Are Western Digital drives trustworthy these days.
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@darkling if i am looking at a specific WD drive, is there a way of finding out if it's one with a dodgy firmware?
@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. -
Are Western Digital drives trustworthy these days. If I want to buy a pretty big non-flash hard drive for "backup and throw in a drawer" purposes, is this a good choice
@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. -
@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.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)
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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)
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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 @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 @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?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!
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Are Western Digital drives trustworthy these days. If I want to buy a pretty big non-flash hard drive for "backup and throw in a drawer" purposes, is this a good choice
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:
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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:
@mcc I got the last of my disks shipped to me from the US, and I have about 200TB of storage in the house.
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Now I see you're thinking about those portable drive-in-a-box things, I would not trust any brand of those. I've seen too many, of many different brands, abruptly die on people.
My wife has a WD Passport from & for her job, and that's been doing OK but I still wouldn't trust it.
On my desktop computer I use one of the USB-3 to SATA adapter thingies that you can plug any SATA drive into and have it show up.
If you want to carry it around, then ya, you have to figure out an enclosure.
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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:
@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)
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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:
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 -
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