[SOLVED] Suggestions for reliable, moderate cost 4 to 6 HD

[mike the car guy]

The WD Black, 640, in my now old, nay ancient computer is max'd out. I've got a couple more in there to expand storage as well as a recent SSD for a boot drive. Now I intend to build a new computer sometime soon, and I would like to throw something in there now that I could use as a backup now and just transfer into a new machine when I get off my lazy a** and research and build one using a new SSD as the boot drive. But I'm not talking RAID. I'm not a gamer, but I can be impatient, but how much slower is a 5400 than a 7200? Storage is mostly photos and music. Yes I've looked at Backblaze among other places. I see nothing but rants about WDs new Blue drives with SMR, so I'm thinking I don't want that, but I've had a few WD Blacks and been very happy with them. I know Greens are turds and I'm highly suspicious of Seagate, I've had a couple of failures with them. HGST looks great, but on the pricey side, although bargains are to be had on ebay, but I take that with a grain of salt.

So my wise friends, what 4-6 T hard drives should I be looking at. And yes, I know about Cheap/Fast/Reliable, pick any two.

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

for just media storage and maybe system backups you should look a bit into external storage.
the portability can be a huge bonus vs internally installed drives.

how much slower is a 5400 than a 7200?

in terms of disk speed you won't notice any difference for media purposes,
but for backup 5400 vs 7200 may slow down disk image creation and incremental backups a bit.

running an OS or any more intensive software can show differences in loading, saving data, and basic usage.
but i would never recommend using an HDD for any type of software installations.

what 4-6 T hard drives should I be looking at

i have 2x 3TB 7200RPM Seagate Barracuda for all audio, video, images, and other basic storage.
and an 8TB 5400RPM Seagate Desktop that i use only for backing up this stored media and my OS disks.
i really do not notice any speed difference between them with my usage.

the 2x Barracudas are stored in an external 2.5" / 3.5" SATA dock that connects via USB 3.2.
the 8TB Desktop is just a basic external drive and also connects via USB 3.2.
the Barracudas have been in use for over 5 years now, the external Desktop for over 2 years.
no issue with any of them.
i also have a secondary system that has an internal 3.5" 7200RPM 4TB Western Digital Black connected that has been in use for 5+ years and it also has never shown any problems.

you can see a more detailed report of my main system storage configuration in my signature.

 

[twowheelstom]

i think the difference between the speeds of a 5400 rpm and 7200 rpm HDD is something that you won't notice whatsoever