Stand Alone drive for Backups

[TODDLT]

I'm going to have an stand alone drive attached to unRaid to back up specific directories. 

 

As this is a backup, the work load will be a nightly update, but off most of the rest of the time.  Reliability is obviously important but I'm not going as far as to spring for a 1TB SSD at this point.

 

The question is whether or not to spend the extra money for an Enterprise level drive for reliability.  Enterprise drives are usually rated for high demand work loads which this will not be, so is it really worth it.   WD show below, but Seagate has similar options / cost.

 

WD Blue $50

 

WD Gold $87

 

 

[HellDiverUK]

Blues are decent drives.  Got 1TB Blues in use for 7+ years 24/7 at work, still trucking.

 

I wouldn't spend the extra on a Gold.

[TODDLT]

Would you do the 5400 or 7200 model?   Same cost.

 

Comparison

Edited July 19, 2017 by TODDLT

[JonathanM]

1 hour ago, TODDLT said:

Would you do the 5400 or 7200 model?   Same cost.

 

Comparison

Depends if you value speed or power / heat more. Some people want the max speed possible, others want lowest power and or heat. Only you can make that call.

[TODDLT]

26 minutes ago, jonathanm said:

Depends if you value speed or power / heat more. Some people want the max speed possible, others want lowest power and or heat. Only you can make that call.

 

Thanks, I was more thinking if one was more stability than speed.  It's in a fan cooled external box, so not so worried about power / heat.

[trurl]

I just use drives that were formerly part of my array for this duty. Since I have several I can rotate them. This not only allows me to have more than one backup, but I can go back to an earlier backup if there is some reason the latest backup isn't right.

 

In particular, I have 4 x 2TB drives that were in my array a few years ago, but were replaced with larger drives. I keep each in a plastic box designed to store 3.5" hard drives. Each box has a label that I write the date of the backup on. Each time I do a backup, I take the oldest and it becomes the newest, etc. These have plenty of capacity for all our irreplaceable files. The 2 latest backups are stored offsite, one at my office and the other at my wife's office. We take them there when we drive to work.