Cheap 3-5tb ssd needed

[Indian pc builder]

hey, i have some data that i need to store for archival purposes(family photos and videos and such). What's the cheapest ssd from a trustable brand i can buy? it doesnt need to be external, but can be sata internal or even m.2 instead, assuming the cheap-o enclosures you can buy off amazon are actually reliable(are they)

 

ALso are external enclosures for 2.5 inch and m.2 sata drives and m.2 pcie drives reliable?

[da na]

For archival purposes, HDDs are far better than SSDs, which suffer from data rot (slow degradation of files over time on a powered-off drive). You could pick up a used datacenter drive for like $40. 

[Blasty Blosty]

1 minute ago, da na said:

For archival purposes, HDDs are far better than SSDs, which suffer from data rot (slow degradation of files over time on a powered-off drive). You could pick up a used datacenter drive for like $40. 

Are used datacenter drives reliable?

[da na]

Just now, Blasty Blosty said:

Are used datacenter drives reliable?

If bought from a trusted source, yeah. They're the best method for cold storage of a ton of data

[filpo]

7 minutes ago, Indian pc builder said:

hey, i have some data that i need to store for archival purposes(family photos and videos and such). What's the cheapest ssd from a trustable brand i can buy? it doesnt need to be external, but can be sata internal or even m.2 instead, assuming the cheap-o enclosures you can buy off amazon are actually reliable(are they)

how much are you willing to pay? best value is in HDD's but you can get 4tb nvme's for $210 Choose Storage - PCPartPicker

 

Some HDDs can be had for nearly a third of that with the same storage Seagate IronWolf NAS 4 TB 3.5" 5400 RPM Internal Hard Drive (ST4000VN006) - PCPartPicker

[Blasty Blosty]

Just now, da na said:

If bought from a trusted source, yeah. They're the best method for cold storage of a ton of data

Interesting, I thought they wouldn't be after being used for god knows how long

[Indian pc builder]

5 minutes ago, da na said:

For archival purposes, HDDs are far better than SSDs, which suffer from data rot (slow degradation of files over time on a powered-off drive). You could pick up a used datacenter drive for like $40. 

yeah, but they also fail a lot, see the grand plan is to eventually move all of it on to the cloud, (backblaze maybe, pls recommend alternatives) also, the reason i need this is that my current hard drive which i was keeping this on failed. Also ssd bitrot can be combatted by periodic plugging in and something(pls tell how) which i am willing to do due to the reliability of them.

 

also the main issue is that at cheaper prices, everything is fake so i'm just looking for the cheapest legit thing i can find. 

 

also the whole think about ssd enclosures is still a doubt for me. Can 2.5 inch sata enclosures or m.2 enclosures be trusted? also do they make a pcie m.2 to usb enclosure or is it only satam.2 to usb enclosure?

[da na]

1 minute ago, Blasty Blosty said:

Interesting, I thought they wouldn't be after being used for god knows how long

Datacenter HDDs are typically retired after like 5yrs but are rated for many decades of 24/7 use. Totally fine for dumping 4TB of files onto and basically never touching again.

[Indian pc builder]

3 minutes ago, da na said:

Datacenter HDDs are typically retired after like 5yrs but are rated for many decades of 24/7 use. Totally fine for dumping 4TB of files onto and basically never touching again.

how do you even store 3.5 inch internal hdds properly? (academic question as i'm still not backing down from needing an ssd as bitrot can be combatted and they can last indefinitely as there is no spinning grease to go away after sitting about for 30 years 

[da na]

1 minute ago, Indian pc builder said:

how do you even store 3.5 inch internal hdds properly? (academic question as i'm still not backing down from needing an ssd as bitrot can be combatted and they can last indefinitely as there is no spinning grease to go away after sitting about for 30 years 

Just set them on a shelf? 

[Indian pc builder]

1 minute ago, da na said:

Just set them on a shelf? 

here, shelfs fall and even if they don't, ambient temperature is up to 40C with 98% humidity, can they be left there reliably?

 

(academic question, still want ssd)

[Needfuldoer]

Multiple datacenter hard drives with identical copies of the data is even safer. Store one at a relative's house too.

[Indian pc builder]

1 minute ago, Needfuldoer said:

Multiple datacenter hard drives with identical copies of the data is even safer. Store one at a relative's house too.

erm, what if i don't have any convenient relatives( they all live in different cities(which are far enough away that i need to take a flight to get there) and we meet very not often)

[Needfuldoer]

3 minutes ago, Indian pc builder said:

erm, what if i don't have any convenient relatives( they all live in different cities(which are far enough away that i need to take a flight to get there) and we meet very not often)

Mail a drive to them.

[voyager_]

You can get external drives that use 3.5in hard drives and use raid 1, then back up a copy to something like backblaze.

 

9 minutes ago, Indian pc builder said:

how do you even store 3.5 inch internal hdds properly? (academic question as i'm still not backing down from needing an ssd as bitrot can be combatted and they can last indefinitely as there is no spinning grease to go away after sitting about for 30 years 

 

I keep spare/old drives in cases meant for them. They are fairly cheap and easy to find online.

17 minutes ago, Indian pc builder said:

also the whole think about ssd enclosures is still a doubt for me. Can 2.5 inch sata enclosures or m.2 enclosures be trusted? also do they make a pcie m.2 to usb enclosure or is it only satam.2 to usb enclosure?

Why wouldn't you  be able to trust and enclosure? I have a bunch of them from different brands and never ran into an issue.

 

 

[Indian pc builder]

15 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

Mail a drive to them.

