8TB HDD - 5400 or 7200?

zurfedn

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Hi all

I have 2 X 2TB drives and looking to just get rid of them and replace with 2x 8TB drive.
The hard drives basically store my holiday pictures & videos, movies, my documents/pictures/downloads etc folders.
Would I see a major performance reduction in choosing a cheaper 5400rpm drive like a Barracuda against a 7200RPM drive like WD Black etc?
The only 'high intensity' workload I can see as such is streaming a movie over plex to a TV over the gigabit LAN
I also value reliability & warranty more than ultimate speed
 
The answer is yes, it will be slower. How much, or should you care, comes down to you.
Likely it won't matter for you other than when you're actually spending the time transferring over all your 2TB stuff to the 8TB drives. It might take literally hours to move that 2TB to your 8TB drives.

Having faster drives will only matter (for most folks) when trying to do work that is doing both reads and writes. If you wanted to do photo/video editing, music production, graphic design, etc - having a faster drive will have a much bigger impact.
If most of the time you're only doing reads, especially steady ones from video or music playback, there will be no real discernible difference.

Reliability and warranty comes down to individual manufacturers and luck of the draw. People annecdotally swear by different drives. If you want decent statistics, you can read usage and statistics from Backblaze, which generally has a much larger pool of well over 100k harddrives that they are "testing" and sampling from. Really though it's hard to know statistically what drives are better until you start having a million+ drives tested for long periods of time.
 
The only 'high intensity' workload I can see as such is streaming a movie over plex to a TV over the gigabit LAN

That will work fine on a modern 5400 RPM drive. I have done similar over wifi for more than a decade using individual (no realtime raid) 5400 RPM drives
 
I dont like 5400rpm drives for 2 reasons, lower speed and quality.
However, the slower speed means they draw less power, produce less heat, potentially vibrate less and wear less.
So the lower quality might not matter as much, but the speed kills it for me.
My current drives get 120 to 180MB/s when copying to/from, that would drop by 1/4 if they were 5400rpm.

If you are after reliability, get a helium drive.
Thats all I use now.
 
I dont like 5400rpm drives for 2 reasons, lower speed and quality.
However, the slower speed means they draw less power, produce less heat, potentially vibrate less and wear less.
So the lower quality might not matter as much, but the speed kills it for me.
My current drives get 120 to 180MB/s when copying to/from, that would drop by 1/4 if they were 5400rpm.

If you are after reliability, get a helium drive.
Thats all I use now.
Large 5400rpm drives are faster than that man
 
Large 5400rpm drives are faster than that man
I'm talking real world experience during general use, not max benchmarks.
And once the very first part of the drive is filled (as it always is very quickly), figures drop.

No matter how you look at it, a 5400rpm drive from the same stable is 3/4 the speed of the equivalent 7200rpm drive.
 
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The purple are for surveillance camera recorders where the drive has to record at a steady rate and it does not matter much if they lose a few bits of data here and there. Error handling is turned to a minimal level. This drive is not very suitable for usage in a PC unless you have it in a self healing raid like zfs raidz3
ok so from the others which to buy>?>?


https://www.skroutz.gr/s/15375454/Western-Digital-Red-NAS-8TB-256MB-Cache.html



https://www.skroutz.gr/s/20479463/Western-Digital-Gold-Enterprise-SATA-8TB-256MB-Cache.html

https://www.skroutz.gr/s/10169787/Seagate-Ironwolf-8TB.html

https://www.skroutz.gr/s/20131930/Seagate-SkyHawk-8TB-ST8000VX004.html

https://www.skroutz.gr/s/18549817/Western-Digital-DC-HC320-8TB.html

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someone told me some things and tell me if you agree ok??

When you have just a few disks on a desktop PC, in NTFS without raid, without much vibration, with constant current and temperature then all disks are suitable. A record may be faster than others in a particular type of writing but since you will write them once and then they will just be stored there there is no reason to worry about that.

Ultrastar and Exos are very similar to Red Pro / Ironwolf Pro, they are all faster than regular REDs. Simple REDs, however, are quieter and consume less. The model of simple RED that I suggested to you in the previous post has a pretty good speed, although lower than the others you mention.

There is no disk that can not be used for desktop use, everyone can.

The best build of Ultrastar and Exos as far as I know has to do with shock absorption in datacenters that have dozens of disks in the same cage, and uninterrupted operation for years as well as the best error correction for use with critical data, things that do not they concern you.

I believe that of the disks you compare for desktop PC storage, the most balanced are the simple Red and then the simple Ironwolf. I estimate that for this use the advantages of Pro and Enterprize discs are minimal and that the increased noise makes them almost unsuitable.
 
