expiredN3RD_01 posted Yesterday 08:33 PM
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Item 1 of 2
expiredN3RD_01 posted Yesterday 08:33 PM
24TB Seagate Expansion External USB 3.0 Desktop Hard Drive
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Buuut, these days, time is short, I'm quite busy, reliability is supremely important, and money is less of an issue than it was. The shucked drives definitely are more prone to failure earlier in their lifespan, which can be a big headache even if caught in time. So now I tend to Ironwolf Pros, WD Red Pros, etc. Other advantage is many of these external drives are 5400 RPM, and a fair bit slower than the 7200RPM internal counterparts. I'm currently working to purchase new internals to cycle out the last few of my old, slow shucked drives.
So, I wouldn't say either option is wrong. Just depends if you're willing to sacrifice reliability and speed for lower cost.
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Our community has rated this post as helpful. If you agree, why not thank DesertRetriever
Buuut, these days, time is short, I'm quite busy, reliability is supremely important, and money is less of an issue than it was. The shucked drives definitely are more prone to failure earlier in their lifespan, which can be a big headache even if caught in time. So now I tend to Ironwolf Pros, WD Red Pros, etc. Other advantage is many of these external drives are 5400 RPM, and a fair bit slower than the 7200RPM internal counterparts. I'm currently working to purchase new internals to cycle out the last few of my old, slow shucked drives.
So, I wouldn't say either option is wrong. Just depends if you're willing to sacrifice reliability and speed for lower cost.
Our community has rated this post as helpful. If you agree, why not thank amax
Depends on your priorities. I have a self-built server with 11 spinning disk drives. (Plus another server that is a backup for the first server with another 8 HDDs). I've been running a server for nearly two decades, so many of the hard drives in my current system were originally in a different system. Sortof a ship of theseus thing. ANYWAY, back in the earlier days when I was younger and money was tighter, I tended to buy external drives and "shuck" them for installation in my server. Really, many of those drives have held up remarkably well - I have a couple still hanging around that have power on time around 9 years at present. IIRC only one failed in less than three years from purchase. Though on average, they're definitely less reliable from premium internal drives.
Buuut, these days, time is short, I'm quite busy, reliability is supremely important, and money is less of an issue than it was. The shucked drives definitely are more prone to failure earlier in their lifespan, which can be a big headache even if caught in time. So now I tend to Ironwolf Pros, WD Red Pros, etc. Other advantage is many of these external drives are 5400 RPM, and a fair bit slower than the 7200RPM internal counterparts. I'm currently working to purchase new internals to cycle out the last few of my old, slow shucked drives.
So, I wouldn't say either option is wrong. Just depends if you're willing to sacrifice reliability and speed for lower cost.
I watch BackBlaze for stats. Pretty much a reliable way to look at drives by a super high use case scenario.
2 of the 4 drives with zero failures are Seagate drives. 2 of the 3 drives with the highest failure rates are Seagate.
You will see that WD has a good failure rate, but most of those drives for 2025 calcs are newer whereas the Seagate drives are all much older.
I have hadn't any Seagate failures. I have had a WD fail and a Hitachi (before WD) fail and that is it in home use and server.
The bottom line is that they are mechanical devices and they fail. BackBlaze AFR is 1.3% over all their drives. and has been pretty much steady over the last few quarters.
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Buuut, these days, time is short, I'm quite busy, reliability is supremely important, and money is less of an issue than it was. The shucked drives definitely are more prone to failure earlier in their lifespan, which can be a big headache even if caught in time. So now I tend to Ironwolf Pros, WD Red Pros, etc. Other advantage is many of these external drives are 5400 RPM, and a fair bit slower than the 7200RPM internal counterparts. I'm currently working to purchase new internals to cycle out the last few of my old, slow shucked drives.
So, I wouldn't say either option is wrong. Just depends if you're willing to sacrifice reliability and speed for lower cost.
Date - Type - Model - Power On Hours
???? - Shucked - WD1003FBYX-01Y7B1 - 71737
July 2015 - Shucked - ST4000DM000-1F2168 - 11571
November 2019 - Shucked - ST1000DM0004-1ZC101 - 52676
November 2020 - Shucked - WDC140EDFZ-11A0VA0 - 43503
Mid 2022??? - Shucked - WD140EDGZ-11B1PA0 - 31778
November 2022 - Refurb Internal - ST18000NM000J-2TV103 - 26333
I included the 1TB WD drive from ???? just because it happens to be in my hotswap bay. This is an example of my older drives that may not have failed, but I have replaced because they are smaller (< 4TB). There are about 9 of those with a pretty even breakdown of Seagate, WD, and others (Toshiba/Samsung/Maxtor).
This is just to say that I have a bunch of older drives from all vendors still around.
So the mix above is a good mix of both WD and Seagate, with the one Seagate at 52K+ hours from 2019 still leading the pack. The Refurb Seagate is an EXOS drive, while the others are whatever I shucked.
That said, it's a bit harder to track my failures. I can sort of only know when they failed based on either an extended warranty I claimed with my credit card, or my possible purchase of a replacement:
Date - Type - Model - Failure
July 2018 - Shucked - Seagate (STEB8000100) Expansion Desktop 8TB - Failed November 2019
November 2019 - Shucked - Seagate(STEL8000401) Seagate Backup Plus Hub - Failed ????
November 2019 - Shucked - ST1000DM0004-1ZC101 - 52201 - Failed?*
November 2020 - Shucked - WD EasyStore 14TB (WDC140EDFZ-11A0VA0) - 43503 - Failed ???
So it looks like I had 2 failures of a shucked Seagate's between 2018 and probably 2022.
The ST1000DM0004-1ZC101 which was shucked and is listed with a (?) is because I thought it failed...my system reported it did to the point that I filed an extended claim. After I got my replacement drive and moved the rest of the data off the failing drive I did a full reformat on it. It then appeared to continue to work in my backup server to this day without error....
But I also have the WD EasyStore which probably failed in 2023 after 3 years, which is why I don't have any warranty claim on file.
Personally, I don't think I have enough evidence to show one way or another.
Because of prices, I think I would still go with Seagate at $10/TB.
The best WD recently was about $260 for 20TB, which is about $13/TB.
IF those WD prices were available from WD direct, it might be worth it because they often give another year warranty when purchased right from them. I think that 2 year warranty is more valuable than a 1, because it really translates to a 3 year warranty with credit card protections which is a decently long time to see if a drive is going to fail. And, if it does, I mean...still 3 years.
So you can't compare < $13 TB drives from either manufacturer to their NAS level drives which are like $18/TB or more. Do I think you will see 80% more life from a NAS drive you pay 80% more for. I'm not sure I do. I think you have to assume that any of these drive may fail within 3-5 years. With only 1 year warranty from most places on these lower end drives it's kind of even. WD has a better warranty on their higher end drives usually (5 compared to the 2-3 from Seagate). So it's probably worth going WD on the higher end drives for a nominal fee if you are the type of person that likes warranty protection.
Yes, I have 3 backups. Yes, one of them is off-site. No, none of the data on the drive is critical.
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