expiredswansong119 posted Mar 17, 2025 06:25 PM
Item 1 of 2
Item 1 of 2
expiredswansong119 posted Mar 17, 2025 06:25 PM
26TB Seagate External USB 3.0 Desktop Hard Drive
+ Free Shipping$300
$350
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Edit: ST26000DM000 mfg date 02/2025. Seagate website indicates the serial # on the drive is a Barracuda w/ 1yr warranty. Oh well, looks like the days of discount exos are gone, and I'll be returning this one.
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I am also deathly afraid I'm going to be shipped a barracuda drive, not an EXOS drive that I scored. It's the only reason I bought it.
Reddit confirming that these are barracuda drives.
https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/...?rdt=46088
Seagate could take identical internal HDDs and make one into a external HDD product that sells for $350 offering a 1 year warranty, and make another into a product that sells for $450 offering a 2 year warranty, and the increased profit margin of the second product will support the increased warranty claims associated with the longer period of coverage.
Same applies to why a WD external may have a higher retail price and offer a 2 year warranty over Seagate's 1 year. It's not as simple to say "Seagate knows the drive will only last approximately one year".
It's possible that Seagate had an oversupply of EXOS drives at one time and approached these big box stores such as Best Buy/B&H Photo to negotiate a large volume deal, meaning they were asking the stores to commit to buying a certain number of units for an external drive product that could be sold there, the big box stores said they could pay $X/unit, which was lower than Seagate was wanting.
Seagate crunches the numbers and determines that they can sell Best Buy/B&H Photo at that rate they asked for, all they need to do is reduce their warranty period from 3 years to 1 year to accommodate that price point. So you end up with an EXOS drive (in the case of those lucky ones who got the original batches) that arguably has an expected life of at least 3+ years, in a lower priced product, with a lower warranty period in place. It's not the same as Seagate admitting the drives are only expected to last 1 year. It's just how business works sometimes.
They also may have determined the warranty structure on this particular product knowing that once they ran out the surplus of EXOS drives, they will transition to newly produced Barracudas which inherently are cheaper to manufacture and will, by design, have shorter lifespans on average.
Not that is has direct bearing on this conversation, but quite a while ago a close friend worked in management at the Scotts Valley CA facility. We also used to work in semiconductor mfg in Silicon valley..... Anyway, he was not impressed for too many reasons, including business practices and poor mfg. Frankly, they may make good server drives and I would buy one, but I don't trust their consumer products, and that's what we're talking about. I've lost drives from every mfg (6+ at least, and it's just what happens). I played the game and lost multiple times with seagate including once by closing the cover too quickly when shutting down a laptop. I'm not kidding, it killed the drive.
Back in 2012/2013 Seagate used to sell crap with a 2k hour "power on warranty", meaning if you left it plugged in you'd be done in 9 months. Of course you'd be a fool to buy one, but people did and got burned. Seagate is frequently taking the bottom dweller position, and I don't think they've changed.
Again, it's all about analysis and financial exposure. BTW - I had a Samsung 4tb 990 Pro fail recently, and it was replaced under warranty. They know they're going to have very few claims, hence the 5-year warranty. It's not rocket science.
Seagate.... One year.... Yeah, I get it.....
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Ah yes, the "I don't need parity" prophet, preaching the gospel of St. Redownload. Truly a visionary—why invest in redundancy when you can play Russian Roulette with terabytes of data? Who needs RAID when you've got raw vibes and a prayer?
"My drive crashed, time to redownload everything." Bro, your disaster recovery strategy is a panic attack and a Google search. You must really love rolling the dice with your time and sanity like it's a casino. Next time, try gambling with something less precious—like your dignity.
And running separate drive letters for Plex? What is this, 1998? You out here assigning Drive T: for "Toons" and Drive P: for "Porn" like you're curating a museum of inefficiency. Ever heard of pooling? Nah, too mainstream. You're out here living the Windows XP dream in a RAIDless nightmare.
But hey, when a drive fails and your media library turns into 404 City, at least you'll have the satisfaction of saying "I told you so" to absolutely no one, because no one else is that dumb. Meanwhile, the rest of us are chillin' with parity, sipping backups like fine wine, while you're scouring sketchy sites at 2 AM trying to replace that 16-season anime collection you "totally had saved."
In short: Your setup is held together by delusion and duct tape, and it's a miracle your Plex server hasn't staged a rebellion. Fix it, or keep living dangerously, king.