2 issues with that:

1. this is a budgeted project so i'm not paying postage

2. have you seen what shipping companies do to packages(sure u can pack it well, but that doesn't help when it falls of the back of the open bed truck they move parcels in in india and gets stepped on by a cow)

17 minutes ago, voyager_ said:

You can get external drives that use 3.5in hard drives and use raid 1, then back up a copy to something like backblaze.

 

 

I keep spare/old drives in cases meant for them. They are fairly cheap and easy to find online.

Why wouldn't you  be able to trust and enclosure? I have a bunch of them from different brands and never ran into an issue.

 

 

which external hard drives use 3.5 inch? almost all of them use 2.5 inch and i'm weary of external hard drives altogether because of the fact the one i have my data on currently has died and i'm going to need to pay for data recovery.

Also any help on the original ssd bitrot comment? how to combat that?

[OddOod]

51 minutes ago, Blasty Blosty said:

Interesting, I thought they wouldn't be after being used for god knows how long

You can always read the SMART data to learn how old they are. I bought a bunch of refurb Seagate drives off amazon for my NAS that have been running flawlessly for over a year. IIRC they are RMAs that have new controllers soldered on. 16 of them had sub 30  hours of drive on time, one had 155. 

[Indian pc builder]

1 minute ago, OddOod said:

You can always read the SMART data to learn how old they are. I bought a bunch of refurb Seagate drives off amazon for my NAS that have been running flawlessly for over a year. IIRC they are RMAs that have new controllers soldered on. 16 of them had sub 30  hours of drive on time, one had 155. 

where would you even buy something like that?

[Blue4130]

8 hours ago, Indian pc builder said:

 

which external hard drives use 3.5 inch? almost all of them use 2.5 inch and i'm weary of external hard drives altogether because of the fact the one i have my data on currently has died and i'm going to need to pay for data recovery.

A quick search shows that MANY MANY seagate and WD externals are 3.5 based. The WD MyBook line, the Elements line, The G-drive line, Seagate expansion, seagate backup.... The list goes on. Anything bigger than 5tb is 3.5", some drives smaller are also 3.5"

8 hours ago, Indian pc builder said:

where would you even buy something like that?

Amazon, like he said.

[OhioYJ]

9 hours ago, Indian pc builder said:

2 issues with that:

1. this is a budgeted project so i'm not paying postage

Use a neighbor, friend, girlfriend, someone you trust. Perhaps maybe if your work, in an office desk drawer? Encrypt the drive with Veracrypt so the data can't be read anyways. 

 

As mentioned HDD is really the way to do here. You can get 4 TB drives for ~$100 roughly .

 

I always keep them in pairs as drives can fail, and with externals I've had failures.

 

I keep pairs of them together in pelican cases:

 

 

 

[Indian pc builder]

 

9 hours ago, OhioYJ said:

Use a neighbor, friend, girlfriend, someone you trust. Perhaps maybe if your work, in an office desk drawer? Encrypt the drive with Veracrypt so the data can't be read anyways. 

 

As mentioned HDD is really the way to do here. You can get 4 TB drives for ~$100 roughly .

 

I always keep them in pairs as drives can fail, and with externals I've had failures.

 

I keep pairs of them together in pelican cases:

 

 

 

so just don't do ssds ?

 

so instead of 1 ssd and a backblaze backup, i do 2 hard drives and a backblaze backup?

[OddOod]

21 hours ago, Indian pc builder said:

where would you even buy something like that?

Amazon

[OddOod]

3 hours ago, Indian pc builder said:

so instead of 1 ssd and a backblaze backup, i do 2 hard drives and a backblaze backup?

Yes

SSDs are *wicked* fast. There is ~no situation where a single person, or even a household, will actually use the speed of RAID SSDs, even if you had 10G speeds.
Given that you are specifically referring to archival data, there is no reason to use SSDs unless you are physically transporting the data frequently. Additionally, if it's mission critical data (cannot lose) you *need* to back it up in multiple locations, ideally one being cloud backup

[OhioYJ]

3 hours ago, Indian pc builder said:

so just don't do ssds ?

 

so instead of 1 ssd and a backblaze backup, i do 2 hard drives and a backblaze backup?

 

I would still have multiple copies of your data, so BackBlaze still isn't a bad idea. I still wouldn't use SSD for this purpose. I have multiple sets of those cases with pairs of hard drives so I have multiple copies. 

 

Think of it this way, if you have a SSD fail, do you want to download 4 TB of data from backblaze? It you have a pair of hard drives and one fails, you buy a new one and create a new copy. No worries about downloading TBs of data again.

[metadaddy]

On 3/12/2024 at 2:27 AM, Indian pc builder said:

 

so just don't do ssds ?

 

so instead of 1 ssd and a backblaze backup, i do 2 hard drives and a backblaze backup?

[Full disclosure - I'm Pat Patterson, Chief Technical Evangelist at Backblaze].

 

A good starting point when thinking about backups is the 3-2-1 rule - three copies of the data on two different media with one copy stored off-site, so 2 HDDs and Backblaze would be better than 1 SSD and Backblaze.

 

A local backup makes it fast and easy to retrieve your data in the event of a drive failure, accidental deletion etc. The remote backup allows you to recover from a catastrophe such as your building burning down. It's going to be slower to retrieve the data, but that's the tradeoff for storing it in a different location.

 

BTW - If you're using Backblaze B2, rather than Backblaze Computer Backup, you can even get fancy and protect the data stored at Backblaze against accidental or malicious deletion with object lock.