Which 8TB HDD for media storage?

johnnyscience

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So I'm about to burst out of my current 2TB HDD for all of my media storage.

I am looking to upgrade to a 8TB HDD to store all of my various media on.

Which one do you guys suggest?

I Found this Seagate for $150:

https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16822183793

But then this 8TB Seagate that looks identical is $300:

https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16822179270

I can't seem to tell why the one is double in price than the first one?

Also I found these other two, but they're also around the $300 mark:

WD Red Pro: https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16822234348

WD Purple: https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16822234347

What's the difference between the Red & the Purple series?

Would I be ok with the $150 8TB for my media storage, or do I need to look at these higher-priced options?

Thanks!
 
The expensive one is 7.200 RPM and has a 5 year warranty vs 2 years on the other drive which runs at 5.400 RPM if for media storage, the cheaper one will do just fine.

As for the WD ones, red drives are for NAS use while purple ones are for recording of (security) video feeds they are not that different hardware wise, but the firmware is optimised for their respective usage case.
Also the RED pro's seems to run at a higher RPM 7.200 vs 5.400 for the non pro.

For WD for regular desktop media storage use I would advise blue or red drives, if you want better perforamance, the black ones are the go to.
 
Agreed..BESTBUY drives..I just shucked 3- 12TB easystores with the EMAZ drives my self...for security camera storage.

Price right now for the 8TB is $139...
 
in case you do not live in a city that makes this easy, the answer is 'the cheapest drive you can get to your door' for media storage.
 
The expensive one is 7.200 RPM and has a 5 year warranty vs 2 years on the other drive which runs at 5.400 RPM if for media storage, the cheaper one will do just fine.

As for the WD ones, red drives are for NAS use while purple ones are for recording of (security) video feeds they are not that different hardware wise, but the firmware is optimised for their respective usage case.
Also the RED pro's seems to run at a higher RPM 7.200 vs 5.400 for the non pro.

For WD for regular desktop media storage use I would advise blue or red drives, if you want better perforamance, the black ones are the go to.

I have a WD 2TB from probably 4 years ago that has been serving me well, it's just almost filled up.

I don't need the WD purple and I don't think I need to pay the premium for the Red either. I'll see what deal I can find on a Blue or Black WD.

How do you feel the $150 Seagate I linked to compares to a WD Blue or Black?

You may consider the 8TB WDC external drive when it goes on sale for $129 US.

You are referring to the Bestbuy EasyStore EMAZ drives everyone is talking about?

For media storage, the best buy easystores with the EMAZ drives will do just fine as drescherjm suggests.

I've never heard of this brand, I'm sure if you multiple people are suggesting them, they are good drives.

But how do they compare to the $150 Seagate I linked to or a WD Blue or Black drive?

Thanks everyone for the input, I love this place!
 
I have a WD 2TB from probably 4 years ago that has been serving me well, it's just almost filled up.

I don't need the WD purple and I don't think I need to pay the premium for the Red either. I'll see what deal I can find on a Blue or Black WD.

How do you feel the $150 Seagate I linked to compares to a WD Blue or Black?

I think the Seagate should be just fine, "problem" with the WD blue and black is that they don't go up to 8GB in capacity like you want, 6 GB is the max atm and that black drives are on the more expensive side as they are considered high performance drives.

Also the easystores mentioned by Dajinn are external Western digital drives.
 
You are referring to the Bestbuy EasyStore EMAZ drives everyone is talking about?

Yes, I did not mention BB directly because for a few of my purchases I got them on Amazon for a similar price.
 
Ok I have a desk case and definitely want an internal HDD, so the EMAZ drives are out unfortunately.

I'm narrowed it down to either a WD 6TB Black or Blue drive:

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare?CompareItemList=234-000G-000W5,1Z4-0002-00MY8

What makes the WD Black drives so much better/special that they're worth the pretty hefty price increase of $100 compared to the Blue's?

The only difference I can see between those two is the RPMs on the Black are much higher. Is that it or are they also more reliable or something?

Newegg says this about RPMs:

5400 RPM - standard for notebooks, below standard (or special power saving eco-drives) for desktops

•7200 RPM - standard for desktops, premium for notebooks

So are these 5400 RPM drives actually ECO drives, or are they really below standard?

