Buying HDD for backup

[K0stas]

Hello everyone!

 

I am new on the forum but I am a huge fan of linus' videos and I ve been following his channel for a few years!

Now I need to make a decision and I don't have the necessary knowledge or the experience so I need your help.

 

Yesterday, when I was "tidying" my external WD 3TB HHD the explorer stopper responding when I was trying to

move some files in the hard drive so I decided to run some tests using the crystal Disk and WD lifeguard and I

got errors from both of them:

 

WD Lifeguard error

 

Status code = 09 (Failed read test element), Failure Checkpoint = 97 (Unknown Test)

 

Crystal Disk error

 

C5 - Current Pending sector count - Current 200 - Worst 200 - Raw value 000000000001

 

C6 - Uncorrectable Sector Count - Current 200 - Worst 200 - Raw value 000000000001

 

I am always careful with my Backup HDs so I use a fan to keep them cool and I only plug them when I need to use them.

I bought this hard drive 4 years ago and I only used it for 769 hours so far.

 

The Hard drive still works but I can't risk losing my files since I spend a lot of time collecting and organizing them

so I want to buy a new HDD and move them there. And this is exactly my problem, I don't know what to choose.

 

My first thought was to buy a 4 TB mybook hard drive, move all the files I don't want to lose there, store it somewhere

and only use it every half year to backup new files. I have 2 problems though:

 

Firstly, I don't know if this is a reliable way to backup my data, I don't want to live in fear that I might suddenly lose my files just because I chose a bad drive.

The Mybook series comes with Hard drive models such us Green, blue or black which are not as reliable as reds (according to my research and personal

experience with green drives)

 

Secondly, I have several TBs of data ( I have 2 more external HDs) and I don't believe a 4TB solution will be futureproof. From my research so

far though I found out that 5TB+ Hard drives are less reliable than lower capacity drives so this is why I don't want to choose a bigger HD.

 

My other plan was to buy a duo case and use two 4TB Reds in Raid 0 for a reliable 8TBs of storage, but then I read a topic here about raid 0 and

changed my mind. I could go for raid 1 or 10 but I just don't have the money for this kind of investment (in my country a single 4tb red costs 160 euros-180$)

 

I am open to any suggestion at the moment since I have absolutely no idea what to do.

 

To conclude, I need a long term storage solution (4-8TB) to backup all my important files. I can spend around 200 euros (225$) but I will be able to spend

a bit more if it's necessary (especially for an 6-8TB solution).

 

Thank you in advance

 

 

[Cryosec]

You could go the NAS-way and buy a double slot case and only one 4TB Red. Then, when you'll have the extra cash, get the second 4TB and go Raid 1

[K0stas]

1 minute ago, Cryosec said:

You could go the NAS-way and buy a double slot case and only one 4TB Red. Then, when you'll have the extra cash, get the second 4TB and go Raid 1

I am not very familiar with NAS.

 

Won't I have to format the drives when I install a second one in order to do Raid 1?

 

I would really like the idea of using a 4 bay NAS and start with only 1 drive and when

I have more money buy more drives for a raid 10 configuration but is it that simple?
 

[Cryosec]

2 minutes ago, K0stas said:

I am not very familiar with NAS.

 

Won't I have to format the drives when I install a second one in order to do Raid 1?

 

I would really like the idea of using a 4 bay NAS and start with only 1 drive and when

I have more money buy more drives for a raid 10 configuration but is it that simple?
 

yeah I kinda forgot about the formatting. my bad. If you can't spend the cash for a 2-bay (or 4-bay, if you really want it) you could do the job manually, buying a 4TB drive, backing up, and when you can, buy the second drive and copy/paste from the first backup. it's like a fake Raid 1. Or you could just put away some more cash and buy 2-bay NAS with 2x4TB. Your choice, it's quite the same (except for read speed, obviously)

[CommandMan7]

Well, right now you could just get the cheapest per-GB drives you can get, which for me at least is a Hitachi 3TB drive for $72. If you get 4 of them and put them in a cheap PC (assuming you can get one for like $50 used) then you can have a 6TB RAID 1 or RAID 10 system for around $300. This would protect your data even if two drives failed. If you look up data for those drives in particular ( model# 7K3000) then the failure rate is about 2%. That makes the chance of a single drive failure around 8%, and the chance of two drives failing at once about 0.0064%, and the chance of three drives failing at once (and therefore causing data loss) about 0.000512%. Keep in mind the chance of a failure is still 8%, but the chance of a failure causing data loss is extremely small. Of course this is a bit more than your budget but it essentially makes sure your data is safe. You could also buy a 4 bay NAS for $200 and a single 3TB drive to start, and slowly build it up from there.