A red drive is a basic storage drive and is made just for what you have in mind. They are not fast but they are not meant to be they are for archiving and for what you mention, music, pictures, movies which run fine of optical disk. which are a lot slower then even a 5.400 drive.
 
A red drive is a basic storage drive and is made just for what you have in mind. They are not fast but they are not meant to be they are for archiving and for what you mention, music, pictures, movies which run fine of optical disk. which are a lot slower then even a 5.400 drive.
so the red nas and the ironwolf seageate are the best for storage , music, pictures, movies and etc??
 
the lower data reliability of SkyHawk and WD Purple only applies to when the device (the CCTV system) is using the Surveillance ATA features of the purple/SkyHawk drive,, they just work like regular WD Red Plus or seagate ironwolf HDD in a PC or NAS

Note WD lie about there spin speeds in almost all currently sold 5400 ""Class"" HDDs as they call it are actually 7200RPM

do not buy WD Red As they are SMR (WD Red plus or pro are normal PMR disks they are ok) Any Seagate Consumer drive are SMR disks (make sure you google the actual part number+smr when buying a HDD to make sure its a norm hdd not an SMR/archive HDD)
 
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the lower data reliability of SkyHawk and WD Purple only applies to when the device (the CCTV system) is using the Surveillance ATA features of the purple/SkyHawk drive,, they just work like regular WD Red Plus or seagate ironwolf HDD in a PC or NAS

Note WD lie about there spin speeds in almost all currently sold 5400 ""Class"" HDDs as they call it are actually 7200RPM

do not buy WD Red As they are SMR (WD Red plus or pro are normal PMR disks they are ok) Any Seagate Consumer drive are SMR disks (make sure you google the actual part number+smr when buying a HDD to make sure its a norm hdd not an SMR/archive HDD)



you mean that purple can be used for storage , music, pictures, movies and etc??? because you said something for the lower data reliability of SkyHawk and WD Purple only applies to when the device (the CCTV system) is using the Surveillance ATA features of the purple/SkyHawk drive and i didnt understand..

i am saying that purple can be used like a regular WD Red Plus or seagate ironwolf HDD in a PC??

and why some people say that the purple cant be used as a regular drive >> and also some people are saying that using the purple in one destop that will cause problems and issues..??


some people say that the The purple are for surveillance camera recorders where the drive has to record at a steady rate and it does not matter much if they lose a few bits of data here and there. Error handling is turned to a minimal level. This drive is not very suitable for usage in a PC

do you agree?>>?
 
i have heard from a lot of people that for storage such as pictures & videos, movies, documents/pictures,, mp3 files.. THE BESt are the red nas drives and the seagate ironwolfs HDD do you agree or no??
 
i have heard from a lot of people that for storage such as pictures & videos, movies, documents/pictures,, mp3 files.. THE BESt are the red nas drives and the seagate ironwolfs HDD do you agree or no??
You're looking for a very specific response to your question. And it's semi-frustrating because you're basically asking the same thing over and over - but because of your language it cannot be answered in the way you want.

You're constantly asking about THE BEST. You want THE BEST? Then spend $1000+ dollars on buying a bunch of PCI-E Gen4 8TB NVME SSD's (which aren't out yet, but until they do arrive, you can buy a Gen3 instead). Those would be THE BEST. But are they remotely necessary for just archiving and storing your media? NO. Saying "BEST" in general is so broad. "BEST" what? Best price? Best performance (and even when you say best performance do you mean best write speed, best 4k write, best random IOPS, what best aspect about performance)? Best at reliability? Best compatibility? Best warranty? Best availability?

Take "yes" for an answer since you've already received it. I won't say it's "THE BEST" but a Western Digital Red drive for your application is FINE. It will do exactly what you're asking it to do. The Seagate Ironwolf is also FINE. Either will accomplish your task (this is like asking, which is BEST, Pepsi or Coke? Both are priced the same and are designed to accomplish the same thing - you can have a preference, but they're both basically the same). You're just looking for a storage drive for media. You're not doing anything remotely complicated or usage intensive. Unless you're going to spend $500,000 on your new data storage server we can't really get close to discussing at an extreme level what is BEST. And in case my exaggeration isn't clear your requirements don't need that level of answer. Like what was offered to you before, just don't buy the purple: Any of those drives are fine for movies and MP3s.

If this post comes off as harsh: it's not designed to, it's just to drive the point home. And also because like I said: your constant repeating of essentially the same questions is frustrating.
 
