OK FELLOW NERDS!
GIve me your buying tips/deals for the most cost-efficient (highest capacity) hard drive for long-term archival purposes! General advice or specific Canadian sources/able to ship to Canada appreciated!
aaaannnd GO!
#buying #harddrive #HDD
just came across this amazing deal! They're going to PAY ME $848 for this hard drive! :+)
as far as prices go this is the best $/TB I have found so far at CAD $17.45/TB #buying #harddrive #HDD
@chris Another Canadian option is Memory Express, they've got the same deal on the 20TB Barracuda: https://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX00132272
They've also got a physical location on the island (here in Victoria).
@chris Clay tablets
Don't actually know, so I boosted. My mutuals are baller af
@TeflonTrout tablets?
Much appreciated!
@chris FWIW I have a pair of 6TB Seagate "Archive HDD" (ST6000AS0002) drives which the manufacturer claims are good for not having the bearings gum up after prolonged periods of time on the shelf. I see they're listed at CDN$235 on NewEgg, you could probably find a better source - but they are more expensive than regular HDDs.
And I say FWIW worth because my sample size is 2 and neither has failed yet, so I really don't have any stats on lifespan. That said I got these two at least 6 or 7 years ago, can't really remember.
So long as chassis/shelf space is not your biggest concern, you will always pay a premium for data density. I.e. $/TB will be more for an 8TB drive than a 4TB. You can _always_ copy small drive contents to larger drive contents as needed so go with the size that gives you most TB / $.
1/
Drive makers have tiers. Ill use WD's classification but others have similar.
- black - high performance, lots of cache, super fast. less reliable. for games
- blue - better reliable, data retention, good performance - for bizness and servers
- red - rock solid reliable, performance OK - for longevity and long term storage. typical "NAS" drives
Each with variying level of MTBF, cache levels blah blah.
2/
I buy WD Red 4TBs when I have a free $150, and I shove them into a 5 bay USB 3.0 enclosure. I'm on my second (enclosure) now. When the 8TBs hit the TB/$ sweet spot, Ill switch to those and I can always add more encl. Unplug em throw em in the closet, or safety deposit box whatever. Move to that new server Im building. External enclosures for the win so long as you don't bottleneck yourself by putting a SATA 6 drive in a USB 2 enclosure or plug a USB 3.1 enclosure into a USB 2 A slot.
@chris Seems about right. Last 4TB Red I bought was ~$130. I've got a few from Amazon (boo!) for $120 right on that price pt., but Canada Computers which I prefer, sometimes has some on sale for that.
You're gonna be bombarded with a lot of info about cache and rotation speed etc. but unless you can actually explain what each of those things actually _mean_ and under what circumstances they might affect your usage performance of said drive, then trust me - just go for most storage for buck.
And if you go for an external USB or e-SATA enclosure make sure you pair capabilities. SATA 6 drive in a USB 3.x+ enclosure plugged to a USB 3.x port, otherwise you're introducing an artificial bottleneck somewhere.
@chris my three rules of thumb:
Study “The Tao of Backups” - at terabyte levels, don’t expect one drive to be infallible.
Do price / # of terabytes math. Or flip the ratio and call it terabytes per $nn. Either way, be aware of the sweet spot. Last time I looked at retail/home drives, $20+ per terabytes at low and high sizes came down to $15 per terabyte around 16T.
Look at Backblaze data. Let them kill bias (e.g., I have avoided seagate, and their data shows a couple seagate 8T drives absolutely _slaying_ on their lifespans and low fail rates. https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-drive-stats-for-q2-2025/
Instead of US owned New Egg, buying from Canada Computers keeps more of your dollars out of the fascist / gangster economy:
https://www.canadacomputers.com/en/
Likewise many drive companies - Seagate, Western Digital are US based and owned and are silent when their fuhrer's speaks of annexing Canada.
There are plenty of Taiwan / Korean manufacturers to choose from, eg Samsung.
@NovaNaturalist MemoryExpress is also a good option. It's where I often buy from.
@Chigaze @NovaNaturalist @chris +1 for MemEx. They’ll also price match.
Also, avoid shingled drives if you’re using them for archival.
@chris I tend to buy my hard drives from Canada Computers (https://www.canadacomputers.com/en/). All told, I have about 20 drives in my home office, mostly spinning platters. My last few drives were in the 20-22TB range, and so far, they've been reliable. I flip between Seagate and Western Digital; mindful of the warranty differences.
Ideally, you want three copies of important data, so two local copies and one remote. If you have specific questions, fire away!
I've been running WD Reds in my old Synology for 12 years. I ran 3 drives in Synologys "Hybrid Raid" and needed to replace two of these drives during its lifetime.
I recently upgraded to a new unit, which starting this year only accepts Synology-branded drives. I didn't feel they were unreasonably priced, and hope they'll deliver similar availability. This time I got 4 drives so I could run proper RAID5. I probably won't keep backing it up to the cloud, though.
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