Suggestions for a dependable storage drive


Ghot said:
I've owned/own about twenty of them.
They all still work flawlessly.

What size are you looking for? WD and Seagate are decent 3.5" drives.
Stay away from WD Blue or Green. I'm not 100% sure but the WD Ultrastars, used to be Hitachi DeskStars (DeathStars).
Western Digital acquired Hitachi's hard disk drive (HDD) business in 2012.




I'm using these at the moment...

WD 4TB Black
M/N: WD4005FZBX

WD 8TB Black
M/N: WD8001FZBX
Click to expand...
I'm looking for 8 to 12TB. I'll take a look at the 8TB you mentioned. Thanks!
 

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Mine run about this fast...

0000 Crystal - WD Black 7200rpm FZBX.webp
 

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    Still assembled, still runs. Haven't turned it on for 15 years?
Have you given up on the WD My Book and WD Elements external drives? If so, then have your thought of "shucking" the drives. That means to remove the internal SATA drives from their enclosure. The only thing that may have failed was the internal SATA to USB board in the drive. The drive itself may be OK.

I have a 2TB Seagate Expansion Desktop external drive. The drive started being intermittent so I managed to copy all the data off of it before it finally failed. I shucked the drive and put it into an external enclosure. The internal drive was a 3.5-in Seagate Barracuda SATA HDD. Checking the drive showed it was encrypted so I couldn't read it. No matter because I already saved the data. I repartitioned and reformatted the drive. Testing it showed that it was good now. I copied the data back onto it.
 

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    Windows 11 Pro 25H2 (26200.6901)
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    ASUS TUF Gaming A15 (2022)
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    AMD Ryzen 7 6800H with Radeon 680M GPU (486MB RAM)
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    2 x Samsung 990 Evo Plus (2TB M.2 NVME SSD)
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    Samsung G50D IPS 27"
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    SAMSUNG 990 EVO Plus (2TB] M.2 NVME SSD
    SAMSUNG 990 EVO Plus (4TB) M.2 NVME SSD
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    Logitech M310 (MK540 keyboard/mouse combo)
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    2100 Mbps down / 300 Mbps up
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    Firefox, Edge, Chrome
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    Malwarebytes (Premium)
    Other Info
    ASUS Blu-ray Burner BW-16D1HT (SATA) || Western Digital Easystore 20TB USB 3.0 external hard drive used with Acronis True Image 2025 backup software || HP OfficeJet Pro 6975 Printer/Scanner
Depending on how tech savvy you are, you can build your own NAS.
Desktop PC that has 6 or 8 SATA connectors.. perhaps has one or two m.2 slots.
Then you install a free OS.. there is several out there, but just one hits me in writing moment. TrueNas community edition... it was also know as FreeNas.

or just cheat.. set up windows on a Desktop PC and load it with so many Sata HDD's you can fit and use file-sharing.
When choosing good HDD's for NAS/server usage they should be CMR disks.

you can google on: CMR VS SMR NAS / Server usage
or ask Chat GPT the same question :-)
 

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    Oldest intel 8088 up to P4 dual core
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    MFM, IDE, SCSI
Meisha said:
When you said "spinner", I thought you meant a non-RAID, non-NAS drive.
Click to expand...
A SATA "NAS" drive is little different from a common or garden SATA drive. It's spec'd for more continuous use, and may make less vibration.
 

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    Windows 11 26200.8728Amd Threadripper 7970X128GB (4 X 32) G.Skill DDR5 6400 (RDIMM)Gigabyte RTX 4090 OC
    OS
    Windows 11 26200.8728
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Manufacturer/Model
    homebuilt
    CPU
    Amd Threadripper 7970X
    Motherboard
    Gigabyte TRX50 Aero D Rev. 1.0
    Memory
    128GB (4 X 32) G.Skill DDR5 6400 (RDIMM)
    Graphics Card(s)
    Gigabyte RTX 4090 OC
    Sound Card
    none (USB to speakers), Realtek
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Innocn 32" OLED
    Screen Resolution
    3840 X 2160 @ 60Hz
    Hard Drives
    Crucial T700 2TB M.2 NVME SSD
    WD 4TB Blue SATA SSD
    Seagate 18TB IronWolf Pro
    PSU
    BeQuiet! Straight Power 12 1500W
    Case
    Lian Li 011 Dynamic Evo XL
    Cooling
    SilverStone Technology XE360-TR5, with 3 Phanteks T30 fans
    Keyboard
    Cherry KC 500 MX LP (mechanical)
    Mouse
    Logitech M500s (wired)
    Internet Speed
    2000/250 Mbps (down/up)
    Other Info
    xFinity gateway

