Seagate Expansion 14TB External Hard Drive USB 3.0 with Rescue Data Recovery Services (STKP14000400) for $189.99

[Larry Shelby]

Free 240GB Solid State Drive w/ purchase, limited offer

https://www.newegg.com/seagate-expansion-14tb-black/p/N82E16822184958?Item=N82E16822184958

[Topcheese]

I'm not understanding the "group buy" option.  It's trying to charge me $209 via paypal.

 

Edit: Nevermind it's the tax they charging me. lol

Edited June 17 by Topcheese
stupidity

[dumbquestions]

Is this a reliable basket to put all my eggs in for the next decade

[P C]

Yes... as long as they are hard boiled

[Brian Walton]

1 hour ago, dumbquestions said:

Is this a reliable basket to put all my eggs in for the next decade

I wouldn't trust any consumer drive for 10 years.  But it is possible it will last that long.  I'd always recommend at least a backup copy of anything important when using a format that doesn't have redundancy built in.

[antler]

18 hours ago, dumbquestions said:

Is this a reliable basket to put all my eggs in for the next decade

Buy two and backup twice. It's unlikely both will simultaneously fail. If one fails somewhere down the line, get another to replace it so you continue to have two backups.

Edited June 18 by antler

[Martin Schiff]

If your data does not exist in (at least) 3 places, it does not exist at all. Sooner or later you will lose it.

I backup to a local internal drive, and 2 NAS boxes, AND to Backblaze online.

 

 

[Brian Lawler]

My QNAP NAS has been spinning 4 WD drives for 3303 days so far.  Lot of use too- most of that time it was providing DVR for three streams before I dropped cable (TV).  I don't back up the video because I don't really care about it, but keep on site and off site HD backups and use Amazon S3, which is really cheap for long term infrequently changed data.

[dumbquestions]

2 hours ago, Brian Lawler said:

My QNAP NAS has been spinning 4 WD drives for 3303 days so far.  Lot of use too- most of that time it was providing DVR for three streams before I dropped cable (TV).  I don't back up the video because I don't really care about it, but keep on site and off site HD backups and use Amazon S3, which is really cheap for long term infrequently changed data.

Thank you much. It really helps hearing numbers like this, when making such a big investment outside of vst’s or plugins, to protect all my hard work. I know that no product is flawless, but knowing someone else’s experience gives me a lot more confidence in what direction to go next. 3303 is just short of a decade so sounds like I’m saving up for a QNAP (based on other good things i’ve heard of them as well, of course)

Edited June 19 by dumbquestions

[Brian Lawler]

51 minutes ago, dumbquestions said:

.... I’m saving up for a QNAP (based on other good things i’ve heard of them as well, of course)

Just a heads up on QNAP-  I am very happy with mine, but they have had a checkered history of vulnerabilities that bit many of their users.  I am pretty security conscious, so I always kept mine behind a firewall, and the rare times that I want access remotely, I manually set up a VPN that lives in my router.  They have made great improvements in their software packages, and update them regularly.  Whatever you get (I hear good things about Synology), do make sure to keep it up to date and check-out any notices they post.

[dumbquestions]

32 minutes ago, Brian Lawler said:

Just a heads up on QNAP-  I am very happy with mine, but they have had a checkered history of vulnerabilities that bit many of their users.  I am pretty security conscious, so I always kept mine behind a firewall, and the rare times that I want access remotely, I manually set up a VPN that lives in my router.  They have made great improvements in their software packages, and update them regularly.  Whatever you get (I hear good things about Synology), do make sure to keep it up to date and check-out any notices they post.

As silly as it might sound, the cloud access feature is a big extra for me; I’m mainly attracted by the HUB structure that houses 4 physical drives securely. Would I just be avoiding most of those vulnerabilities by not having it linked to the cloud, since I probably won’t regularly be using that aspect anyway (exclusively using it for the local storage)? Or is there not a way to have the NAS part of the device shut off? Pretty new to the idea of these types of drives so just trying to understand

Edited June 19 by dumbquestions

[kitekrazy]

On 6/17/2024 at 8:10 PM, Brian Walton said:

I wouldn't trust any consumer drive for 10 years.  But it is possible it will last that long.  I'd always recommend at least a backup copy of anything important when using a format that doesn't have redundancy built in.

I've had WD HDDs last the long and a Seagate 500GB as well. Those old WD 320GB Blue drives were great.

I don't think modern drives are built like they use to.

External 3.5 drives rarely have more than a 2 year warranty and that should tell you something.  A massive drive like that I'd be afraid to run it 24/7.  I never do that with any 3.5 external.

When they go bad you do get warnings like noise.  Not knowing when a SSD fails is scary.

I guess a big drive like this is worthy of ripping your DVD collection.  I probably wouldn't stream off it either. 

One thing I notice with drive utilities they are not as efficient as when you discover a disk is dead.   

 

Edited June 19 by kitekrazy

[dumbquestions]

43 minutes ago, kitekrazy said:

Not knowing when a SSD fails is scary.

This is the part that makes me want to invest in something like QNAP, since I’m currently going off of exclusively SSD storage for instruments+projects and just looking to make the most secure backups of it all. Reason being is that the current drive I’m using has recently started randomly disconnecting on me (Mac user). Originally the idea was to move it all to something like a 14tb HDD or a QNAP (if it was reliable enough), but maybe the best route is just to have everything backed up across a couple devices after all, to play it safe. Appreciate you all helping me process this, it really is one of those things I don’t want to do but need to eventually, if I want to be smart.

Edited June 19 by dumbquestions

[Martin Schiff]

I have 3 Qnap NAS boxes of varying models, and they have all been VERY reliable.  I run Plex on one of them and can access my music and some videos that I ripped (and owned on DVD) on my TVs and other devices.

Edited June 19 by Martin Schiff

[Brian Lawler]

The thing about NAS boxes is that they can provide almost any kind of service you want.  Web site host, FTP server, SMB fileshare, IPcamera storage, media streamer, and on and on.  The more you have exposed to the Internet though, the more attack surface you present.  You can absolutely use all those goodies inside your home network, but use a good router with extensive firewall capabilities  to keep "the world" out.  I use a Ubiquiti router, but guess what- they have had vulnerabilities too.  Security is hard, unfortunately.  I use four 3TB WD "Red" drives- they are designed for NAS (constant) use.  I have them configured in a 4 drive RAID array where any one drive can fail, but you won't lose any data.   The software will notify you (set up email alerts) and you just hot swap the drive with a good one (tool-less and easy).  I had a "soft" drive failure a couple years ago but I just used the QNAP utilities to map out the bad sectors and let the system rebuild the array.  It is still chugging away.  Be sure to have an air-gapped backup strategy.  I use little 5 TB USB spinners that are only plugged in during backup or recovery.

[Martin Schiff]

I solve the security issue by NOT allowing the NAS boxes to be accessed from outside.