Advice on 4-6TB backup drive..should I just buy an external HDD?

[arnprasad]

Hi All,

I currently have the 8 TB WD EX2 (4+4 RAID 0?)which has been abandoned by WD itself in terms of support. not sure how old it is..may be close to 10 years.. It has all my precious home video and photo files...too precious to put a price on. Currently I have a hard drive in my place , one with in-laws...I myself am not sure..where in once a year or so I take a back up. Wanted a better solution and hence wanted to buy a 4-6TB hard drive as the backup drives currently are of lesser capacity.

I am not a tech guy and hence cannot buy an internal HDD and buy a case and SATA cable and all that ( I can buy and ask some friend to do it). Also I want a HDD which after taking a backup will be inside some locker/storewell/cupboard...meaning it wont be charged or used for say a year or so when the next backup will be taken and hence needs to be sturdy

So for a non tech guy with such needs...should I just go and buy something like below? or should I attempt to buy a internal HDD and case and cable and create my own External HDD? or is there another solution? Dont want to ask friends and relatives in US or Europe like I did with the WD.

Amazon.in

 

[dafreaking]

For Western Digital drives buy 8TB+ and Seagate 10TB+ CMR vs SMR.

TL;DR Conventional Magnetic Recording (CMR) drives write data on a hard disk in tracks that do not overlap. Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR) allows tracks to overlap, which results in higher data densities, but slower read and write times compared to CMR drives

Also externals are cheaper than internal drives.

My advice would be to pick up an external of at least 8TB. In India it's at the sweet spot between cost and capacity. Also backing up once a year seems very low. And if since you can't put a price on your data, it's maybe better to buy 2 drives.

 

[arnprasad]

Can you pls paste some links of your recommended drives pls. I too will search on what you typed. Many thanks for the response!

 

[argho]

For your use case, this is fine.

 

[dafreaking]

Can you pls paste some links of your recommended drives pls. I too will search on what you typed. Many thanks for the response!

Western Digital WD 8TB My Book Desktop External Hard Disk Drive-3.5Inch, USB 3.0 with Automatic Backup,256 Bit AES Hardware Encryption,Password Protection,Compatible with Windows&Mac, Portable HDD https://amzn.in/d/0g1Q71IQ

 

[arnprasad]

Western Digital WD 8TB My Book Desktop External Hard Disk Drive-3.5Inch, USB 3.0 with Automatic Backup,256 Bit AES Hardware Encryption,Password Protection,Compatible with Windows&Mac, Portable HDD https://amzn.in/d/0g1Q71IQ

HI..would you have a pref between the WD quoted by you and this one? around 2K difference in prime day sale

Amazon.in

 

[arnprasad]

I bought the Seagate one..since I take backup once in a while..I dont need any smart features..its got 25k 4+ stars..hopefully shouldnt be a lemon. Funnily this 8 TB cost me 13440 minus hopefully another 5% as cash back. The WD one you quoted..4TB cost me 11K. Too much to understand and comprehend..so went with seagate

 

[dafreaking]

That is a fantastic deal!

 

[dafreaking]

That is a fantastic deal!

As with anything over a certain value on amazon, just record an unboxing video.