4-5TB internal drive

[1dog]

Hi,

I was interested in getting an external drive but after reading more about these and their failure rates (mostly from Amazon reviews), I am now considering an internal drive. It also does not appear that internal drives have shorter lives than external drives. I thought heat dissipation would be better in the latter but it appears the other way around. Please correct me if I'm wrong in my assumptions.

To get to the point, I am looking for a 4 (preferably 5) TB drive for the following system:
Asus H97M-E
i3-4330
8GB RAM
WD Raptor 150 GB HD
Windows 7
Budget: $500
Product lifetime is more important than read/write speed, etc.

Thank you.

 

[Guest]

A 4-5 TB drive will definitely work in your computer (I am assuming it is a windows computer) as long as it is not the boot drive.

Most HDDs have a long lifetime, even external ones.

Heat dissipation is usually better in desktop computers as there is more air flow

500 bucks is probably a bit overkill for a hard drive. However, if you are looking for true reliability, you might want to set a a RAID system, which provides reliable data backing-up and a way to recover your data if one drive fails. You should be able to afford a couple HDDs and a RAID controller card with your budget.

TL;DR: There is not much of a difference between external/internal hard drives. If reliability is the true issue, RAID should be considered.

 

[1dog]

Thanks. Looking up the motherboard specs, it says it supports RAID 0, 1, 5, 10. Is RAID just a card that I plug in?

I am not sure what you mean by "TL;DR: ", could you elaborate?

So it seems that an external hard drive shouldn't die quickly either. For data integrity, you would recommend an internal drive with RAID over an external drive?

Would you recommend a specific setup for internal HDD and RAID and would you recommend a specific external HDD? Thanks again.

 

[popatim]

TL;DR means 'Too Long, Didn't Read' and gives you the 'Cliff Notes' summary...

Raid does not replace making backups. Raid means redundancy which means surviving a drive failure and being able to keep the system running. most raid versions can survive 1 drive failure. Another failure results in a loss of all your data.

Important files should always have backup copies made onto other devices and the more backups you have the safer they are.

Do you need this drive to be performance oriented or would this be a storage drive for less/seldom used files?
Performance 7200rpm's -

• 4tb WD Black;
  WD 4tb RE;
  HGST 4, 5, & 6TB Nas,
  Toshiba 5Tb (which is a Hitachi drive)

Storage - you have a size choice in 4,5, & 6 tb in Seagate Barracuda & Nas editions, WD Red & Green editions

 

[1dog]

Thank you for the info on Raid - that helps. I am looking for storage oriented for seldom used files. That was also the reason for my initial inquiry into external drives and my focus on product lifetime rather than read/write speed. I did not plan on accessing this drive much so I thought an external drive may be better suited. I am not looking for portability either. An external drive will stay in one place. I have a bunch of old DVDs that I have data on and I plan to throw that on this drive. Don't really need to access that stuff very often but I don't mind if I have the accessibility either. Does that help narrow your recommendations?

 

[popatim]

I have WD greens in my server that have done very well and they will spin down to save power regardless of the OS setting for HDD's so you can easily set your hdd's to full power and not worry about wasting power on drives that dont need it; but since you are looking for reliability, I would go with the WD black or RE in 4tb. For 5 & 6tb WD Red and their 5yr warranties.

 

[1dog]

Thanks. Just to confirm, anything listed RE, Black or Red in the "Series" column for 4TB and higher should be fine, yes? http://pcpartpicker.com/parts/internal-hard-drive/#m=38&sort=d4

PS - Those 5 year warranties apply to all 5, 6 TB WD Red drives? If so, that seems to be the way to go for me.