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Archive 2020 · HDD: what and where to get?

AmbientMike
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · HDD: what and where to get?

I usually just go to Office Depot and get a USB drive. I hate to order it and have the shipping companies potentially mistreat it. But thinking I should look around for a change.

2TB is nice because I can use it on xp machines. But 4TB or more would be nice.

What's good? Mostly interested in reliability, I have been getting the plain, under $100 ones

Jan 05, 2020 at 08:31 PM

kosin
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · HDD: what and where to get?

I usually buy WD external drives as they are often on sale. Currently, Amazon has 4TB drives on sale for $79 - https://amzn.to/2QQMsau

Amazon usually ships items well packed but if you encounter any problems, you can always return it within 30 days.

If you need more storage, 8TB can be had for $129 while on sale. Right before the holidays, Best Buy was selling 14TB drives for $179. These drives can be easily "extracted" from the enclosure and used inside a computer or NAS.

Jan 05, 2020 at 08:55 PM

AmbientMike
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · HDD: what and where to get?

kosin wrote:
I usually buy WD external drives as they are often on sale. Currently, Amazon has 4TB drives on sale for $79 - https://amzn.to/2QQMsau

Amazon usually ships items well packed but if you encounter any problems, you can always return it within 30 days.

If you need more storage, 8TB can be had for $129 while on sale. Right before the holidays, Best Buy was selling 14TB drives for $179. These drives can be easily "extracted" from the enclosure and used inside a computer or NAS.

Wow, that's tempting. $80 for 4tb. Worried about shipping, but office Depot/ bestbuy are 45+ minutes drive, and I feel like I should buy elsewhere this time. So I'm thinking about it.

Jan 05, 2020 at 10:44 PM

EB-1
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · HDD: what and where to get?

Most retail products are packaged fairly well. Even if the box is damaged a little the drive is usually fine.
Specifically, the WD Easystore drives are suspended with two soft plastic parts within the box and then inside the enclosure the drive is isolated with 4 rubber mounts. I think the box should withstand about 2m, but haven't dropped them that far.

EBH

Jan 05, 2020 at 10:54 PM

rscheffler
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · HDD: what and where to get?

I don't think there is a difference in quality between the two major makes: Seagate and WD. 4TB is probably the sweet spot for $/TB.

If you don't need a whole ton of storage (more than 2TB), prices of SSD drives are now quite compelling. Of course not as inexpensive as traditional HDDs, especially at the higher capacities, but up to 2TB is now fairly reasonable. SSD prices have dropped by about half in the past 1-1.5 years. No need to worry about damage in transit. You can pop one in a USB enclosure, of just use it bare with a USB-SATA cable.

SSDs probably benefit from use with newer operating systems due to differences in how they allocate and reclaim free space. I.e. TRIM and garbage collection, possibly not supported by XP.

The ultra cheap HDDs, such as 4TB for $80 and 8TB for $130, probably use SMR - Shingled Magnetic Recording technology, which packs more information into a given area. Due to how it works, combined with inexpensive consumer drives, performance tends to take a hit during extended, sustained write sessions. These drives have a fast cache of a given size to allow burst transfers, which are then transferred behind the scenes to permanent locations on the drive. If you tend to write a lot to a drive in a session, after the SMR drive's cache fills, you'll be hit with glacial write speeds. Potentially worse than USB 2 speeds. For example when SMR first came to the market Seagate marketed them as 'archive' drives. I have some of these as 8TB and they are extremely slow write speed once you fill the cache. Later Seagate silently migrated SMR to their 4TB drives. The only way you'd know when buying online was if you recognized the slightly different model number. Physically, the bare 4TB 3.5" SMR drives are about 25% thinner than typical 3.5" drives, which is another way to recognize them as SMR tech. These are fine for general data storage; things like photos, videos, documents, etc. SMR drives are not good for use as boot drives due to the many small file read/writes generated by the OS 'clashing' with SMR's inherent slow write, and especially re-write speed.

Unfortunately with the drives sold in USB enclosures, it's unclear which ones are SMR. More likely from Seagate, but I'm not sure about WD. It's not that the tech is unreliable, rather, if you're getting an 8TB+ drive and plan to transfer a lot of data to it, the transfer rate will be really slow.

Jan 06, 2020 at 12:17 AM

Mike_5D
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · HDD: what and where to get?

Hard drives are actually very robust when not spinning.

The one you get from a store has already been kicked around in shipping before arriving at the store. Its not like Office Depot is making them in back. It makes no difference where you get it as long as you deal with reputable seller.