  • At a glance

    windows 11 26200.8728Intel I9-13900K64GB G.Skill DDR5-6000Gigabyte RTX 3090 ti
    Operating System
    windows 11 26200.8728
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Manufacturer/Model
    homebuilt
    CPU
    Intel I9-13900K
    Motherboard
    Asus RoG Strix Z690-E
    Memory
    64GB G.Skill DDR5-6000
    Graphics card(s)
    Gigabyte RTX 3090 ti
    Sound Card
    built in Realtek
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Philips 27E1N8900 27" OLED
    Screen Resolution
    3840 X 2160 @60Hz
    Hard Drives
    WDC SN850 1TB
    8TB Seagate Ironwolf
    4TB Seagate Ironwolf
    PSU
    eVGA SuperNOVA 1300 GT
    Case
    Lian Li 011 Dynamic Evo
    Cooling
    Corsair iCUE H150i ELITE CAPELLIX Liquid CPU Cooler
    Keyboard
    Cherry Streaming (wired)
    Mouse
    Logitech M500s (wired)
MisterEd said:
Have you given up on the WD My Book and WD Elements external drives? If so, then have your thought of "shucking" the drives. That means to remove the internal SATA drives from their enclosure. The only thing that may have failed was the internal SATA to USB board in the drive. The drive itself may be OK.

I have a 2TB Seagate Expansion Desktop external drive. The drive started being intermittent so I managed to copy all the data off of it before it finally failed. I shucked the drive and put it into an external enclosure. The internal drive was a 3.5-in Seagate Barracuda SATA HDD. Checking the drive showed it was encrypted so I couldn't read it. No matter because I already saved the data. I repartitioned and reformatted the drive. Testing it showed that it was good now. I copied the data back onto it.
Click to expand...
Do both of those contain ordinary SATA drives? Some external drives use other interior interfaces, so the drives can't be extracted and plugged into standard SATA connections.
 

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System One System Two

  • At a glance

    Windows 11 26200.8728Amd Threadripper 7970X128GB (4 X 32) G.Skill DDR5 6400 (RDIMM)Gigabyte RTX 4090 OC
    OS
    Windows 11 26200.8728
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Manufacturer/Model
    homebuilt
    CPU
    Amd Threadripper 7970X
    Motherboard
    Gigabyte TRX50 Aero D Rev. 1.0
    Memory
    128GB (4 X 32) G.Skill DDR5 6400 (RDIMM)
    Graphics Card(s)
    Gigabyte RTX 4090 OC
    Sound Card
    none (USB to speakers), Realtek
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Innocn 32" OLED
    Screen Resolution
    3840 X 2160 @ 60Hz
    Hard Drives
    Crucial T700 2TB M.2 NVME SSD
    WD 4TB Blue SATA SSD
    Seagate 18TB IronWolf Pro
    PSU
    BeQuiet! Straight Power 12 1500W
    Case
    Lian Li 011 Dynamic Evo XL
    Cooling
    SilverStone Technology XE360-TR5, with 3 Phanteks T30 fans
    Keyboard
    Cherry KC 500 MX LP (mechanical)
    Mouse
    Logitech M500s (wired)
    Internet Speed
    2000/250 Mbps (down/up)
    Other Info
    xFinity gateway