The 8TB Seagate is $150 and has the same specs as the 6TB WD Blue for $140, is Seagate just as reliable as WD and I should get the extra 2TB?
 
The only difference I can see between those two is the RPMs on the Black are much higher. Is that it or are they also more reliable or something?

As I stated b4 the Black drives are a) faster and b) have a 5 year warranty vs 2 years on the Blue ones and also there are some firmware differences
ie Black is a workshorse, Blue is general storage where speed matters little with you using it for media storage should be more then fine.

Seagate has a bad rep as they had on some models higher then average failure rates (iirc their 3 TB drives from some years ago) but this should be a non issue afaik these days.
 
EVERY drive manufacturer at some point built a bad drive (deathstar anyone??) move on with life. heck im not sure there is that many different actual manufactures left. other than the label all the internals are shared based on who needs what spec today.

funny when people argue about brands and do not realize how much of the inside was built by what random company today. i remember when the deffense department stopped buying IBM because they sold to Lenovo, didn't matter that Lenovo had been building the IBM labled desktop computers for 4 years anyway. good times.
 
Ok I have a desk case and definitely want an internal HDD, so the EMAZ drives are out unfortunately.
You buy the Western Digital External Drive. You take off the "case" around the drive, and install the "internal HDD" into your computer just like you would any other internal HDD. The drives themselves (EMAZ that people have referred to) are supposed to be like a rebranded WD Red (which can cost up to $200 more than the same size external drive). I just bought one of the 12TB Easystores for 179. I took the drive out of the enclosure/casing and installed it in a new NAS I was putting together. I have had 0 issues and performance has been good enough to handle the NAS sharing transfers (directly mapping the network drives to my PCs) plus PLEX and Emby both running on top of it. The cost/size is hard to beat. I am actually going to buy another in a few weeks, so I can have RAIDZ redundancies.

The other fun thing is that I just stuck an older 1TB WD Green I had laying around into the enclosure, put it all back together (with some tape to help the black plastic wrapping around it) and i can now use that as an external "transport" drive.
 
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You buy the Western Digital External Drive. You take off the "case" around the drive, and install the "internal HDD" into your computer just like you would any other internal HDD. The drives themselves (EMAZ that people have referred to) are supposed to be like a rebranded WD Red (which can cost up to $200 more than the same size external drive). I just bought one of the 12TB Easystores for 179. I took the drive out of the enclosure/casing and installed it in a new NAS I was putting together. I have had 0 issues and performance has been good enough to handle the NAS sharing transfers (directly mapping the network drives to my PCs) plus PLEX and Emby both running on top of it. The cost/size is hard to beat. I am actually going to buy another in a few weeks, so I can have RAIDZ redundancies.

The other fun thing is that I just stuck an older 1TB WD Green I had laying around into the enclosure, put it all back together (with some tape to help the black plastic wrapping around it) and i can now use that as an external "transport" drive.
This is the way. Buy you some easystores, shuck the drives, move on with life. In 2017 I shucked 8x of them to add to my plex media storage array, popped em in some 4 in 3 cages, haven't had a hiccup yet. My setup is quite janky, but if this works, it'll work just fine yanking one drive out and slapping it in a standard case. Don't worry about 5400 vs 7200 rpm, if you need speed you would be getting ssd anyway.
1028171942.jpg 1029171626.jpg
 
This is the way. Buy you some easystores, shuck the drives, move on with life. In 2017 I shucked 8x of them to add to my plex media storage array, popped em in some 4 in 3 cages, haven't had a hiccup yet. My setup is quite janky, but if this works, it'll work just fine yanking one drive out and slapping it in a standard case. Don't worry about 5400 vs 7200 rpm, if you need speed you would be getting ssd anyway.
Agreed. Like I said, I have this drive in a FreeNAS install with both PLEX and Emby (DLNA server for my music) running / accessing the drive. I also have the share being accessed by a number of devices on my network (Kids each streaming shows from PLEX to their tablets, etc). The drive has yet to give me even a hiccup (unlike the old 2TB Samsung I also put in the system).
I am jealous of all of your drives... I wanted small footprint and got a F.D. Core 500 case/ mini-ITX Motherboard, so my storage options are limited to 4. I am saving the one expansion slot for a 10GBe NIC.

