Are Western Digital drives trustworthy these days.

[mcc@mastodon.social]

@Kimiko_0 is the quality level of a 2010 WD drive necessarily equal to the quality level of a 2026 WD drive?

[kimiko_0@wetdry.world]

@mcc Considering capitalism, probably not necessarily. That's why I said 'not sure if relevant'. If it came to picking WD or another brand though, I'd pick WD based on my own experience, is what I meant to convey.

[shironeko@fedi.tesaguri.club]

@mcc @darkling
Durability wise any of the big brands are fine. However the intended use case for different SKUs is gonna matter quite a bit for getting reliablily/performance.

These external drives are tricky because they don't specify what actual hard drive is in there. Sometimes they put some decent drives in there for a lower price than internal and people would shuck them, but it's the exception not the rule.

IMO if you just want cheap mass storage and don't care about the performance (the use case these drives are targeting (say it's to store media/backup)) then just look at GB/$ and pick the cheapest. Otherwise, buy a known quality internal drive and put it in an enclosure.

[orca@nya.one]

@mcc@mastodon.social Don't buy portable HDDs. They're mostly SMR and prone to damage.

Get a Purple (surveillance), Red Pro (NAS), Black (performance) or Gold (datacenter, but very pricey, only if you've got the money) if you're going for WD drives. Get a decent enclosure (there are a lot of cheap but unstable enclosure on the market), too.

[lumiworx@mastodon.social]

@Orca @mcc

I would remind everyone that WD screwed every customer with the SMR debacle not long ago. They flat out, lied about their components, and rendered NAS devices useless for those expecting ultra-reliable hardware.

My experience with WD externals, ala 'Passport' and 'MyBook', is that they struggle to stay connected and fluctuate wildly in transfer speeds.

I switched over to Seagate IronWolfe, or at least Barracuda for desktops, and EXO or Helium filled.

The Cost Per Gigabyte of Hard Drives Over Time

For hard drive prices, the race to zero is over: nobody won. As you’ll see, the hard drive pricing curve has flattened out.

Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage & Cloud Backup (www.backblaze.com)

[lumiworx@mastodon.social]

@Orca @mcc

I think in the long run, it's better for me to get the drive I want as an internal and buy an enclosure to fit it for external use. USB 3.1 if possible, and USB-C if it's practical.

[orca@nya.one]

@lumiworx@mastodon.social @mcc@mastodon.social
Yeah that's why I said "Red Pro", not "Red", because "WD Red" is where WD slipped SMR in. Damn them.

Also isn't Seagate Barracuda also have a few SMR models?

[lumiworx@mastodon.social]

@Orca @mcc

For Barracuda... yes, most have SMR until you get to the 'Pro' series, which are mostly CMR.

I suggested "at least a Baracuda" as they were engineered to be business-class drives and had better performance for standard hard drives. If you're stuck at purchase time with fewer choices, then they will offer a minimum of quality for heavier demand users.

After getting stung on 3 consecutive WD Red failures after the silent switch over from CMR to SMR... ugh!

https://www.seagate.com/products/cmr-smr-list/

[mcc@mastodon.social]

ME: I want a 5 TB hard drive

Amazon: We can do that

Canada Computers: I can give you 12 TB for twice the price

Christine: Wait, Canada Computers has 12 TB drives for *how* much? Get two

Me, walking back from yonge-dundas square the next morning, absolutely twisted, carrying 24 TB of platter drives:

[kithrup@wandering.shop]

@mcc I got the last of my disks shipped to me from the US, and I have about 200TB of storage in the house.

[tristan@catnest.net]

@CliftonR @mcc many of those external from the factory Heads are "shingled" sectors, which write a lot slower and have very high failure rates.

[demize@unstable.systems]

@mcc they’ve got 14tb drives for about $500 apparently, which

I need another couple 14tb drives but I don’t $1000 need them… but what if they get more expensive…

(alas, now is not the time for me to buy new hard drives anyway)

[mcc@mastodon.social]

Hey if I want to format an HD for archival purposes, and I want it to be accessible from both Windows* and Linux** without problems, do I use… exfat? Will exfat freak out if I format it at absurdly high sizes like 12 TB, or give me an annoyingly high "minimum file size" or something? Are there any more-reliable/journaled FSes that both these OSes are happy with?

* 10
** Let's say Debian Trixie