[K0stas]

10 minutes ago, CommandMan7 said:

Well, right now you could just get the cheapest per-GB drives you can get, which for me at least is a Hitachi 3TB drive for $72. If you get 4 of them and put them in a cheap PC (assuming you can get one for like $50 used) then you can have a 6TB RAID 1 or RAID 10 system for around $300. This would protect your data even if two drives failed. If you look up data for those drives in particular ( model# 7K3000) then the failure rate is about 2%. That makes the chance of a single drive failure around 8%, and the chance of two drives failing at once about 0.0064%, and the chance of three drives failing at once (and therefore causing data loss) about 0.000512%. Keep in mind the chance of a failure is still 8%, but the chance of a failure causing data loss is extremely small. Of course this is a bit more than your budget but it essentially makes sure your data is safe. You could also buy a 4 bay NAS for $200 and a single 3TB drive to start, and slowly build it up from there.

The cheapest 3TB hitachi drives will cost me 126 euros each (in my country) so buying 4 of them is too much for me.

Also, if I have to format my drives to for raid 10 an NAS will be no good since by the time I buy all the drives I will not have

enough space in my other HDs to store my backup files while I format the NAS drives.

 

Is it possible to use a cheap server pc with fake raid one (like cryosec said) for backup? If yes, how does it work, do I use

ethernet to move/read files to or from my main PC?

 

I would love to have a server where I could simply add hard drives every time I need more space without formatting every single

drive. Is something like this possible?

[K0stas]

I did some more research about the options I have and I found another one, create a custom external HD.

 

That way I can use a HD case like LC power 35u3 becrux and then choose the HD I want.

 

• For my hard drive I am between a WD red or a red pro and I would like some help.

          Is the red pro overkill for me? All I want is reliability so I don't care about speed or things like that.

 

• Another thing I wanted to ask you is about the size of the HD. Are bigger HDs less reliable and easier to break?

          For example, is there a higher chance for a 6tb HD to stop working than a 4TB one?

 

What do you thing about this solution?

 

 

 

 

[Captain_WD]

17 hours ago, K0stas said:

~snip~

Hello K0stas welcome to the community! 

 

The guys gave you some good explanations and suggestions so I won't comment on that unless you have any specific questions regarding any of the previous things.

 

On the topic about WD Red vs WD Red Pro I would say that each drive has its own design and it's up to you to decide. 
WD Red is the basic NAS/RAID drive that works very well in servers, NAS devices, RAID arrays and performs quite well while maintaining lower temperatures and noise levels.

WD Red Pro is the "beefed up" version which is designed to work in drive pools with up to 16 drives in the same case. The drive handles better vibrations and heat, spins faster (at 7,200 rpm) and has some improvements towards the firmware and safety plus it delivers extremely good performance. It may be a bit of an overkill for you if you don't really need such performance or don't plan to expand your storage pool to more than 8 drives.

 

I wouldn't really say that larger or smaller drives are safer to use. What you can take into consideration is the amount of data that you would lose if a drive fails. Naturally, 8TB is twice as much as 4TB so you would lose twice as much data, but having a stable RAID array of a certain amount would require you twice as much 4TB drives compared to 8TB drives which results in larger budget so it's really up to you.

 

If you happen to have any questions whatsoever, feel free to ask!

 

Captain_WD.
 

[K0stas]

21 hours ago, Captain_WD said:

~snip~

Thank you very much for your help.

 

I agree with you, the red pro is overkill for me since I will use the drive a few hours every 4-5 months to

backup my most important files.

 

Even if I wanted to build a NAS in the future it would be a 4 bay one so a red is still more than good for that.

 

I decided to buy a 4TB red HD with a HD enclosure which will cost me about 180 euros which is perfect for my budget.

That way I will know that the drive in the enclosure is good and I will be able to use it in a NAS if I want to in the future.

 

Thank you all for taking the time to reply to my post! You were really helpful!

[Captain_WD]

1 hour ago, K0stas said:

~snip~

You are most welcome! I'm glad I can be of help If there's anything else I can do for you - feel free to ask.

Have in mind that even if you have the drive unplugged all the time, this won't grant you full safety to your data if that's the only place you have it. For a complete and safe backup you need to have your data on at least two different places so you can get it in case something happens with either of them.

Captain_WD.