Questions about HHD size for storage

Wasn't sure where to put this. Any way... I'm redoing my storage set up and wondered about the efficiency and reliability of many smaller drives vs fewer larger drives. Price-wise, a larger drive is cheaper than multiple smaller drives (such as a 12tb is cheaper than 4 3tb, 3 4tb or 2 6tb), and, I should note, I always back up important data twice, so if I went with a 12tb (which is my inclination), I'd only need two, whereas I'd need 8, 6 or 4 of the smaller drives. I've been using WD Reds (along with 2 Samsung external ssds) and they've worked well for me, but the largest I have is pair of 6tb in my NAS, so I have no experience with the larger drives.

@PBzeer

Generally the drives that are powers of two are better.
Like 2, 4, 8, 16

I've been using WD Blacks forever. I haven't had any failures.






WD 36GB Raptor
M/N: WDC WD360GD-00FLA1

WD 300GB Velociraptor
M/N: WD3000HLFS-01G6U0

WD 500GB Velociraptor
M/N: WD5000HHTZ-04N21V0

WD 1TB Caviar Black (x3)
M/N: WD1002FAEX-00Y9A0

WD 2TB Black (x3)
M/N: WD2003FZEX-00Z4SA0

WD 4TB Black
M/N: WD4005FZBX-00X5WB0

WD 8TB Black
M/N: WD8001FZBX-00ASYA0

Samsung 860 EVO 500GB (x2)
M/N: MZ-76E500

PBzeer said:

Wasn't sure where to put this. Any way... I'm redoing my storage set up and wondered about the efficiency and reliability of many smaller drives vs fewer larger drives. Price-wise, a larger drive is cheaper than multiple smaller drives (such as a 12tb is cheaper than 4 3tb, 3 4tb or 2 6tb), and, I should note, I always back up important data twice, so if I went with a 12tb (which is my inclination), I'd only need two, whereas I'd need 8, 6 or 4 of the smaller drives. I've been using WD Reds (along with 2 Samsung external ssds) and they've worked well for me, but the largest I have is pair of 6tb in my NAS, so I have no experience with the larger drives.

Click to expand...

As you very sensibly say, you intend to backup to 2x12 TB drives (100% redundancy if one fails). 11/10 for that!.

However, I am a firm believer in categorising data (e.g. critical, fairly important, not that important), and not just blindly backing up everything "because you can".

Often, a lot of data is items like video files which take a lot of space, but can often be redownloaded without too much difficulty (assuming a reasonable internet speed). So is it worth backing up such data to multiple drives? Personally, I do not bother backing up large video files or very large (30 GB+) Insider virtual hard drives that I can easily recreate (e.g. clone main OS to a vhdx file, rejoin appropriate Insider).

If a user reviews their data, they will often find critical data is only a small percentage of their stored data (in my case, less than 15%). This data, as a minimum, should most certainly be backed up to at least two different drives (I actually use onedrive and one physical drive).

Over time, data storage inexorably grows, and if not managed, eventually you run out and need to upgrade your storage requirements.

It's not really any different to storage cupboards at home (my ex could fill cupboards faster than I could build them as my ex was a massive hoarder lol).
Getting my ex to throw away old stuff was a nightmare!

For sure, simply backing up everything to two locations is an acceptable solution but (imo) is not necessarily a cost effective and time efficient solution.
In the end, I strongly recommend users think about their data and define a backup strategy that suits them.

Can such large drives (HDD, not SSD) be found that do not use Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR)?

mta3006 said:

Can such large drives (HDD, not SSD) be found that do not use Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR)?

Click to expand...

Seagate IronWolf Pro drives use CMR recording for reliability and consistency. I'm sure there are others, you just have to check the specifications first. The plain IronWolf drive also uses CMR.

cereberus said:

In the end, I strongly recommend users think about their data and define a backup strategy that suits them.

Click to expand...

I pretty much do as you suggest already. Critical for me is backups, financial data and other personal data, and media (775 movies in .mkv, well over 300 music CD's in .mp3 and videos I have made in .mp4). About 8tb total, with a bit over 4tb in the NAS and the other 4 spread over multiple disks in my DAS. In my setup, I use a Toshiba Dynadock to run mouse/keyboard, speakers, monitor for laptops and 2 Samsung external 1tb ssd's where I save most things I want to have easy access to. I try to save as little as possible to my C drive. I looking to add a 4 bay NAS, primarily for backups and keep my current 2 bay NAS for media.