Jan 06, 2020 at 12:24 AM

rscheffler
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · HDD: what and where to get?

I buy a lot of bare 3.5" HDDs. Years ago I received an order of two from an online retailer (here in Canada). They packed the two bare drives, in ESD baggies and in a slightly larger cardboard box. That was it! No other padding at all. The box arrived pretty beat up. I was very unhappy and complained to the retailer, but ended up stuck with the drives. They still worked. But I would not want to trust them to mission-critical use.

Similar has happened with Amazon Canada shipments if the HDD vendor was not Amazon, even though it was fulfilled by Amazon. However, HDDs sold and fulfilled by Amazon have always arrived packed in special 'HDD boxes' that were in turn packed inside their normal Amazon boxes. When buying from Amazon (Canada), I always make sure the drives are sold by Amazon. Not sure if similar holds true for Amazon USA...

Jan 06, 2020 at 01:18 AM

dmcphoto
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · HDD: what and where to get?

Hard drives, when they are powered off, are very durable. The heads are "parked" solidly off of the platter so no head or platter damage occurs if they receive a hard knock. I once dropped a bare portable hard drive onto a hardwood floor by accident and it was fine. To become non-functional they'd need a knock hard enough to mechanically bend something or damage the electronics, which is extremely unlikely. OTOH, when they are powered up and running they can be quite fragile.

Jan 06, 2020 at 06:37 AM

JohanEickmeyer
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · HDD: what and where to get?

I think there might some truth to their durability when powered off. I ordered some drives from BandH years ago that were sent across the country in a simple, small envelope with no extra padding, and even the drive packaging had close to zero padding. The thing was clearly beat to hell and back several times, but the drives are still working 8 years later as data backup for my files.

I have, although, been moving on to using high-capacity USB flash drives with encryption to store my photos. Along with a ruthless application of the delete button to clear out all of the junk that shouldn't be saved anyway. I can store the drives anywhere, even in a little jar out in the woods for off-site storage. They are cheap and use 128 bit encryption which means I don't care if someone finds one and steals it.

Jan 06, 2020 at 07:40 AM

schlotz
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · HDD: what and where to get?

Mike, remember the brick & mortar stores had to receive the shipped drives as well. I personally wouldn't get too concerned over the shipping aspect. Most of my recently purchased drives have come from Amazon and haven't been a problem.

Jan 06, 2020 at 10:09 AM

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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · HDD: what and where to get?

I have one WD (2TB) and one Toshiba (3TB), copying stuff from the WD to the Toshiba for backup. The WD is where I store most anything but I think I'll need to upgrade pretty soon.

Oh, both are 2.5", USB 3.0. I'm long since done with 3.5" and everything requiring external AC power.

Jan 06, 2020 at 10:33 AM

deepbluejh
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · HDD: what and where to get?

Are you really using a computer that still has Windows XP on it? If so, that might be the first thing you look into upgrading.

Regardless, I normally suggest buying on the capacity you need (with buffer for the future), and warranty. I won't buy any drive with a 1-year warranty. It's 3+ years only for me.

Western Digital and Toshiba both make excellent drives. Seagate isn't bad, but tends to be noticeably less reliable then most.

Jan 06, 2020 at 11:02 AM

Sunny Sra
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · HDD: what and where to get?

Go to Bestbuy if you have one in your area, show them the price of Amazon...they will pricematch and you can walkout with a hard drive without worrying about shipping.

Jan 06, 2020 at 12:03 PM

dmcphoto
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · HDD: what and where to get?

deepbluejh wrote:
Are you really using a computer that still has Windows XP on it? If so, that might be the first thing you look into upgrading.

Regardless, I normally suggest buying on the capacity you need (with buffer for the future), and warranty. I won't buy any drive with a 1-year warranty. It's 3+ years only for me.

Western Digital and Toshiba both make excellent drives. Seagate isn't bad, but tends to be noticeably less reliable then most.

In the past I always used WD and Toshiba too, but in recent years have had good luck with Seagate's "Iron Wolf" drives. They have a 3 year warranty (5 years on the Pro version), 1 million hour MTBF, etc., Now I need to find something made of wood to knock on.

Jan 06, 2020 at 12:10 PM

chez
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · HDD: what and where to get?

Some reliability stats on hard drives from Backblaze.

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-hard-drive-stats-q3-2019/

Jan 06, 2020 at 12:15 PM

CanNik
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p.1 #16 · p.1 #16 · HDD: what and where to get?

