Hard drive for occasional manual backup/storage

[Tomcat76]

I'm trying to find the best 4TB hard drive I can get for the purpose of manually backing up (copying) files to at an average rate of once or twice a month (once or twice a week maximum).  The hard drive will be placed in a computer running Windows 7 64-bit, so I suppose I should better avoid 4Kn drives.  So far, though, it seems that everything I'm looking for in such a drive doesn't appear to be provided by any manufacturer; it's all black & white with nothing in between.
 
I'm looking for a drive with a high level of reliability and durability, but without TLER (or at least the ability to disable it).  I will be running it in a non-RAID setup in a regular PC, not in a NAS, so I would like the drive to do whatever it can to recover data in case of a failure.  The drive should be internal and be able to work inside a computer that's running 24/7.
 
High level of reliability = NAS or data center drives
Without TLER = desktop drives
 
See my problem?  In addition, HGST doesn't even mention TLER in the spec sheet for their Ultrastar 7K6000 (data center) and Desktop NAS drives.  Neither does Toshiba.  Several online sources claim that you can use a tool to disable TLER on Western Digital Red and Gold drives, but it's intended for older drives and may corrupt the firmware.  I'm a little tight on budget, so I'd prefer not to risk killing a drive.
 
The list:
- Toshiba MD04ACA400 (0.6M MTTF / 7200rpm / 128MB cache / 512e)
- Toshiba N300 (1M MTTF / 7200rpm / 128MB / sector size not listed)
- HGST Ultrastar 7K6000 (2M MTBF / 7200rpm / 128MB / 512n or 512e)
- WD RED WD40EFRX (1M MTBF / 5400rpm /  64MB / 512e)
- WD GOLD WD4002FYYZ (2M MTBF / 7200rpm / 128MB / 512n)
 
I know the MTBF figures should be taken with a grain of salt, but I'm listing them anyway.  Note that Toshiba uses MTTF as opposed to MTBF used by other manufacturers.  A rough head calculation, though, indicates that their MTTF rating would amount to a little less than 1M MTBF.  But that's probably a moot point.
 
On the point of 512n (native) and 4TB, is it still safe to have 4TB crammed into a hard drive using 512b native sectors?
 
Also, I intend to clone an existing 4TB hard drive to it, but it's a 512e (emulated) drive.  Is it safe to clone 4TB 512e to 4TB 512n or should I take additional precautions?

[Tomcat76]

I eventually ordered the Red.  According to the salesperson, "small" errors are corrected within the 7 second time frame that TLER allows; "serious" errors (CRC errors) that would require more than 7 seconds to correct, rarely happen, and if they do, it shouldn't be much of a concern as any damaged file(s) can be copied over to the backup again (preferably on a new hard drive).
 
I'm still curious to know if it's OK to clone from a 512e disk to a 512n disk.

[jaclaz]

28 minutes ago, Tomcat76 said:

I'm still curious to know if it's OK to clone from a 512e disk to a 512n disk.

Sure.

The disk sector size exposed is in both cases 512 bytes.

The filesystem(s) on them is exactly the same, and the dd (or similar) tool will see the same.

BTW to be very picky - and just for the record - it is not possible to actually "clone" a disk under any Windows NT systems, unless you use particular procedures because you cannot have two disks with the same signature connected to a same system,

In any case it doesn't make really much sense to actually "clone" a disk used for backup (as a matter of fact real "clones" only make sense for data recovery, for forensics or for particular deployment scenarios), and most tools will actually only copy at filesystem level (which is BTW usually faster, unless the source disk is literally full up to the brim).

Compare with:

The only issue may be how you connect the disk for the cloning, if you go Sata with Sata you won't have any issue, if you use a USB adapter be careful.

A few (old) ones may not support the 4 Tb size of the disk.

A few (new) ones may translate on the USB bus the 512e or 512n back to 4K

jaclaz

 

Edited October 14, 2017 by jaclaz

[Tomcat76]

I want to clone because it's faster and keeps the timestamp on files and folders.  I'll be holding on to the data on the source drive for a week or two to see how things go with the new drive.  I'll be using either Macrium Reflect or MiniTool Partition Wizard for the job, both of which have served me well.
 
I asked about the 512e to 512n conversion because I figured some cloning tools can do a low-level sector-by-sector copy, which (in my thinking) could screw things up.

[jaclaz]

5 minutes ago, Tomcat76 said:

I want to clone because it's faster and keeps the timestamp on files and folders.  I'll be holding on to the data on the source drive for a week or two to see how things go with the new drive.  I'll be using either Macrium Reflect or MiniTool Partition Wizard for the job, both of which have served me well.
 
I asked about the 512e to 512n conversion because I figured some cloning tools can do a low-level sector-by-sector copy, which (in my thinking) could screw things up.