  • At a glance

    windows 11 26200.8728Intel I9-13900K64GB G.Skill DDR5-6000Gigabyte RTX 3090 ti
    Operating System
    windows 11 26200.8728
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Manufacturer/Model
    homebuilt
    CPU
    Intel I9-13900K
    Motherboard
    Asus RoG Strix Z690-E
    Memory
    64GB G.Skill DDR5-6000
    Graphics card(s)
    Gigabyte RTX 3090 ti
    Sound Card
    built in Realtek
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Philips 27E1N8900 27" OLED
    Screen Resolution
    3840 X 2160 @60Hz
    Hard Drives
    WDC SN850 1TB
    8TB Seagate Ironwolf
    4TB Seagate Ironwolf
    PSU
    eVGA SuperNOVA 1300 GT
    Case
    Lian Li 011 Dynamic Evo
    Cooling
    Corsair iCUE H150i ELITE CAPELLIX Liquid CPU Cooler
    Keyboard
    Cherry Streaming (wired)
    Mouse
    Logitech M500s (wired)
bobkn said:
Do both of those contain ordinary SATA drives? Some external drives use other interior interfaces, so the drives can't be extracted and plugged into standard SATA connections.
Click to expand...
Most WD and Seagate external drives have standard SATA drives inside. There are a lot of reports about people shucking WD My Book and WD Elements drives.
 

My Computers My Computers

System One System Two

  • At a glance

    Windows 11 Pro 25H2 (26200.6901)AMD Ryzen 7 6800H with Radeon 680M GPU (486MB...Crucial DDR5-4800 (2400MHz) 32GB (2 x 16GB)NVIDIA RTX 3060 Laptop (6GB RAM)
    OS
    Windows 11 Pro 25H2 (26200.6901)
    Computer type
    Laptop
    Manufacturer/Model
    ASUS TUF Gaming A15 (2022)
    CPU
    AMD Ryzen 7 6800H with Radeon 680M GPU (486MB RAM)
    Memory
    Crucial DDR5-4800 (2400MHz) 32GB (2 x 16GB)
    Graphics Card(s)
    NVIDIA RTX 3060 Laptop (6GB RAM)
    Sound Card
    n/a
    Monitor(s) Displays
    15.6-inch
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1080 300Hz
    Hard Drives
    2 x Samsung 990 Evo Plus (2TB M.2 NVME SSD)
    PSU
    n/a
    Mouse
    Wireless Mouse M510
    Internet Speed
    2100Mbps/300Mbps
    Browser
    Firefox
    Antivirus
    Malwarebytes

  • At a glance

    Windows 11 Pro 25H2 (26200.8246)AMD Ryzen 7 5700X3DG.SKILL Flare X 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4ASUS ROG-STRIX-RTX3060TI-08G-V2-GAMING (RTX 3...
    Operating System
    Windows 11 Pro 25H2 (26200.8246)
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Manufacturer/Model
    Custom build
    CPU
    AMD Ryzen 7 5700X3D
    Motherboard
    ASUS ROG Strix B550-F Gaming WiFi II
    Memory
    G.SKILL Flare X 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4
    Graphics card(s)
    ASUS ROG-STRIX-RTX3060TI-08G-V2-GAMING (RTX 3060-Ti, 8GB RAM)
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Samsung G50D IPS 27"
    Screen Resolution
    1440p/180Hz
    Hard Drives
    SAMSUNG 990 EVO Plus (2TB] M.2 NVME SSD
    SAMSUNG 990 EVO Plus (4TB) M.2 NVME SSD
    PSU
    Corsair RM750x (750 watts)
    Case
    Cooler Master MasterCase 5
    Cooling
    Scythe Mugen 6
    Keyboard
    Logitech K520 (MK540 keyboard/mouse combo)
    Mouse
    Logitech M310 (MK540 keyboard/mouse combo)
    Internet Speed
    2100 Mbps down / 300 Mbps up
    Browser
    Firefox, Edge, Chrome
    Antivirus
    Malwarebytes (Premium)
    Other Info
    ASUS Blu-ray Burner BW-16D1HT (SATA) || Western Digital Easystore 20TB USB 3.0 external hard drive used with Acronis True Image 2025 backup software || HP OfficeJet Pro 6975 Printer/Scanner
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