Pros/Cons of buying Toshiba 6TB HDD [MD04ACA600] ?

[Britney Amber]

I am thinking of getting a Toshiba 6TB HDD [MD04ACA600].

Are there any issues about the HDD I need to know?

I couldn't find any reviews or customer opinions on this drive on the net.

I'd appreciate your thoughts.

 

[13thmonkey]

It'll be too new to have anything but the most uninformed reviews, they'll all work at about the same speed in that class, no differences to be concerned about. Failure rate data won't be available for at least 2 years, more like 3-4.

So now is a good time to ask what's your backup plan for the data?

 

[Britney Amber]

This 6tb Hdd IS MY backup plan for my current data.

 

[13thmonkey]

Good, in which case why a 7200rpm drive, why not a 5400rpm drive? the actual read and write speeds and seek times are less relevant as a backup drive.

As to whether it will fail, it will or it won't, you'll be lucky or unlucky, the best drives might have a failure rate that is 1% different to the worst, none of them are particularly bad, no particular drive is going to be 'failure proof'.

There's not much say, they are commodities now, and price is the differentiator.

 

[Neur0nauT]

Toshiba drives have been good in my experience, however any mechanical drive can fail, and when you are talking about that much storage capacity there's more chance of losing a lot more data.

If you are looking for a backup solution, would instead consider buying a NAS storage device such as a Buffalo Linkstation, or a Synology Disk Station with 2x3TB drives. That way you could mirror them for recovery contingency if one fails.

If you are talking about full data backup, then you could consider investing in an RDX Tape Drive and run backups to removable tape drives, or use one of the many availilbe online cloud backup services such as Crashplan or similar.

 

[13thmonkey]

however any mechanical drive can fail

As can any non mechanical one,

 

[Neur0nauT]

however any mechanical drive can fail

As can any non mechanical one,

Goes without saying! however since larger capacity SSDs are just a little bit expensive. I thought that would have been obvious.

 

[13thmonkey]

Some people think that SSD's are indestructible, and will not die, they just have different failure modes.

 

[Neur0nauT]

Some people think that SSD's are indestructible, and will not die, they just have different failure modes.

I've had more SSDs fail on me than HDDs!! So I'm under no illusions!

 

[Britney Amber]

Good, in which case why a 7200rpm drive, why not a 5400rpm drive?

and price is the differentiator.

Price is the reason I am thinking of this Toshiba. The WD Red 6TB [WD60EFRX] is a bit more pricey. Would you recommend it over the Toshiba and why?

 

[13thmonkey]

In a NAS or other 24/7 system then go red, or a NAS drive in general, as a drive that'll probably sit idle a lot don't bother. Cheapness for size is what to look for.