that hdd will not live that long, ok  what  hdd will live  the longest and will be the best for NAS USe?! 

 

[jaslion]

21 minutes ago, keavlar said:

I have WD working for 10 years now. 

 

Luck basically. I have a 23 year old hdd in my retro game pc and it still works. But I have BINS of dead drives from all those 23 years dying at random.

 

Usually 5 years is when failiures start.

[keavlar]

2 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Luck basically. I have a 23 year old hdd in my retro game pc and it still works. But I have BINS of dead drives from all those 23 years dying at random.

 

Usually 5 years is when failiures start.

Thx for the info but i do not understand, why all focus only on that, and not saying what they think will be the best hdd anyway, that will live longer than others?

[Alex Atkin UK]

2 minutes ago, keavlar said:

Thx for the info but i do not understand, why all focus only on that, and not saying what they think will be the best hdd anyway, that will live longer than others?

Because there is no such thing, different models, different batches, its completely random which happen to last longer than another.  The only evidence we have are people who have HAD a drive for x years and it not go bad, and by that point it means little as its likely that model is no longer being manufactured and it could just be the specific batch manufactured that day was particularly good.

[jaslion]

2 minutes ago, keavlar said:

Thx for the info but i do not understand, why all focus only on that, and not saying what they think will be the best hdd anyway, that will live longer than others?

You could opt for a nas drive but like I've just been using random hitachi non smr drives in mine and they are just as good longevity wise.

[kokosnh]

Tape + M-Disc Blu-ray

 

 

we get the type of topic from time to time.

[keavlar]

1 minute ago, kokosnh said:

Tape + M-Disc Blu-ray

 

 

we get the type of topic from time to time.

Yeah no chance for that XD

 

[keavlar]

2 minutes ago, jaslion said:

You could opt for a nas drive but like I've just been using random hitachi non smr drives in mine and they are just as good longevity wise.

So you say, you can by anything just set it up correctly?\

[Alex Atkin UK]

1 minute ago, jaslion said:

You could opt for a nas drive but like I've just been using random hitachi non smr drives in mine and they are just as good longevity wise.

The big thing with NAS drives is they usually have a longer warranty and their firmware is optimised to operate in a RAID.

 

I mostly go for Seagate Ironwolf or EXOS drives myself, as they tend to make the larger sizes before other manufacturers.

[keavlar]

4 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Because there is no such thing, different models, different batches, its completely random which happen to last longer than another.  The only evidence we have are people who have HAD a drive for x years and it not go bad, and by that point it means little as its likely that model is no longer being manufactured and it could just be the specific batch manufactured that day was particularly good.

And cause people have exp in this matter they can say This brand, or this series is good for NAS, or say, it doesn't matter unless you set it up/ configure correctly.
And yet. there are advertisments saying WD red  best for NAS, Blue for home use. So that is why I am asking.  

[MSMSMSM]

Aside from the other comments urging you to tame your expectations about storage device lifespan (which I would urge you take heed too), here's a few things you can check out

• Check out Backblaze's posts about the longevity of the drives they deploy in their datacenter, here's the latest yearly report
• Read the datasheets about your drives and make sure they're CMR, not SMR, SMR drives are not advisable for NAS usage (e.g. Seagate's webpage clarifying their product line).
• Understand the 3-2-1 rule, 3 copies on 2 different mediums with 1 off-site (check out Seagate's writing on that)
• Research about the after-sales of the hard drive manufacturers available, this is very location-dependent as some brands may have better networks and contractors in your local area than others, other brands may merely sell but offer no after-sales in your country (often because they're imported).
• Do some reading about RAID and various RAID configurations (RAID1 = mirroring, RAID10 = mirroring + striping, RAID6 = parity), Synology has a table that more or less explains what is offered by their product line.

Understand that having solid reliable drives that outlast their peers are the exception, not the norm and that eventually, all drives fail, some sooner than others. That's why we use RAID to keep uptime and alongside that, have a backup. Because RAID is not a backup, it's a means of keeping uptime.

[manikyath]

23 minutes ago, keavlar said:

I have WD working for 10 years now. 

 

i have a drive from 1993 that still spins up faster than the cpu fan of the system i pulled it out of... there's just no guarantee that any piece of hardware will last that long - that's your problem here.

 

as for solutions for your problem...

- optical media stored in a sealed, temperature and moisture controlled enclosure has a pretty good shot. and given the relative affordability it's fairly trivial to just store everything twice in case the occasional disk goes bad.

- LTO makes some pretty big claims about archival lifespan, given again, it's stored in a controlled environment. (20-50% humidity, 16-25°c)

 

the thing about hard drive reliability, is that there is essentially no "this model will last longer than that brand". we're talking about a timeframe where you have more of a guarantee of failure than a guarantee of continued operation. we're talking moving parts, electronics, lubricant, magnetic media, just simply the ability to connect this up to a device for reading it in 20 years time.

 

from my experience the only real "avoid" is seagate barracuda 3TB drives (i dont have exact numbers on these, other than i've seen plenty of broken ones, and never a working one past a year or two..), and a specific revision of a seagate 10TB enterprise drive. and past that.. it's simply a matter of protecting your data against single points of failure.

 

Just now, keavlar said:

And yet. there are advertisments saying WD red  best for NAS, Blue for home use. So that is why I am asking.  

reds cost more but are designed to deal with vibrations of nearby drives, blues are cheaper but are very much not designed to go in an enclosure with half a douzen of them.

[Alex Atkin UK]

3 minutes ago, kokosnh said:

Tape + M-Disc Blu-ray

 

 

we get the type of topic from time to time.

I keep meaning to burn my photo collection to M-Disc myself, already have a compatible burner.  But the way things are going it might be hard to find a working Bluray drive in 10 years, though I really hope I'm wrong and it survives like Vinyl has at least as a niche.

[jaslion]

5 minutes ago, keavlar said:

So you say, you can by anything just set it up correctly?\

Yes but if this is going to be NOT live storage you'll want stuff like tapes or such. Something that doesn't bitrot like hdds and ssds and something that doesn't break down like cds and dvds.

[MSMSMSM]

Also, here, the brand isn't just the same stuff with a different coat of paint, NAS drives have qualities that are omitted from consumer drives, better anti-vibration characteristics (usually with a rating of up to how many drives worth of vibrations it can tolerate), higher MTBF (mean time between failure) and more robust after sales service.

 

Of course, if you always have doubt, consult the datasheet for that Seagate IronWolf, WD Red you're eyeing up
 

[kokosnh]

2 hours ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

But the way things are going it might be hard to find a working Bluray drive in 10 years, though I really hope I'm wrong

No way there’s gonna be affordable fast internet everywhere to stream movie The film industry won’t allow BR to die.
and even if the will be evolution, it will be probably backwards compatible, like BR drives with DVD and CD.

[Alex Atkin UK]

8 hours ago, kokosnh said:

No way there’s gonna be affordable fast internet everywhere to stream movie The film industry won’t allow BR to die.
and even if the will be evolution, it will be probably backwards compatible, like BR drives with DVD and CD.

It doesn't have to be fast broadband as they keep improving compression, reducing quality, and people don't notice as they just watch on their phone.   Plus the industry are happy for those people who can't stream to put up with DVD.

There are plenty of back catalog titles available in HD on streaming but only DVD on physical media.  Also plenty of TV Shows not available on Bluray, some TV shows mastered in 4K only get a DVD release which is hilarious.