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I take back my comment about purple drives. The mode I described will not be active on a PC.
 
I dont like 5400rpm drives for 2 reasons, lower speed and quality.
However, the slower speed means they draw less power, produce less heat, potentially vibrate less and wear less.
So the lower quality might not matter as much, but the speed kills it for me.
My current drives get 120 to 180MB/s when copying to/from, that would drop by 1/4 if they were 5400rpm.

If you are after reliability, get a helium drive.
Thats all I use now.
Helium - any particular line of drives? HGST?
 
I dont like 5400rpm drives for 2 reasons, lower speed and quality.
However, the slower speed means they draw less power, produce less heat, potentially vibrate less and wear less.
So the lower quality might not matter as much, but the speed kills it for me.
My current drives get 120 to 180MB/s when copying to/from, that would drop by 1/4 if they were 5400rpm.

If you are after reliability, get a helium drive.
Thats all I use now.
In what way are 5400rpm drives of lower quality? I would think they would be more reliable overall due to lower stress.

And what specific line of helium drives are you recommending? I'm somewhat familiar with HGST, but they are a lot more expensive.
 
Helium - any particular line of drives? HGST?
Yes, all mine are HGST.
I bought new old stock this last year because they are no more, WD bought the Hitachi hard drive business some years back and the HGST brand has been retired.
I'm yet to research how good the newer release WD drives are. ie I'm not prepared to buy unless they are proven solid.
I wont need new drives for quite some time unless there is a failure, not likely.

One of my main sources for information are Backblaze drive failure rates.
https://www.backblaze.com/b2/hard-drive-test-data.html
Note: the stats are for "specific" drive models/sizes they use only.
I otherwise take note of comments on forums about failures, HGST have been at the top for a very long time.

5400rpm drives are cheap. It goes without saying the tolerances and technologies used are not as good.
 
some people say that the The purple are for surveillance camera recorders where the drive has to record at a steady rate and it does not matter much if they lose a few bits of data here and there. Error handling is turned to a minimal level. This drive is not very suitable for usage in a PC
that "miss a few bits here and there" only happens in a CCTV system where the system supports the related Streaming ATA feature set (even then most CCTV systems don't even support it)

purple/skyhawk vs red(plus-pro)/ironwolf all perform identically when not been used in a CCTV system

random google search
https://community.wd.com/t/to-use-o...hat-is-a-question-for-the-wd-purple/234032/19
there is a video clip in there but i would ignore it as its' a simulated workload (and drives Don't stop spinning when inactive unless they are an storage drive that sometimes they will spin down)
 
Honestly, take what I say with a grain of salt.

If you are not building a NAS the extra paid for those kind of drives is kinda wasted. Would also suggest buying your drives from two different places or two different months. Very possible you pickup drives that are part of a bad batch (I had early failures on 3x WD Reds, talking under 30 days).

Furthermore, I don’t recall seeing a backup strategy being discussed. Your use case screams an internal 3.5 for daily use and an external USB for weekly/monthly backups that is left unplugged till needed. But what is your offsite/cloud storage option? Very possible all of this can be lost during a disaster. A third drive should be created and left at a family, friend, work, or bank vault...

I have 14 years of family media, while I have never lost anything. Some family members only relied on a single (reliable by all means) drive, but that day will come.
 
Yes, all mine are HGST.
I bought new old stock this last year because they are no more, WD bought the Hitachi hard drive business some years back and the HGST brand has been retired.
I'm yet to research how good the newer release WD drives are. ie I'm not prepared to buy unless they are proven solid.
I wont need new drives for quite some time unless there is a failure, not likely.

One of my main sources for information are Backblaze drive failure rates.
https://www.backblaze.com/b2/hard-drive-test-data.html
Note: the stats are for "specific" drive models/sizes they use only.
I otherwise take note of comments on forums about failures, HGST have been at the top for a very long time.

5400rpm drives are cheap. It goes without saying the tolerances and technologies used are not as good.
So have the HGST lines been rebranded as WD lines? Any idea which drives? I would invest a bit more in a drive that's known to be very reliable. My seagate constellations ran 24x7 for 4-6 years.
 
So have the HGST lines been rebranded as WD lines? Any idea which drives? I would invest a bit more in a drive that's known to be very reliable. My seagate constellations ran 24x7 for 4-6 years.
We dont know what has changed nor how it has changed.
The only metrics we can use are future reliability testing and user experience.

As I said, scrutinize the Backblaze reports, choose a drive from there that looks good.
Then look for user reports on that specific drive and see how it stacks up.
 
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