discussion External hard drive recommendations?

[AdmiralSplinte]

Hey guys, thinking about snagging an external hard drive for extra storage.

Does anyone have any recommendations or favorite brands?

 

[kamas]

it;s always seagate for me been using it since 1990 and it;s rarely have problem second 1 is wd blue the price not much differents but it;s been up alot lately

 

[SilentHunter]

Buy an external disk enclosure and a SERVER HDD separately. The reliability and durability of such discs is beyond praise. You will change several computers, and these disks will work. I have a company whose products I trust, it is WD. Yes, server disks are noticeably more expensive than regular ones, but the price here is fully justified.

 

[Eve D'Apple]

If this is to store important data like personal or professional stuff, or if you're going to be doing heavy reading/writing, yes a server grade HDD in an enclosure that has cooling will be the most reliable option.

If this is just to store porn and other pirated shit, it is significantly cheaper to just buy a Seagate or WD consumer level external drive and it will probably be perfectly fine.

 

[exlurker]

I just get 2 cheap ones for the price of a good one (2 copies of data), and update to larger capacity when one breaks after 5 years. Otherwise I end up with tiny disks which still work but are too small.

 

[Eve D'Apple]

It's also important to understand that there are no guarantees with HDD reliability, a WD Gold enterprise class HDD might die in a couple months while a Seagate Barracuda consumer drive might live for a decade. At large sample sizes the enterprise server and NAS drives will come out with better numbers, and when purchasing an individual drive your odds will be better with a drive built for heavy usage, but the edge is smaller than you might expect unless you'll be running the drive(s) hard and those drives intended for server racks tend to be louder and run hotter than less performant drives intended for consumer use.

 

[backlog-cult]

Compare the listing for speed, space and price. It doesn't always stay the same for the drives.
Regarding brand, WD is what I have been using and no issue. I have them as multiple 8-16TB HDDs for years and it has been super reliable.
I also have a UnionSine 18TB and it's suprisingly good and cheap. I think they are based from Toshiba because that's what it show up as.
If you go for a super big drive (12TB, 18TB, 24TB, etc.), and is annoyed at super click-y sound, avoid Seagate. I have a 24TB Seagate and it sound like the drive is about to die every time it boot up but no that's their normal sound
If you want to control the drive temp and save space, I think a powered external enclosure + with internal HDD inside it will also work better than multiple big HDD that requires it's own power outlet. Pricewise they are around the same but you invest a bit more in the enclosure (Ugreen, Teramaster, etc.) that has ~5-10Gbps that will split among the drives. You can go for the 20Gbps one but then your PC need a PCie adapter that support that. Recommending WD again here over Seagate, also read the drive specs because WD have different version for different purposes. Prioritize 7200 RPM and has speed > 200MB/s.

 

[SilentHunter]

It's also important to understand that there are no guarantees with HDD reliability, a WD Gold enterprise class HDD might die in a couple months while a Seagate Barracuda consumer drive might live for a decade. At large sample sizes the enterprise server and NAS drives will come out with better numbers, and when purchasing an individual drive your odds will be better with a drive built for heavy usage, but the edge is smaller than you might expect unless you'll be running the drive(s) hard and those drives intended for server racks tend to be louder and run hotter than less performant drives intended for consumer use.

Anything can fail, but here's my example - 2 HDD WD server "golden series" (4 terabytes each) have been working for me almost around the clock since 2013, downloading and distributing torrents, i.e. this load is very decent. The noise doesn't bother me, the temperature (this is normal) is 45-50 degrees Celsius). These drives don't work as external drives, I just bought a very spacious case with a good cooling system for them.

 

[Digga123]

currently the prices are really high sadly but I like the ones from samsung, good speed and good quality, I personaly prefer internal drives though.