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Question Recommend hard drive for external HDD enclosure?

L

Luddite

Senior member
I've been looking around for high quality hard drives to use in an external hard drive enclosure to back up data from my PC.

I came across the Western Digital Gold drives, which are enterprise level drives with a long warranty. They seem to be on par (or better) with the Seagate Iron Wolfs. I called Western Digital to ask about them, they told me they would not recommend the Golds for use in an external HDD enclosure, only servers, and would not even provide warranty for such external use.

This puzzled me, as I always thought a 3.5" HDD was a 3.5" HDD, and that you could use any 3.5" HDD in an external enclosure. Is this not the case? If not, why not? Why would the WD Golds be any different from any other 3.5" HDD?

Can anyone recommend another high quality hard drive brand for use in an external enclosure?

Thanks.
 
I currently use a WD Red NAS hard drive in my external enclosure for backups. 3TB for $90 on Amazon, 3 year warranty, and rated to run for 24/7 is plenty enough for me. I generally stay away from hard drives that only have 1 year warranty (personal decision).

I personally don't think server grade/rated hard drives are necessary for home backup duty (along with their higher cost, and many times extra noise).
 
Thanks. The WD CSR didn't even recommend the Reds (he said they were for NAS, not external drives).

I really don't know why an external HDD enclosure makes any difference to the drive itself. It's not like the drives would be subject to heat, as I would be getting an actively cooled enclosure.

I don't really need a NAS for my purposes as it's just for a single user and NAS are more expensive. My plan is to get a 4 or 5 bay external HDD enclosure. I would back several disks up to a single larger capacity disk which I would then store off-site in my neighbors' garage (the garage is unheated). I am looking for a rugged hard drive.
 
Luddite said:
Thanks. The WD CSR didn't even recommend the Reds (he said they were for NAS, not external drives).

I really don't know why an external HDD enclosure makes any difference to the drive itself. It's not like the drives would be subject to heat, as I would be getting an actively cooled enclosure.

I don't really need a NAS for my purposes as it's just for a single user and NAS are more expensive. My plan is to get a 4 or 5 bay external HDD enclosure. I would back several disks up to a single larger capacity disk which I would then store off-site in my neighbors' garage (the garage is unheated). I am looking for a rugged hard drive.
Click to expand...
I don't use them for NAS either. I just like the 3 year warranty (compared to 1 year warranties on entry-level drives).

However, you can throw any internal drive into an enclosure. From the cheapest of drives, to server focused models. I use a middle-of-the-road model.

As for looking for a "rugged" hard drive, that is generally a term that is used for external drives which are sealed against dust, and have some kind of drop and water rating.
 
Thanks. The WD Golds have a 5-year warranty. That's why I thought they would be a good choice.

I don't understand why the WD rep told me what he did about the Golds not being recommended for external drive use.
 
Luddite said:
Thanks. The WD Golds have a 5-year warranty. That's why I thought they would be a good choice.

I don't understand why the WD rep told me what he did about the Golds not being recommended for external drive use.
Click to expand...
I have no idea.

Anyways, best of luck in your search.
 
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