New External Hard Drive

[ArthurDent]

I'm thinking of buying this one:

https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Expansion-Desktop-External-STEB8000100/dp/B01HAPGEIE/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

for my Mac Mini. My 1TB is maxed out and I need more space. Anybody own one? Like it? Any good alternatives out there? Thanks for any ideas.

[DougB]

I just purchased the 6TB Seagate BackUp Plus HUB. I have numerous Western Digital and Seagate external drives.
The one above has 2 USB 3.0 ports on the drive so you actualyl gain a port when using it.
I think either WD or Seagate are fine. I stay away from those that get their power from the USB port & only get those that have their own external power supply.

[pluton]

I prefer external drives mounted in metal (usually Al) boxes for the better cooling. But I've not actually measured or tested whether or not the cooler metal box enables longer drive life.
Question for anyone who knows: Is it worth it for the home user to buy 'enterprise grade' drives?

[CS]

I prefer external drives mounted in metal (usually Al) boxes for the better cooling. But I've not actually measured or tested whether or not the cooler metal box enables longer drive life.
Question for anyone who knows: Is it worth it for the home user to buy 'enterprise grade' drives?

As you might suspect, the answer is it depends. 

There are variables, such as what are you using them for, are they stand alone, or in a RAID configuration, and of course the enclosure are they mounted in also plays a role. I like and use an Icy Dock 2 bay enclosure, which runs very cool, 88˚ by IR thermometer. It can handle RAID or JBOD setups, and I use one drive for Time Machine and the other for periodic Chronosync bootable cloning. Thsi allows me to hot swap drives at will, no trays required, and it can use HDD's or SSD's. It will take drives up 8TB per bay, and it's tool-less. An excellent enclosure, IMO.


http://tinyurl.com/y9epb2rb

tom's HARDWARE has an interesting article on consumer vs enterprise drives.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/252706-32-consumer-enterprise-grade-harddrives

Heat is an enemy, but so are temperature swings, hot-cold-hot-cold ad infinitum, with HDD's. When using spinners it's time to consider replacement when the warranty period ends. Some spinners last much longer, but, what if they don't, and they contain info that you don't want to lose or compromise? I think the jury is currently still out on SSD's, WRT lifespan.

[Hugh_3170]

Good advice Carl.

I always buy my external drives in pairs and maintain duplicate backups on each.  Now days one gets a lot of storage per dollar, so I do not see this as extravagant.

With any hard drive, it id not a case of "if they fail" but rather the case of "when they fail".

For what it is worth, I buy Western Digital here in Australia.  In your country,  other brands may offer better deals. 

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When using spinners it's time to consider replacement when the warranty period ends. Some spinners last much longer, but, what if they don't, and they contain info that you don't want to lose or compromise? I think the jury is currently still out on SSD's, WRT lifespan.

[Akira]

Do you leave the HDD switched on after the installation?

So far as my humble knowledge goes, the enterprise model HDDs are designed for the constant operation, unlike the ones designed for, say, notebooks where the HDDs are switched off in the sleep mode or when you switch the PC off before going to bed or going out.

If you switch the enterprise HDD on and off as if it were made for the notebooks, that would shorten its life or raise the failure rate.

[pluton]

For the moment, I have concluded that enterprise drives would not offer any advantage for my system, which only runs about 2 hours a day, on average.