WD super huge storage breakthru

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alphabeatles
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Re: WD super huge storage breakthru

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My biggest external HDD is 8TB, ALL my crap fits on there (audio, video, images, documents, software, etc.), though it's getting tight and I have to keep purging to ease the way for new and improved stuff.

This drive is backed up to a similar 8TB as well as a 5TB external (without the video) and several old 2TB WD Enterprise Storage drives rescued from an old server. AND the best of all of this is again backed up on old 1 and 2TB HDD drives in a separate location.

Point is, have AT LEAST 2 copies of your stuff, and your internal drive doesn't count.

As for SSD, I wouldn't trust memory sticks/flash drives for long-term storage but larger external SSDs would probably be more reliable – though any SSD should also be backed up to HDD for safety.

I'm not using any cloud storage due to the size of my collection but that's a great option for off-site protection and accessibility.

PS: Storing stuff on data CDs and DVDs doesn't count! Except maybe as a last-resort backup.
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Re: WD super huge storage breakthru

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Everything is ephemeral, unfortunately. But at least backing up digital is easier than analogue! I can remember backing up my vhs tapes to dvdr in the noughties. Took ages.
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alphabeatles
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Re: WD super huge storage breakthru

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Lord Reith wrote: Fri May 20, 2022 11:20 am Everything is ephemeral, unfortunately. But at least backing up digital is easier than analogue! I can remember backing up my vhs tapes to dvdr in the noughties. Took ages.
I did the same thing at the same time! Ran the tapes into the computer via a conversion box to iMovie, used iDVD for adding the themes, crunched the 2-hour results all night (one per night)! Burned the finished files to DVD disks.

Some time later I put the DVDs back into a computer and converted their data into mp4s via Handbrake... These files I still have. The DVDs I do not (I gave many away).

I did the same process with any audio or data CDs, got the data off, got rid of them. Not as ephemeral but oh-so-slow and unwieldy.
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Re: WD super huge storage breakthru

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Most of my links are to OneDrive. However, OneDrive does impose a download limit and when this is reached displays a message that the files are deleted or have expired. Leave it a while and try again later.
Darth Kybiel
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Re: WD super huge storage breakthru

Post by Darth Kybiel »

I don't care what external hard drive it is, so far Toshiba is the only brand I never had crash on me. My oldest 750GB one still works perfectly. I have tons of 1 and 2 and 3 TB Toshiba external hard drives, all have been reliable and never had an issue. Other brands I never store anything permenant or long term on. Especially Seagate. I had so much confidence in that because everyone said the brand was so great. Luckily enough I was able to find ad redownload most everything I had on that thing. Biggest tip for all external hard drives, delete any files on them. Screw their fancy locks and security crap. Most everything 'extra' of features will slowly lag and crash the thing in time. Give the drive a clean reformatted state. If you need extra features for any external hard drive search for a program to download that you know won't slowly kill it.
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Re: WD super huge storage breakthru

Post by alphabeatles »

Thanks Darth for your comments! (Unfortunately maybe) my 5 and 8TB externals are Seagate. As a Mac user I always reformat these drives when new since they come Windows-compatible which I don't need (ExFat?).

At one point the 5TB went read-only on me (due to too much moving files around?) but I was able to copy everything off and restore it (it's been fine since). The 8TBs have been fine, and I have 2 more new ones waiting in the closet...

I've also begun doing regular directory maintenance on these drives using Disk Utility or Tech Tool Pro to keep the files in order. And lots of backups as I said!
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Re: WD super huge storage breakthru

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Darth Kybiel wrote: Tue May 24, 2022 12:39 pm I don't care what external hard drive it is, so far Toshiba is the only brand I never had crash on me. My oldest 750GB one still works perfectly. I have tons of 1 and 2 and 3 TB Toshiba external hard drives, all have been reliable and never had an issue. Other brands I never store anything permenant or long term on. Especially Seagate. I had so much confidence in that because everyone said the brand was so great. Luckily enough I was able to find ad redownload most everything I had on that thing. Biggest tip for all external hard drives, delete any files on them. Screw their fancy locks and security crap. Most everything 'extra' of features will slowly lag and crash the thing in time. Give the drive a clean reformatted state. If you need extra features for any external hard drive search for a program to download that you know won't slowly kill it.
Yes, I've had problems with Toshiba too.

having opened up a few portable hard drives, I know however that the brand name doesn't mean a whole lot. The actual drive inside can be made by one of any number of manufacturers that have nothing to do with the brand on the box. I usually stick to Seagate because I know they actually make their own drives.
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Re: WD super huge storage breakthru

Post by Phil_Lip »

I'm sure there are other stats available, but I always find this interesting.

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaz ... r-q1-2022/

Image
Most of my links are to OneDrive. However, OneDrive does impose a download limit and when this is reached displays a message that the files are deleted or have expired. Leave it a while and try again later.
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alphabeatles
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Re: WD super huge storage breakthru

Post by alphabeatles »

Got a junk email today:

"210TB Fully Air-Gapped and Immutable Veeam backup and DR appliance with S3 Object Lockdown Technology for Ransomware protection & Instant multi VM FastTrack recovery for $14,995."

This is mainly for those who download too much rehash, ha!
Darth Kybiel
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Re: WD super huge storage breakthru

Post by Darth Kybiel »

Phil_Lip wrote: Wed May 25, 2022 9:31 am I'm sure there are other stats available, but I always find this interesting.

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaz ... r-q1-2022/

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Please also note a lot of 14 and 16 TB external hard drives are chinese knock-offs and since they use the same labels and fake company logos, most people can't tell the difference. Most people are buying them off of Ebay or discountish sites which should be a red flag.
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