End of year backup drives

rgrebby

rgrebby

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Richard
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I've never been one for NAS setups and each year I get a couple new 4tbs and back up the year.
However now we are doing more and more video and now with the Black Magic camera it's getting crazy.

I totally missed out on the black Friday sales as we had a baby on the 29th...

Has anyone seen any great offers on external 6tb + drives for sale?
 
Sorry to rub it in but a few days ago Amazon had the WD Elements 8TB for £115 but it's now back up to £155. This is still a good price as it was £169 and what is believed to be the same drive bare (WD Red) is £245.
 
Snapsh0t said:
Sorry to rub it in but a few days ago Amazon had the WD Elements 8TB for £115 but it's now back up to £155. This is still a good price as it was £169 and what is believed to be the same drive bare (WD Red) is £245.
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They don't use red drives in the external drives any more they are all white drives. Only the WD My Book Duo have red drives in them.
 
I know they have white labels on them but the underlying mechanism is still believed to be the Red. WD don't make many other 8TB helium-filled drives so the Red is the most likely candidate. Unless you know better?
 
I don't really understand all the colours beyond what Google says, but if it's an "end of year - stick it in the drawer and hope never to use it again" drive, wouldn't Blue be the best choice?
 
If the OP was after a bare drive then you'd be right (apart from Blue stopping at 6TB) but he's after an external drive so theoretically the drive type is hidden. It's only become of interest as the large external drives are much cheaper than any equivalent bare drive so people began to 'shuck' them out of their cases to use in NASs. Obviously they were extremely happy to find they were getting WD Reds which are intended for NAS use so WD attempted to spoil their fun (and maintain its profits) by using 'white label' drives instead. However, as I said, there are a limited number of physical drive mechanisms they could be and Red is the most likely.
 
They're not red drives
 
That's just a label that says nothing about the underlying drive mechanism. It's as meaningful as me pinning a label saying 'monkey' on you and expecting people to believe you're no longer homo sapiens.
It's also the wrong label as WD Elements contain WD80EMAZ drives, not WD80EZAZ.
So, as you're so knowledgable, if they're not Reds, just what WD drives are hiding behind the EMAZ & EZAZ labels?

Ook
 
Snapsh0t said:
That's just a label that says nothing about the underlying drive mechanism. It's as meaningful as me pinning a label saying 'monkey' on you and expecting people to believe you're no longer homo sapiens.
It's also the wrong label as WD Elements contain WD80EMAZ drives, not WD80EZAZ.
So, as you're so knowledgable, if they're not Reds, just what WD drives are hiding behind the EMAZ & EZAZ labels?

Ook
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:rolleyes:

Some people just want to start a fight in an empty room.

They aren't red drives they are white drives. That is as simple and as complicated as it needs to be. It's too boring a subject to discuss any further.

Anyway for the o.p this is probably as cheap a 6tb drive you will find at the moment.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Seagate-Desktop-External-Creative-Photography/dp/B01IAD5ZEE/
 
Hah thanks guys, not sure the xbox one would work but that's a really good price.
I've got two of the 6tb ones in the basket already so was thinking on that.
 
f/2.8 said:
:rolleyes:

Some people just want to start a fight in an empty room.

They aren't red drives they are white drives. That is as simple and as complicated as it needs to be. It's too boring a subject to discuss any further.
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If you don't want an argument don't feed me nonsense. A white drive is one that's hiding its identity, not something specially manufactured to put in external cases, and I still have enough intellectual curiosity to want to know what it's hiding. It may not be a Red but but I still want to know.
 
Snapsh0t said:
If you don't want an argument don't feed me nonsense. A white drive is one that's hiding its identity, not something specially manufactured to put in external cases, and I still have enough intellectual curiosity to want to know what it's hiding. It may not be a Red but but I still want to know.
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:rolleyes: This has nothing at all to do with the thread.

If this is something you have such a deep need to know why not ask on the WD forum or create your own thread.
 
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rgrebby said:
Hah thanks guys, not sure the xbox one would work but that's a really good price.
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As a genuine question, can anybody tell me why not?

It is presumably a hard drive in a box with a USB socket on it. I can see why it might need reformatting but can anybody explain how this differs from a PC drive except in marketing?
 
JonathanRyan said:
As a genuine question, can anybody tell me why not?

It is presumably a hard drive in a box with a USB socket on it. I can see why it might need reformatting but can anybody explain how this differs from a PC drive except in marketing?
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It depends if those drives are pre formatted for the XBOX one or not which has its own file system which can't be seen by windows or mac. It may be difficult to get the drive to show in windows so that it can be formatted. Would be surprised if there i not a way around it. When you format a drive for the Xbox One Microsoft recommend that you create a partition so that part of the drive can be seen by windows not sure if that is how these drives ship though.
 
Richard and better half

congrats on the new arrival, only just seen your post. boy or girl ????

 
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I have a 4tb mybook has been OK but it's not hooked up very often.
I think generally Western Digital are among the best in that sort of price range.
 
Anyone backing up anything seriously should have at least two backups (personally, I have 4, two of which are remotely located - one at my pals house in Western Australia (I have his) the other at work), preferably on media from different manufacturers (so if WD have a QC issue, it's unlikely that (say) Samsung will at the same time)
 
JonathanRyan said:
Hard drives have 2 states - failed and about to fail
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Generally they tend to follow a "bathtub curve" - high failure rates for new-ish drives, if they survive the first 6 to 12 months they are good for many years before failure rates start to go up again.
 
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