Help with Computer Storage

LGavstar on 13/07/2024 - 14:28
Last edited 13/07/2024 - 14:40 by 1 other user

G'day OzBargainers, I'm waiting on the arrival of my Evatech purchase.

At the time I didn't get any additional storage beyond the SSD for the OS

Besides gaming I have about 2000 CD's which I'm in the process of moving to lossless format plus and various photos and videos ~300GB

I think I need about at least 4 TB of storage to give me some spare capacity what are the best options I have based on the purchase?

SATA vs SSD, 3.5vs 2.5?? 7,500 vs 5400? Cache sizes etc? I have no clue whether another NVMe SSD would slow anything down beside these don't seem bargain friendly.

WD vs Seagate etc? then which one Ironwolf vs Barracuda vs Firecuda or Black, Red, Blue or purple!

Any bargains out there? In Slowbart its Umart (MSY), JB Hi Fi or bust (amazon/ebay ok but I've had a few recent failures for external ssd drives so need good return policy).

https://www.umart.com.au/product/seagate-barracuda-4tb-256mb…

https://www.umart.com.au/product/seagate-ironwolf-pro-4tb-72…

https://www.umart.com.au/product/seagate-firecuda-4tb-7200rp…

https://www.umart.com.au/product/silicon-power-ace-a55-4tb-t…

Help would be appreciated

Thanks

Computing Computer Peripheral External Hard Drive

Comments

  • CyberMurning on 13/07/2024 - 14:33
    +9

    Get a Nas…

  • elusive on 13/07/2024 - 15:01
    +1

    You need minimum two, preferably more, copies. Preferably one stored off-site. Because no matter the brand, model or technology, failures will happen and recovery is not guaranteed. And house fires happen.

    Beyond that… the kind of media you plan to store doesn't need fast or random access. So no need for SSDs.

    If you plan a RAID array (for fault tolerance, does not replace backups!) then you'll need NAS drives. So Red Plus or IronWolf. Those are CMR, don't use SMR for RAID.

    If you just want to use the disks independently, just get whatever is cheapest. Usually that's a Green or Barracuda SMR drive, but that should be fine for your use case (lots of sequential data, infrequent write/overwrite).

    Either way, make sure you have a backup copy on a separate drive. Or an online service, but at multiple TBs that gets costly fast (maybe Backblaze, but they require that the drive be mounted locally).

    Cache etc don't matter.

  • randomusername2017 on 13/07/2024 - 15:03

    ☁️☁️☁️

  • barge-in hunter on 13/07/2024 - 15:12
    +2

    To put it simply; that type of content doesn’t need fast read/write access, so any type of drive will be fine BUT given the rest of the pc, I assume you’ll do some gaming. Games should be on an ssd or Nvme drive. Your 1 TB will fill up surprisingly quick if you have a few recent games installed - so factor that in, and maybe don’t install a 3.5” spinning rust hdd

    As others have said, you will also want a backup of your audio files - so you don’t have to rip them all again if your drive fails. Maybe consider an external 3.5” drive as a backup you can keep somewhere else- probably no need to go full nas yet?

  • OMGJL on 13/07/2024 - 15:21
    +1

    Buy WD Red or Seagate Ironwolf, as those are most likely CMR.

    Barracuda non pro is SMR, big no.

    firecuda — the cache is quite small, the speed difference isn't huge, but in the end of day it's CMR and does have a small cache, might be viable consider the price premium wasn't huge.

    you don't need SSD for CDs, maybe photos, depends on how you want to browse them. I find SSD show pic preview way much more faster for photo library, it may improves after being indexed.

    as for reliability, more than 1 copy, at different physical location is always a good idea. doing RAID might not be necessary, but good to at least have a cold copy somewhere else, if it means a lot to you.

  • orangutan on 13/07/2024 - 16:21

    I assume you want to keep the data “live” on an active machine instead of cold storage? SSD is generally better / longer lifespan compared to mechanical disks, however I have not much first hand experience with cheap brand except for one Patriot 2.5” SSD, which failed in less than 3 months. Went back to trusted brands after that incident (Sandisk, Samsung, WD, Crucial, Kingston, etc.).

    SSD no noise, lower power consumption, fast read/write, but they are expensive, lower capacity, not suitable for cold storage. Would only suggest spinning disks if you have very large amount of data to backup, does not need/want the data to be “live”, intended for long term storage. Just remember to power up every one or two years to make sure disk mechanism still working.

  • garetz on 13/07/2024 - 17:05

    Get something scalable like a nas, start off with 4x4tb with redundancy and think of backing up your data if its important to you.

  • Gavstar on 13/07/2024 - 21:35

    Thanks for all the feedback.

    I do run back ups on photos etc on an external SSD drive probably not often enough and thanks for the reminder to take offsite.

    I won't be selling the CD's so they are a backup (though a slow and painful restoration would be needed). I'm only about 1/4 of the way into move to lossless on the computer.

    I would like to set up a NAS eventually though starting from scratch is too painful to the wallet in one go at the moment especially SSD's

    For NAS music servers (roon etc) I've heard 1 bay SSD, 2 bays storage (RAID?) and 1 bay backup library ?

  • Mechz on 13/07/2024 - 22:02

    How many of these CDs are actually unique and unavailable online?

  • harshbdmmaster718 on 15/07/2024 - 23:02

    4TB?!

    sheeesh I covered everything with 500GB SSD.
    you must be alive longer than me I guess.
    but at the same time I use phone and iPad mostly.
    PC is really a nice that it’s there thing.

    I went with Crucual MX500 on sale. maybe you can get one great price Prime day is in 1 hour.

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