Need some storage advice.

[amas]

Hi, for the past couple of quarters, I have been using a pair of 3tb seagate backups as a storage/network drive. These have been just sitting next to my computer, which is always on, writing/reading data constantly over the whole day. Even when idle, these drives are still spinning and tend to get toasty. Since I'm afraid my drive might fail from this abuse, I'm planning on just turning these drives into a data backup (like what the hdd name implied  :rolleyes:) to be used sparingly and buying new internal drives to hold all my stuff and act as an always on p2p/media hub for my home.

 

I was thinking of getting WD Red drives but is this even necessary? I'm not putting them in a NAS environment, just in my case w/ plenty of ventilation. I'm not sure if the performance of these drives are even up to snuff. Can someone recommend any drives for my usage scenario? Maybe WD Blacks for better speeds over network? I have no clue. Brand doesn't matter, too.

 

 

 

*edit* I should also add that size of drive doesn't really matter as long as its under $150 each drive. Was planning on just buying 1-2.

[dylandylandylan]

Are you going to be reading/writing from these drives constantly? if not, then just go WD greens for backup. Low power, long life, etc. 

[amas]

Are you going to be reading/writing from these drives constantly? if not, then just go WD greens for backup. Low power, long life, etc. 

Yes, I'm going to be using it as a network drive. P2P and media hub for all my devices.

[dylandylandylan]

Yes, I'm going to be using it as a network drive. P2P and media hub for all my devices.

 

Ah I see, no point going enterprise level HDDs then :P I'd go with your suggestion, the WD blacks if you need the extra performance. 

[PBaines]

WD Green drives will be fine. You won't gain anything over the blue/black/red drives.

 

I have a file server which is my media hub, Usenet downloader for all my movies/tv series and then runs Plex too.

 

If you are worried about data loss have the drives in RAID 1.

 

I would recommend getting a NAS box tbh

 

Also, put most important files of value on a cloud based storage solution like Dropbox or Skydrive, or if you were clever, you would backup your dropbox onto your skydrive thus giving you two cloud backups with different hosts ;)

[amas]

WD Green drives will be fine. You won't gain anything over the blue/black/red drives.

 

I have a file server which is my media hub, Usenet downloader for all my movies/tv series and then runs Plex too.

 

If you are worried about data loss have the drives in RAID 1.

 

I would recommend getting a NAS box tbh

 

Also, put most important files of value on a cloud based storage solution like Dropbox or Skydrive, or if you were clever, you would backup your dropbox onto your skydrive thus giving you two cloud backups with different hosts ;)

Ya, a lot of my data is already stored using some cloud services. I was originally thinking of getting greens since I never noticed any problems with my current green drives but I was just wondering if the extra speed from blacks would've benefited all that much. I'll probably just get some greens and use the extra money on something else. I should probably test my drives too when I get them.