Hard Drive for Storage

I'm currently getting the best times I've ever seen from a consumer grade drive in the Seagate Barracuda 3TB 3-platter models (ST3000DM001). When two are in a RAID0 array they compete with fast SSD units... Only with enough space to actually be useful...

What are you most concerned about?

Budget, warranty, longevity or performance?

Figure that out and you will probably be able to answer your own question.

4TB blacks are nice you need the space..

3TB Seagate Barracuda's are great for a bit less storage.

I think at this point it's more pick your poison and go

mrt209 said:

Probably more longevity than anything else. That's why I'm leaning towards WD Green or Red. I'm not sure about Seagate since all hdd I've had issues with in the past have been Seagate's.

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If its longevity your after then I would suggest either WD Black or WD Red, Green's are ok, but more for budget minded individuals.

ashman70 said:

If its longevity your after then I would suggest either WD Black or WD Red, Green's are ok, but more for budget minded individuals.

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Isnt' the WD RED series 'NAS' oriented?

I recently grabbed a couple of Seagate 4TB USB3 externals at Costo for a low price. I gutted them b/c they had Barracuda XT's inside and the 3 year warranty on the bare drive is valid.

YMMV of course..

mrt209 said:

Yes, but I've read some people have said you don't have to use it in NAS configurations... that's just how they're marketed.

At this point, I'm considering purchasing 2 WD Greens and using them in a Raid 1 config. If do that, can I keep one of the drives in the Mac Pro and the other in my safe? If I update files on the drive in my mac, will the other drive (kept in safe) update to match the drive in my mac if I plug it in from time to time?

Or am I better off using CCC? I have about 1.5TB of files.

Thanks!

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CCC or SuperDuper is what you need! Not only a full backup but with both proggies you're able to make BOOTABLE CLONES (FW400-800) , which saved my bacon several times!

My config is backup partitions with CCC and backup all backed-up partitions to a BACKUP-ONLINE! The only way to be safe in case of fire, earthquakes, burglers, mother-in-laws, husbands and wifes!!!! ;-)

A RAID IS NEVER A BACKUP!!!!

RAID0 = Speed
RAID1 = Redaundancy
RAID5 = Hotswaps etc

Backup local and OFSITE is your way to safety!

Good luck!

Cheers

mrt209 said:

Yes, but I've read some people have said you don't have to use it in NAS configurations... that's just how they're marketed.

At this point, I'm considering purchasing 2 WD Greens and using them in a Raid 1 config. If do that, can I keep one of the drives in the Mac Pro and the other in my safe? If I update files on the drive in my mac, will the other drive (kept in safe) update to match the drive in my mac if I plug it in from time to time?

Or am I better off using CCC? I have about 1.5TB of files.

Thanks!

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It sounds like safety is a priority. Raid 1 is OK but it can slow things down. Just make one drive a clone of the other and set a schedule with CCC or SD to do it nightly.

Tesselator said:

I'm currently getting the best times I've ever seen from a consumer grade drive in the Seagate Barracuda 3TB 3-platter models (ST3000DM001). When two are in a RAID0 array they compete with fast SSD units... Only with enough space to actually be useful...

Image
2-Drive RAID0
One should be about half this.

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Nice. The new single TB platters get 200+ read/ write for probably 400+ in 2 disk RAID0 stripe. So those are my fastest ever seen. But they are Seagate so they'll probably blow up on you.