Need a 4TB drive for external backup

S

strikeout

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Oct 3, 2005
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I have few older machines from windows 7 era that I would like to condense. I will keep the originals in the respective machines but basically do a CTRL V on all their my docs folders into the new external. I am thinking about at a WB 4TB black but Newegg keeps reviews keep reporting dying drives(Newegg shipping maybe?). I want a 7200 rpm drive since it would save a little time importing. If there are better options to go with please let me know.
 
See this thread. The drives frequently go on sale for $159-$179 but even at $199 it's a good price for a 8TB drive.
 
And?

The performance difference between 7200 RPM and 5400 RPM is negligible in most cases. I used to think the same thing and always bought 7200 RPM drives (after I got burned out with 10000 RPM SCSI drives). Then I bought a 5400 RPM drive for backups, I think it was a 3TB (forgot what brand, it was a while ago) and I could not tell the difference. Yes, there was a small measurable difference in benchmarks but I bought the drive for backups, not benchmarks. There are other benefits too. In general, 5400 RPM drives run cooler, quieter, use less power and are cheaper. Those WD Easystore drives, at $159 when you catch them on sale, are about what you would pay for a good quality 4TB 7200 RPM drive but have twice the space. I've got three, 2 of which I shucked and have installed internally, the last one I'm using as an external backup. Works great over the USB 3.0 interface. I can't see how you could go wrong with them.
 
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These days transfer speed is more a matter of platter density than RPM. RPM matters more for random access. The 5400 RPM 8TB Reds transfer at 190MBps on the fast end of the drive. The 7k versions are around 225MBps with the trade off of more noise, vibration, and heat.

The other thing, I recommend something like teracopy or freefilesync with verify method enabled to ensure your files are copied without errors. It's takes twice as long, but if you care about data integrity it's worth it.

Also, during those initial transfers you will only get the fastest speeds depending on the speed of the source drive, file sizes, and how much fragmentation there is. Chances are those older computers have drives that are slower than the 8TB 5k Red drives unless they are SSDs.
 
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And to add to this, BB just had the 8TB Easystore on sale for $129! They seem to be out of stock now but I will bet you dollars to donuts they will be on sale again for that price at least one more time before Christmas.
 
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