The only caution I would give to this is that by shucking the drives, you lose Warranty. For me, Warranty doesn't necessarily save my data. I have yet to see any evidence that these drives are any less reliable than other WD drives.
 
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Agreed. Like I said, I have this drive in a FreeNAS install with both PLEX and Emby (DLNA server for my music) running / accessing the drive. I also have the share being accessed by a number of devices on my network (Kids each streaming shows from PLEX to their tablets, etc). The drive has yet to give me even a hiccup (unlike the old 2TB Samsung I also put in the system).
I am jealous of all of your drives... I wanted small footprint and got a F.D. Core 500 case/ mini-ITX Motherboard, so my storage options are limited to 4. I am saving the one expansion slot for a 10GBe NIC.

The only caution I would give to this is that by shucking the drives, you lose Warranty. For me, Warranty doesn't necessarily save my data. I have yet to see any evidence that these drives are any less reliable than other WD drives.
Meh, mine are past the two year mark now, but if I had an issue I could just pop em back in the enclosure for warranty. I didn't damage any of my cases when shucking. OP should keep that in mind too - just do it carefully and you can put it back together with ease.
 
I don't shuck the drives until the warranty expires. With that said I don't need them to be internal and still use them for media storage. I use snapraid and drives of various sizes in a dual parity configuration.
 
You buy the Western Digital External Drive. You take off the "case" around the drive, and install the "internal HDD" into your computer just like you would any other internal HDD. The drives themselves (EMAZ that people have referred to) are supposed to be like a rebranded WD Red (which can cost up to $200 more than the same size external drive). I just bought one of the 12TB Easystores for 179. I took the drive out of the enclosure/casing and installed it in a new NAS I was putting together. I have had 0 issues and performance has been good enough to handle the NAS sharing transfers (directly mapping the network drives to my PCs) plus PLEX and Emby both running on top of it. The cost/size is hard to beat. I am actually going to buy another in a few weeks, so I can have RAIDZ redundancies.

The other fun thing is that I just stuck an older 1TB WD Green I had laying around into the enclosure, put it all back together (with some tape to help the black plastic wrapping around it) and i can now use that as an external "transport" drive.

Hmm this is interesting info!

Knowing these are higher end drives and removable, this is probably the way I would go.

Obviously you void the warranty, but I'd be more concerned with data loss than a drive replacement at that point, but it's a good thing to try and keep the cages in good shape to try and use the warranty.

Thanks for the info everyone!
 
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Agreed..BESTBUY drives..I just shucked 3- 12TB easystores with the EMAZ drives my self...for security camera storage.

Price right now for the 8TB is $139...

Where are you seeing this for that price? I see it as $160 on their website?

Was it a sale or something going on then?

Actually I kinda like the look of this external drive and may incorporate it into my desk build, just not sure if I have the room. I only designed it to have a normal HDD cage fit.

It would be great if these EMAZ drives came in a white body too, it would match my all white build much better.
 
Hmm this is interesting info!

Knowing these are higher end drives and removable, this is probably the way I would go.

Obviously you void the warranty, but I'd be more concerned with data loss than a drive replacement at that point, but it's a good thing to try and keep the cages in good shape to try and use the warranty.

Thanks for the info everyone!
Just be careful when opening it, and you can pop it back in the case for warranty purposes. I kept all 8 of my cases for this reason, though it didn't end up being needed.
 
NO! seagate is NOT as reliable!

In order for your statement to be even remotely credible, you need to supply the exact model number and stats to back up the statement. Like all manufacturers, Seagate too, has had their lemons.
 
In order for your statement to be even remotely credible, you need to supply the exact model number and stats to back up the statement. Like all manufacturers, Seagate too, has had their lemons.
I'm x509, not d50man, but you should read this report. Note that ONLY Seagate has failure rates more than 1%, some more than 2% annually.
 
I'm x509, not d50man, but you should read this report. Note that ONLY Seagate has failure rates more than 1%, some more than 2% annually.

