Question Cheap SATA HDD

DynV

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I got a 4 TB external HDD that I only keep plugged when backing up. I'm looking for extra SATA storage as my main one is often running out. I don't intend on installing any program on the extra storage (so all on main). I'm open to used storage as long as a robust test can be performed when receiving it and if it's not satisfactory that it can be returned for cheap. I was looking at storage listing on Amazon.ca & Newegg.ca and saw a lot of 5400 RPM listed as long as a well as a wide variety of cache size, I also saw some entries that brought to mind that people said are prone to failure; I've tried finding 10K or 15K SATA HDD at a relatively cheap price in vain.

I'm wondering what would be amongst the best bang-for-the-buck for secondary storage; if you could assist with that.

Thank you kindly
 
Find a drive marketed for NAS drives at the minimum. They're still relatively cheap but they're (usually) not bottom barrel.

Also don't waste your time on 10K/15K drives. They're absolutely not worth their cost if you can find one and the sole reason for them existing (lower seek times) is overshadowed by SSDs.
 
I got a 4 TB external HDD that I only keep plugged when backing up. I'm looking for extra SATA storage as my main one is often running out. I don't intend on installing any program on the extra storage (so all on main). I'm open to used storage as long as a robust test can be performed when receiving it and if it's not satisfactory that it can be returned for cheap. I was looking at storage listing on Amazon.ca & Newegg.ca and saw a lot of 5400 RPM listed as long as a well as a wide variety of cache size, I also saw some entries that brought to mind that people said are prone to failure; I've tried finding 10K or 15K SATA HDD at a relatively cheap price in vain.

I'm wondering what would be amongst the best bang-for-the-buck for secondary storage; if you could assist with that.

Thank you kindly
Pick the size you want then shop the warranty.
 

DynV

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What combination of RPM & cache size would give best bang-for-the-buck for secondary storage? examples: 7200 RPM & 64 MB cache, 5400 RPM & 128 MB cache. Also which combos should I avoid as they tend to yield low quality-price ratio?
 

DynV

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What specifically will be on this drive?
Things I'll have to move from the main drive: Mostly downloaded content (music, programs, etc.), but also created content (save files, videos, etc.). I know I don't need a "powerful" HDD to do that but if I can get something a lot better by just paying a fraction more, I'd rather do that.
 
CMR drives use PMR, as do SMR drives.

CMR and SMR describe how tracks are recorded (conventional or shingled) whereas PMR describes how the bits are recorded (perpendicular). So SMR drives have perpendicular bits recorded on overlapping tracks, while CMR drives have perpendicular bits recorded on non-overlapping tracks.

Note that current technologies have moved on to HAMR and EAMR.
 

DynV

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Both of the following have the same price (in CAD) with S&H included and I can't figure out what type of tracks they have from their description. Did I miss it?
Or do you have better suggestions?

Update 1
I found the latter on Amazon.ca and neither found the track type there.
 
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DynV

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Well... The 7200 RPM SATA drives I found other than those seemed to be too expensive for my taste, so I think I'll wait for rebates. I was going to go shopping for used, but I realized although it's improbable, there's probably a non-negligible chance a used one would have been mistreated: dropped, insufficiently packaged for transport, or even if well packaged if grossly handled during transport.
 

DynV

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Still keeping an eye for prices I'm looking for in vain; that got me thinking: Could there be slow but reliable SSD that I could get for about the same price, or perhaps cheaper, than its 7200 RPM PMR drive counterpart? I doubt it (especially the cheaper part), but you never know.
 

DSzymborski

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Still keeping an eye for prices I'm looking for in vain; that got me thinking: Could there be slow but reliable SSD that I could get for about the same price, or perhaps cheaper, than its 7200 RPM PMR drive counterpart? I doubt it (especially the cheaper part), but you never know.

No. SSDs are more expensive at the same amount of storage. There's no SSD of 2 TB, of any quality, on PCPartPicker right now for under $140.
 

DynV

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I'm thinking the only time I'd--possibly--find a price I had in mind would be for boxing day. I thought in the meanwhile I'd kill 2 birds with 1 stone as I wanted extra storage for my tablet and found something very cheap with a good chance of failing but considering the good Amazon return experiences I had so far, so I ordered
with FREE delivery (44% off; = 16.14495 US Dollars = 13.908638 Euros, Last updated Oct 25, 2021, 16:15 UTC). My thinking is that if I get 85% of the advertised size and its speed really is good enough for
Great speed and performance for full HD video recording, high resolution pictures, mobile gaming, music and more
that it would be decent while waiting for a good HDD deal.
 

Pimpom

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I'm quite happy with a Toshiba P300 2TB HDD that I got a couple of months ago for the equivalent of CA$78 (free shipping, without discount/rebate) here in India. It was the only CMR 7200 rpm model I could find at the time.

With large files, I get real-world sustained read/write speeds of 180 MB/s, peaking to >200 MB/s at times. It's slower with small files of course, same as with 4K random R/W in synthetic benchmarks. I've had quieter drives but it's not loud enough to bother me.

Toshiba has SMR drives too in the P300 range. My piece is the HDWD120UZSVA. https://www.toshiba-storage.com/products/toshiba-internal-hard-drives-p300/?pdf