Long term storage: use 2tb, 3tb or 4tb internal drives?

Just make sure you use drives that are designed for NAS systems like the Western Digital Red Drives. Plus I have heard the 4TB drives are failing faster than the 3TB drives so I would go with the 3TB size drives.

oxband said:

Interesting. is there any reason 4tb would be more unstable? Where did you hear that?

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I heard on a podcast. It has to do with the extra palter in the 4TB drive. However I can't remember what podcast/blog post. It might be even been ironed out by now.

Just look at the blog post BackBlaze what Hard Drive should you buy. It should give you some pointers.

oxband said:

I'm moving towards a system of having data backed up on internal drives I'll use with a OWC Thunderbay and separate external drives as well.

I'm trying to decide what size internal drives to use. I'm choosing between drives that are 2tb, 3tb and 4tb's large. I imagine I get more bang for my buck with 4tb. I'm tempted to go that route. I'll have everything backed up so I don't worry about the fact that, if it fails, it's 4tbs.

That said......any other thoughts on this matter? Is there another way to think/approach it? Just brainstorming before buying stuff.

Thanks in advance!!

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FIRST you need to make a detailed backup plan. Maybe you have one but did not tell us. How will these drives be organized? Are you using RAID? Are you using Time machine? Some others software? Is there an off site backup? How many computers do you own?

As for each drives are reliable read this. https://www.backblaze.com/blog/what-hard-drive-should-i-buy/

If you have a lot of data you likely want a bit RAID box for Time Machine and then use a cloud off site service.

I pay $50 per year for unlimited offsite backup. I would pay more to buy disks.

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oxband said:

Interesting. is there any reason 4tb would be more unstable? Where did you hear that?

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It depend on the brand Hitachi or Seagate. One has batter 4TB drives the other has better 3TB drives but over all Hitachi wins

One reason to buy smaller drives is that RAID works best with five drives. So if you need to by 5 of them maybe 2TB drives are big enough?