I don't understand the concern with shipping. They get to the brick and mortar stores the same way they get to your house... shipped and the container is likely abused too. As for what is good... that depends on what you're asking, internal or external? If it's internal, go with Samsung EVO SSD (or an NVMe HDD if your motherboard supports it). Your original post says USB drive so you're talking about external drive. WD and Seagate are still my choice for ext HDD.

Jan 06, 2020 at 12:18 PM

Sunny Sra
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p.1 #17 · p.1 #17 · HDD: what and where to get?

dmcphoto wrote:
In the past I always used WD and Toshiba too, but in recent years have had good luck with Seagate's "Iron Wolf" drives. They have a 3 year warranty (5 years on the Pro version), 1 million hour MTBF, etc., Now I need to find something made of wood to knock on.

Mike is just looking for standard USB drive, it's hard to tell which model of drive is inside of the USB case. The ironwolf etc are stand alone drives that go inside a computer....or...if you buy a case and add your own drive.

Jan 06, 2020 at 12:19 PM

AmbientMike
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p.1 #18 · p.1 #18 · HDD: what and where to get?

Thanks for the excellent responses so far. My thinking on shipping, that several of you commented on, is that a retailer is going to be doing their own shipping from the distribution center to the storefront, and is less likely to throw stuff than the regular shipping companies. Could be wrong, but that's why I've been doing it that way.

But it sounds like these are more durable and resistant to impact than I thought. Maybe I'll order this time.

I'm more interested in the external USB hdd's but putting one in an enclosure probably wouldn't be particularly difficult either I suppose. Have read stuff I didn't like about the thumb drives/ USB sticks for backup, but I did get one for Christmas and might back something up on it

Jan 06, 2020 at 12:50 PM

rscheffler
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p.1 #19 · p.1 #19 · HDD: what and where to get?

JohanEickmeyer wrote:
I have, although, been moving on to using high-capacity USB flash drives with encryption to store my photos. Along with a ruthless application of the delete button to clear out all of the junk that shouldn't be saved anyway. I can store the drives anywhere, even in a little jar out in the woods for off-site storage. They are cheap and use 128 bit encryption which means I don't care if someone finds one and steals it.

Just a note that SSD/flash memory has its own set of concerns related to longterm storage. If it is left unpowered for long periods, the electrical charge that resides in each 'memory cell' (not sure if that is the correct term) can degrade. I would suggest reading this post on StackExchange.

That's not to say you will lose data, just that it could happen sooner than you might expect. On the other hand, I've run ancient CF cards through data recovery, ones that were likely unused for 5+ years, and pulled very old images off them.

Like any storage media, there are tradeoffs. SSDs are great as a working drive that you will have constantly plugged in. If you want something to store and forget about for a year+, then HDDs may be a better option, though they should also be 'exercised' from time to time to keep the mechanical components in shape.

Really I think it comes down to multiple backups and media types. I.e. HDDs, flash/SSD, cloud, tape (if you're hard core), etc.

Jan 06, 2020 at 12:51 PM

rscheffler
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p.1 #20 · p.1 #20 · HDD: what and where to get?

AmbientMike wrote:
Thanks for the excellent responses so far. My thinking on shipping, that several of you commented on, is that a retailer is going to be doing their own shipping from the distribution center to the storefront, and is less likely to throw stuff than the regular shipping companies. Could be wrong, but that's why I've been doing it that way.

But it sounds like these are more durable and resistant to impact than I thought. Maybe I'll order this time.

I'm more interested in the external USB hdd's but putting one in an enclosure probably wouldn't be particularly difficult either I suppose....Show more →

The retailer will probably receive HDDs packed in bulk in a larger, properly packed box. Bare HDDs are usually securely packed roughly 20 or 24 on a foam 'skid' that is then in a box.

It's probably cheaper to buy HDDs in the USB enclosures. My issue with them is I have a lot of HDDs and it's a pain to manage all the power bricks, cables, etc. I've also had situations where a drive apparently died, but it was the enclosure that failed. I just go with bare drives in a 5-bay tray-less enclosure and swap them around as needed. Until recently I bought the USB drives and just pulled the HDDs out of them, but then the SMR tech came along and I was no longer sure what would be in those enclosures. I have also read, but unsure how reliable the info is, that HDD brands put refurbed HDDs into the enclosures and sell them cheap as consumer drives that will see irregular and less stressful use scenarios.

Jan 06, 2020 at 12:58 PM

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