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Not that is has direct bearing on this conversation, but quite a while ago a close friend worked in management at the Scotts Valley CA facility. We also used to work in semiconductor mfg in Silicon valley..... Anyway, he was not impressed for too many reasons, including business practices and poor mfg. Frankly, they may make good server drives and I would buy one, but I don't trust their consumer products, and that's what we're talking about. I've lost drives from every mfg (6+ at least, and it's just what happens). I played the game and lost multiple times with seagate including once by closing the cover too quickly when shutting down a laptop. I'm not kidding, it killed the drive.
Back in 2012/2013 Seagate used to sell crap with a 2k hour "power on warranty", meaning if you left it plugged in you'd be done in 9 months. Of course you'd be a fool to buy one, but people did and got burned. Seagate is frequently taking the bottom dweller position, and I don't think they've changed.
Again, it's all about analysis and financial exposure. BTW - I had a Samsung 4tb 990 Pro fail recently, and it was replaced under warranty. They know they're going to have very few claims, hence the 5-year warranty. It's not rocket science.
Seagate.... One year.... Yeah, I get it.....
Ah yes, the "I don't need parity" prophet, preaching the gospel of St. Redownload. Truly a visionary—why invest in redundancy when you can play Russian Roulette with terabytes of data? Who needs RAID when you've got raw vibes and a prayer?
"My drive crashed, time to redownload everything." Bro, your disaster recovery strategy is a panic attack and a Google search. You must really love rolling the dice with your time and sanity like it's a casino. Next time, try gambling with something less precious—like your dignity.
And running separate drive letters for Plex? What is this, 1998? You out here assigning Drive T: for "Toons" and Drive P: for "Porn" like you're curating a museum of inefficiency. Ever heard of pooling? Nah, too mainstream. You're out here living the Windows XP dream in a RAIDless nightmare.
But hey, when a drive fails and your media library turns into 404 City, at least you'll have the satisfaction of saying "I told you so" to absolutely no one, because no one else is that dumb. Meanwhile, the rest of us are chillin' with parity, sipping backups like fine wine, while you're scouring sketchy sites at 2 AM trying to replace that 16-season anime collection you "totally had saved."
In short: Your setup is held together by delusion and duct tape, and it's a miracle your Plex server hasn't staged a rebellion. Fix it, or keep living dangerously, king.
I know, I'm absolutely terrified that I might lose my collection of Mr. Ed. I simply don't know what to do. Sometimes I lie awake at night, paralyzed, thinking that poor Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp isn't protected by a $10k RAID/parity setup.
It truly scares me, but I gather strength to face such terrors knowing that His Noodle is always by my side and left me this verse: 'Yea, though I walk in the Valley of Data Terrors, I shall fear no crashes, for all retail video media is essentially worthless and easily replaceable. Ramen.'
However, it's just not right, playing Russian Roulette with such 'important' data and I agree. That's why when one external drive fails, I have nine others full of virtually PRICELESS VIDEO ARTIFACTS to tide me over during those troubled times. Oh, it's so DIFFICULT to go without 1/10th of VIDEO CLASSICS like 2 Broke Girls, but trust me, if you're brave and courageous, you can endure.
Overall, once you stop being weirdly attached to your media collection, it's truly liberating. I couldn't care less if I lose 20TB of worthless videos because I know, thanks to my setup and the apps I use to catalog, curate, and procure my collection, I can easily replace them. And even if I couldn't, no biggie—I have no unusual possessiveness to them and can certainly live without Keeping Up with the Kardashians.
And no, my backup source does not involve Google, torrents, duct tape, or what have you. Let's just say that my backup location has been around since the late 1970s and leave it at that. Oh? Do I know something that you don't? Can I act like a supercilious, needlessly truculent twit now? Just relax, bro, and enjoy a nice bowl of pasta; you are taking this nonsense way too seriously. You hoard how you want, and I'll hoard how I want—The Cheap Bastard Way, with plenty of strippers and pasta.
It truly scares me, but I gather strength to face such terrors knowing that His Noodle is always by my side and left me this verse: 'Yea, though I walk in the Valley of Data Terrors, I shall fear no crashes, for all retail video media is essentially worthless and easily replaceable. Ramen.'