I'm assuming you're talking about Backblaze HDD reports. Backblaze always is skewed against Seagate because they have the most drives in use, the longest average age, the largest number of "drive days," and the most failures. By your own random stat, the 10GB Seagate is actually a better than the higher capacity HGST because it has a lower annual failure rate in the Q3'19 report (the last one available that I see). Backblaze isn't a normal use case for drives either. Even if it were the absolute gospel, the OP would be looking at 1 failure out of 50 drives vs. 1 out of 100 with other brands and that's running it 24/7 for YEARS based on the average age stat. Obviously the HGST 4TB drive was better than a Seagate 4TB drive, but that HGST was one of the best drives ever made in terms of reliability and the company that made that drive was absorbed by WD, so it's not even a fair comparison anymore.

TLDR: I wouldn't necessarily shy away from a Seagate drive just because of Backblaze.

Also, there is no point of even comparing anything to the shucked WD drives as they represent the best bang for the buck you can get. I think my 14TB drive was $212 after taxes. You're not going to find a bare 14TB drive anywhere near that cheap anywhere else.
 
As far as BlackBlaze is concerned Seagate has not looked bad in a long time. They did have a clear problem between 1TB and 4TB drives.
 
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This is the way. Buy you some easystores, shuck the drives, move on with life. In 2017 I shucked 8x of them to add to my plex media storage array, popped em in some 4 in 3 cages, haven't had a hiccup yet. My setup is quite janky, but if this works, it'll work just fine yanking one drive out and slapping it in a standard case. Don't worry about 5400 vs 7200 rpm, if you need speed you would be getting ssd anyway.
View attachment 214439 View attachment 214440

Beauty! Love the fans and HD setup :)
 
Where are you seeing this for that price? I see it as $160 on their website?

Was it a sale or something going on then?

Actually I kinda like the look of this external drive and may incorporate it into my desk build, just not sure if I have the room. I only designed it to have a normal HDD cage fit.

It would be great if these EMAZ drives came in a white body too, it would match my all white build much better.
They had the 12TB for $179 back in December. From trying to get more details on the drive, it seems every couple months there is a sale on them.
 
I believe the common sale prices are

8TB @ $129.99
10TB @ $159.99
12 TB @ $179.99

Although the 12 TB has only been on sale at this price a few times.

Amazon, newegg and BH&H sometimes run the same sale.

I did get a 10TB at amazon for a few dollars cheaper during one sale
 
Good to know, I'll keep an eye out for those sale prices!

I will stick with Western Digital just because at this point.

Thanks for the info everyone!
 
Had two seagate SMRs for a few years now and they've been fine aside from one which made a few weird ghost/recovered directories but I did have PSU problems a while back which may have caused it (power offs) nothing since fixing that issue.

Yeah I had a 3tb seagate die which I promptly turned into a target... first failure in a long time for me.
 
it's such a hard question to answer. I mean the "same box model" of drive could vary greatly (sourced from different fabs, etc).

I'd be careful about making any blanket statements pro or con about a drive unless you can be very very very specific. And at that point, if that specific, it might not be useful to someone purchasing "new". (this would have been funnier earlier)... it's like a Christmas While Elephant exchange. The new purchaser chooses to unwrap the unknown gift from the under the tree instead of choosing a known (already unwrapped) gift.
 
(off topic a bit) One thing I've considered with regards to external large USB drives that require a power brick is just that.... I prefer USB bus powered 4TB drives (multiple) vs. large ones just to avoid yet another brick. IMHO
 
(off topic a bit) One thing I've considered with regards to external large USB drives that require a power brick is just that.... I prefer USB bus powered 4TB drives (multiple) vs. large ones just to avoid yet another brick. IMHO
A lot of people (myself included) buy a bunch of these and then put the bare drive inside a server. Seems pretty cost ineffective to buy lower capacity yet higher price per TB drives, just to save on some wall warts? These are good if you're using one or two, many more and I can't fathom why you would use them all externally.
 
A lot of people (myself included) buy a bunch of these and then put the bare drive inside a server. Seems pretty cost ineffective to buy lower capacity yet higher price per TB drives, just to save on some wall warts? These are good if you're using one or two, many more and I can't fathom why you would use them all externally.

My plex server is SFF. Using USB attached drives allows adding tons of storage and still keeping the footprint tiny (and not adding another brick(s))
 
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