Thank goodness it seems like we're FINALLY getting regular capacity upgrades in drives again. Of course at crazy prices, but still, seemed like we plateaued at 4GB FOREVER.
I've got 8GB drives now (over half full) and maybe when I need more space I'll buy one of those Drobos, 2 12TB (or whatever is largest) drives, throw those in, copy my data over, throw the 8TB drives in.
Drobo seems cool, save that I'm a little leary about losing access to my data if the drobo itself ever died but the hard drives were fine.
Smaller than top-of-the-line Ironwolves seems reasonably priced.
However, when dealing with affordable enterprise storage, I settled on two setup: - WD Gold for SATA disks (ie: secondary servers, medium-sized NAS, ecc); - HGST Ultrastar He8/10/12 for SAS disks (virtualization systems)
WD Reds and Ironwolves Pro seems a good choice for smaller NAS and servers, but recent price cuts on the WD Gold line really means that we can use them on anything but the cheaper system.
That said, some system integrator provided us with 4TB Toshiba SATA hard drives and the experience is fine at the moment.
Probably going to be a while. Gains from drives like this are just letting the makers stuff more platters in. Density per platter is only growing a few percent/generation (5-15%?). With HDD marketing people determined to have nice numbers for capacity, 2 platter drives will stay stuck at 2TB until a 1.5TB platter is available.
Helium might allow squeezing a 3rd platter into that form factor; not sure since AFAIK none exist at present. If so, 3TB would be available off the bat, and 4 would be available a lot sooner. Although since the 1st 2TB laptop drives only came out last year it'd still probably be at least 1 or 2 density shrinks out.
Getting a 3rd platter into a 9.5mm drive would be easier than the 7mm form factor; but it appears that the latter has completely displaced the former for the most recent generation. (Newegg lists over a hundred 2tb drives in 7mm only a single Samsung model in 9.5mm.) The shrink is presumably driven by laptop makers wanting to minimize the thickness penalty vs m.2 SSD models. And in a world where anyone upgrading laptop storage is almost certain to go SSD and external enclosures can just slap 2 drives in a RAID0 for capacity the 9.5mm form factor doesn't really have enough of a reason to exist anymore to justify its costs.
It's nice that Seagate is offering better warranties again. However, I've left them for the more reliable HGST drives. I don't mind paying the increased cost for that. It would be nice not to have to use the warranty. I was replacing my Seagate drives on a regular basis. Can't wait until I get my data backed up in two places. Plan on doing that project in the coming week.
Still rocking my four 8TB archival drives I bought TWO YEARS AGO for $250/each. ~$400 should be the right price for a 12TB drive. Bleeding edge gets the $100 mark up.
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Wolfpup - Thursday, October 5, 2017 - link
Thank goodness it seems like we're FINALLY getting regular capacity upgrades in drives again. Of course at crazy prices, but still, seemed like we plateaued at 4GB FOREVER.I've got 8GB drives now (over half full) and maybe when I need more space I'll buy one of those Drobos, 2 12TB (or whatever is largest) drives, throw those in, copy my data over, throw the 8TB drives in.
Drobo seems cool, save that I'm a little leary about losing access to my data if the drobo itself ever died but the hard drives were fine.
JeffFlanagan - Thursday, October 5, 2017 - link
$32.50/TB does not seem like a crazy price for a NAS drive.Zingam - Sunday, October 8, 2017 - link
Are you calling from the year 1999? We have Terabytes in the year 2017!Maltz - Tuesday, October 10, 2017 - link
You wouldn't lose access to your data when your Drobo dies if you understood that RAID ≠ Backups. :)shodanshok - Saturday, October 7, 2017 - link
Smaller than top-of-the-line Ironwolves seems reasonably priced.However, when dealing with affordable enterprise storage, I settled on two setup:
- WD Gold for SATA disks (ie: secondary servers, medium-sized NAS, ecc);
- HGST Ultrastar He8/10/12 for SAS disks (virtualization systems)
WD Reds and Ironwolves Pro seems a good choice for smaller NAS and servers, but recent price cuts on the WD Gold line really means that we can use them on anything but the cheaper system.
That said, some system integrator provided us with 4TB Toshiba SATA hard drives and the experience is fine at the moment.
Cod3rror - Saturday, October 7, 2017 - link
It's nice that 3.5" drives are getting bigger but what about 2.5" drives? I really want a 4TB 9.5mm 2.5" drive for an external enclosure.DanNeely - Monday, October 9, 2017 - link
Probably going to be a while. Gains from drives like this are just letting the makers stuff more platters in. Density per platter is only growing a few percent/generation (5-15%?). With HDD marketing people determined to have nice numbers for capacity, 2 platter drives will stay stuck at 2TB until a 1.5TB platter is available.Helium might allow squeezing a 3rd platter into that form factor; not sure since AFAIK none exist at present. If so, 3TB would be available off the bat, and 4 would be available a lot sooner. Although since the 1st 2TB laptop drives only came out last year it'd still probably be at least 1 or 2 density shrinks out.
Getting a 3rd platter into a 9.5mm drive would be easier than the 7mm form factor; but it appears that the latter has completely displaced the former for the most recent generation. (Newegg lists over a hundred 2tb drives in 7mm only a single Samsung model in 9.5mm.) The shrink is presumably driven by laptop makers wanting to minimize the thickness penalty vs m.2 SSD models. And in a world where anyone upgrading laptop storage is almost certain to go SSD and external enclosures can just slap 2 drives in a RAID0 for capacity the 9.5mm form factor doesn't really have enough of a reason to exist anymore to justify its costs.
bigboxes - Sunday, October 8, 2017 - link
It's nice that Seagate is offering better warranties again. However, I've left them for the more reliable HGST drives. I don't mind paying the increased cost for that. It would be nice not to have to use the warranty. I was replacing my Seagate drives on a regular basis. Can't wait until I get my data backed up in two places. Plan on doing that project in the coming week.Luscious - Tuesday, October 10, 2017 - link
Still rocking my four 8TB archival drives I bought TWO YEARS AGO for $250/each. ~$400 should be the right price for a 12TB drive. Bleeding edge gets the $100 mark up.mode_13h - Tuesday, October 10, 2017 - link
If archival means SMR, then I don't care if they were $25.mode_13h - Tuesday, October 10, 2017 - link
Just replaced 5x 1 TB WD Black drives. > 7 years old and no failures!Went with 4 TB WD Gold. Wish I could afford 8 TB Gold. Just compare the specs. :drool:
BadThad - Friday, October 13, 2017 - link
He is a very small atom, it will eventually leak. How are they keeping it in?