However, it's just not right, playing Russian Roulette with such 'important' data and I agree. That's why when one external drive fails, I have nine others full of virtually PRICELESS VIDEO ARTIFACTS to tide me over during those troubled times. Oh, it's so DIFFICULT to go without 1/10th of VIDEO CLASSICS like 2 Broke Girls, but trust me, if you're brave and courageous, you can endure. ������
Overall, once you stop being weirdly attached to your media collection, it's truly liberating. I couldn't care less if I lose 20TB of worthless videos because I know, thanks to my setup and the apps I use to catalog, curate, and procure my collection, I can easily replace them. And even if I couldn't, no biggie—I have no unusual possessiveness to them and can certainly live without Keeping Up with the Kardashians.
And no, my backup source does not involve Google, torrents, duct tape, or what have you. Let's just say that my backup location has been around since the late 1970s and leave it at that. Oh? Do I know something that you don't? Can I act like a supercilious, needlessly truculent twit now? Just relax, bro, and enjoy a nice bowl of pasta; you are taking this nonsense way too seriously. You hoard how you want, and I'll hoard how I want—The Cheap Bastard Way, with plenty of strippers and pasta.
Do the math like a Jaguar with a mouth full of pasta, and you'll realize that's a colossal amount of cash to spend just to ensure Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp is available 24/7.
It truly scares me, but I gather strength to face such terrors knowing that His Noodle is always by my side and left me this verse: 'Yea, though I walk in the Valley of Data Terrors, I shall fear no crashes, for all retail video media is essentially worthless and easily replaceable. Ramen.'
However, it's just not right, playing Russian Roulette with such 'important' data and I agree. That's why when one external drive fails, I have nine others full of virtually PRICELESS VIDEO ARTIFACTS to tide me over during those troubled times. Oh, it's so DIFFICULT to go without 1/10th of VIDEO CLASSICS like 2 Broke Girls, but trust me, if you're brave and courageous, you can endure. ������
Overall, once you stop being weirdly attached to your media collection, it's truly liberating. I couldn't care less if I lose 20TB of worthless videos because I know, thanks to my setup and the apps I use to catalog, curate, and procure my collection, I can easily replace them. And even if I couldn't, no biggie—I have no unusual possessiveness to them and can certainly live without Keeping Up with the Kardashians.
And no, my backup source does not involve Google, torrents, duct tape, or what have you. Let's just say that my backup location has been around since the late 1970s and leave it at that. Oh? Do I know something that you don't? Can I act like a supercilious, needlessly truculent twit now? Just relax, bro, and enjoy a nice bowl of pasta; you are taking this nonsense way too seriously. You hoard how you want, and I'll hoard how I want—The Cheap Bastard Way, with plenty of strippers and pasta.
Here's the deal: when you roll without RAID/parity, every drive is a ticking time bomb. You lose one? Sure, you might have others, but now you're spending hours, days, or weeks re-curating, re-cataloging, re-copying, and maybe even re-downloading, assuming your backup "from the 1970s" is still alive and not magnetic toast. RAID (or at least parity) lets you lose one or more drives and still keep rolling with zero downtime, no panic, no "which drive had Mr. Ed season 3, episode 5" scavenger hunts.
And let's talk wear and tear: constantly swapping, plugging, re-copying across nine drives? That's a maintenance nightmare. RAID/parity consolidates your setup, minimizes risk, and gives you automated redundancy with no manual intervention. You could be watching 2 Broke Girls for the hundredth time instead of manually recovering like it's 1999.
And if your data's truly priceless artifacts? Then treat it like it. RAID isn't about being fancy — it's about being smart. You're spending more in time, risk, and headache by not implementing a real solution to your obviously crippling fear of data loss. Stop being penny wise, terabyte foolish.
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Do the math like a Jaguar with a mouth full of pasta, and you'll realize that's a colossal amount of cash to spend just to ensure Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp is available 24/7.
His setup is expensive because he has a ridiculously high amount of storage capacity. If you equalize for storage capacity, even if you chose to not have redundancy because (as you have admitted) you don't understand the benefit of RAID, you would spend practically the same as him for an equivalent storage capacity.
The idea that you claim RAID is so expensive because it costs more money to have a 448TB RAID config compared to a single 20TB HDD of data is a nonsensical take.
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Do the math like a Jaguar with a mouth full of pasta, and you'll realize that's a colossal amount of cash to spend just to ensure Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp is available 24/7.
You are doing it wrong , even a simple 5 -8 bay synology device or true nas scale server is the correct way to host data nowadays and of course other things which can be run in containers or shares.
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