What I was trying to tell you is that "cloning" actually means "low-level sector-by-sector copy" which is slower. (but no, no issues with that, only you don't need that).

A number of tools won't do an actual "clone" (which is fine  since you need NOT a "clone") even if they insist on using "clone" or "cloning" in the name or in the help/docs.

What you will be doing will be a filesystem  level copy (which is not a "clone") which will likely be faster and actually transfer to the "new" drive exactly what you need to transfer (actual files with their metadata intact). and will NOT transfer what you don't *need*, i.e. unallocated and unpartitioned space, regardless if 00ed or containing deleted files.

jaclaz

 

[98SE]

On 10/13/2017 at 10:39 AM, Tomcat76 said:

I'm trying to find the best 4TB hard drive I can get for the purpose of manually backing up (copying) files to at an average rate of once or twice a month (once or twice a week maximum).  The hard drive will be placed in a computer running Windows 7 64-bit, so I suppose I should better avoid 4Kn drives.  So far, though, it seems that everything I'm looking for in such a drive doesn't appear to be provided by any manufacturer; it's all black & white with nothing in between.
 
I'm looking for a drive with a high level of reliability and durability, but without TLER (or at least the ability to disable it).  I will be running it in a non-RAID setup in a regular PC, not in a NAS, so I would like the drive to do whatever it can to recover data in case of a failure.  The drive should be internal and be able to work inside a computer that's running 24/7.
 
High level of reliability = NAS or data center drives
Without TLER = desktop drives
 
See my problem?  In addition, HGST doesn't even mention TLER in the spec sheet for their Ultrastar 7K6000 (data center) and Desktop NAS drives.  Neither does Toshiba.  Several online sources claim that you can use a tool to disable TLER on Western Digital Red and Gold drives, but it's intended for older drives and may corrupt the firmware.  I'm a little tight on budget, so I'd prefer not to risk killing a drive.
 
The list:
- Toshiba MD04ACA400 (0.6M MTTF / 7200rpm / 128MB cache / 512e)
- Toshiba N300 (1M MTTF / 7200rpm / 128MB / sector size not listed)
- HGST Ultrastar 7K6000 (2M MTBF / 7200rpm / 128MB / 512n or 512e)
- WD RED WD40EFRX (1M MTBF / 5400rpm /  64MB / 512e)
- WD GOLD WD4002FYYZ (2M MTBF / 7200rpm / 128MB / 512n)
 
I know the MTBF figures should be taken with a grain of salt, but I'm listing them anyway.  Note that Toshiba uses MTTF as opposed to MTBF used by other manufacturers.  A rough head calculation, though, indicates that their MTTF rating would amount to a little less than 1M MTBF.  But that's probably a moot point.
 
On the point of 512n (native) and 4TB, is it still safe to have 4TB crammed into a hard drive using 512b native sectors?
 
Also, I intend to clone an existing 4TB hard drive to it, but it's a 512e (emulated) drive.  Is it safe to clone 4TB 512e to 4TB 512n or should I take additional precautions?

I used the WD Red and Black 8TB.

The Reds are much better for reliability.  I keep this running 24 / 7.  They do get hot so I actually removed these from enclosures.  I don't trust baking these inside those 24 / 7.  I keep hearing people with dead hard drives my guess is the heat finally got to them.  These things really do get hot even bare naked.  They do make quite a bit of noise if your goal is to sleep in the same room and want silence.  If you got the 5400 RPM it will be much quieter and probably won't get as hot.  Gold is supposed to be the new King model but probably paying more than you want.

The Red is probably the best choice given the price.  So far not one of the Reds or Blacks has died on me yet.   I usually use a drive for up to 1 Month straight and switch.  The only negative I can say is if it goes into sleep / standby mode from idling it does take awhile to spin back up maybe almost 10 seconds.

Edited October 14, 2017 by 98SE

[Tomcat76]

I believe the 7200rpm versions are the newer Red Pro, but maybe there are 7200rpm Reds too that I'm not aware of.  Either way, I ordered a 5400rpm.
 
If the drive really needs upto 10 seconds to spin back up from standby (might be adjustable via a tool on WD's site), that's fine with me.  So I loose 10 seconds performing a bi-monthly backup...
 
On the noise they make... I currently have:
 
PC1:
1x Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB
3x Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 HDS723020BLA642 2TB
1x Hitachi Deskstar 7K2000 HDS722020ALA330 2TB
 
PC2:
1x Western Digital Black WD3003FZEX 3TB (secondary)
 
PC3:
1x Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.C HDS721010CLA332 1TB
2x HGST Deskstar 7K4000 HDS724040ALE640 4TB
 
PC4:
1x Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD5000AAKS 500GB
 
PC5:
1x Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD2500AAKS 250GB
 
PC6:
1x Western Digital Raptor WD740GD 74GB
 
Something tells me I won't even hear the WD Red...