Question What's the best storage option out of the 3?

[Kristi2k]

I just traded for a Mac Mini M1 and am in need for more storage. I'm a photographer on the side and have around 6TB of files. I plan to keep my library on the drive along with some other data.

1. LaCie 12TB d2 Desktop Drive
2. SanDisk G Drive
3. SanDisk G Drive Pro

I'm leaning towards 2 or 3 because I want it to lay down. I'm partial to Seagate though. I also plan on backing that drive up with an 8TB StarTech drive that I keep off-site.

These drives I'm looking at are all mechanical. The unit should be pretty quiet too.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Sandisk is a scummy brand. Go with LaCie.

 

[gdansk]

Sandisk is a scummy brand. Go with LaCie.

Care to elaborate? As far as I'm aware they're just a brand of Western Digital

 

[igor_kavinski]

Care to elaborate? As far as I'm aware they're just a brand of Western Digital

WD started going downhill after they bought Sandisk.

Sandisk flash drives are unreliable and often lead to loss of data (at least for me).

Most recently, this happened: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/202...-failing-firmware-fix-for-only-some-promised/

I wouldn't buy their crap even on sale now.

 

[Kristi2k]

These drives I'm looking at are all mechanical.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Doesn't inspire much confidence.

 

[Tech Junky]

Seagate

Just no, unless it's Exos.

Since you have 6tb already to keep safe might as well take the dive into something bigger that will hold 3x that. Which on consumer terms means picking a drive and an enclosure.

Amazon.com

Sure, it was probably a return because they're a bit noisier than consumer drives but, for $200 it's a good deal. Just test it out for any issues and you have 90 days to send it back if there's an issue.

Then just find a good enclosure to pair it with.

 

[Kristi2k]

I can’t have the noise. The start tech that I keep offsite is pretty quiet, it has a seagate nas drive.

 

[Tech Junky]

noise

It's all relative. Try it and see if it's perceptible or not. HDD's in general make about the same amount of noise. If it's too much get a longer USB cable and put it further away while using it.

OR use an enclosure w/ NVME for no noise and hen sync the files to the HDD later when you aren't sitting there listening to it.

OR use the same approach and sync to a DAS / NAS setup.

Comes down to your budget and aptitude.

 

[Shmee]

Yeah I would recommend building a NAS and setting up an Apple share. Make sure you have redundancy.

 

[manly]

The LaCie d2 drive uses Seagate IronWolf drives. The OP may need the higher throughput of ThunderBolt; only she knows. Most Mac minis (unless built-to-order) will be limited to GigE.

Just no, unless it's Exos.

Since you have 6tb already to keep safe might as well take the dive into something bigger that will hold 3x that. Which on consumer terms means picking a drive and an enclosure.

Amazon.com

Sure, it was probably a return because they're a bit noisier than consumer drives but, for $200 it's a good deal. Just test it out for any issues and you have 90 days to send it back if there's an issue.

Then just find a good enclosure to pair it with.

I don't find good value in spending $200 on something with a relatively high failure rate (compared to consumer electronics in general), and just a 90 day guarantee.

These drives may be "like new" returns, but they are just as likely to to be used drives pulled from some data center. At any rate, if you buy directly from goHardDrive, they're confident enough to warranty it for 5 years.

Seagate Exos X20 ST18000NM003D 18TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 256MB Cache CMR 3.5-Inch Enterprise Hard Drive (Certified Refurbished) - 5 Year Warranty

Seagate Exos X20 ST18000NM003D 18TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 256MB Cache CMR 3.5-Inch Enterprise Hard Drive (Certified Refurbished) - 5 Year Warranty

www.goharddrive.com

I've read that one good thing about goHardDrive is they do NOT clear the SMART data, so you can quickly evaluate the drive upon receipt. Other outfits that "refurbish" hard drives will clear the SMART counters.

 

[Tech Junky]

higher throughput of ThunderBolt;

That doesn't speed up the throughput of the HDD though. Most top out around 250MB/s which is still less than typical USB @ 5gbps

$200 on something with a relatively high failure rate (compared to consumer electronics in general), and just a 90 day guarantee.

Typically a HDD is either good or bad within that period. When they fail after aging out of warranty anyway so, that 5 year warranty doesn't do much.

goHardDrive is they do NOT clear the SMART data, so you can quickly evaluate the drive upon receipt. Other outfits that "refurbish" hard drives will clear the SMART counters.

While it's nice to have the data, not all refurbs are actual used drives. In the sense of drives that were hammered and then pulled when the warranty expired SMART would be valuable in evaluating whether to keep or send it back.

In the end its all about risk management in the decision on what to buy. Not to mention if you're really worried about the warranty you can get extended coverage plans or use your CC warranty plans to cover devices. In this particular HDD sense though $200 or 150% for NEW makes a difference. Adding a plan to cover it though for $20 still is cheaper, while not 5 years it's better than 90 days if the drive turns out to be out of warranty when you try to register it.

 

[manly]

That doesn't speed up the throughput of the HDD though. Most top out around 250MB/s which is still less than typical USB @ 5gbps
View attachment 82801


Typically a HDD is either good or bad within that period. When they fail after aging out of warranty anyway so, that 5 year warranty doesn't do much.

While it's nice to have the data, not all refurbs are actual used drives. In the sense of drives that were hammered and then pulled when the warranty expired SMART would be valuable in evaluating whether to keep or send it back.

In the end its all about risk management in the decision on what to buy. Not to mention if you're really worried about the warranty you can get extended coverage plans or use your CC warranty plans to cover devices. In this particular HDD sense though $200 or 150% for NEW makes a difference. Adding a plan to cover it though for $20 still is cheaper, while not 5 years it's better than 90 days if the drive turns out to be out of warranty when you try to register it.

What I meant is that accessing a NAS over GigE may not be good enough for OP's use case. The industry is transitioning to 2.5GbE but it can't happen quite fast enough at the consumer end of the market.

Nobody said all refurbs are used drives with lots of hours on them. But I think you're vastly underestimating where these drives come from; maybe the newer Exos X20 is a little different but I'd surmise a lot of similar drives are server pulls. These drives are coming from goHardDrive directly and not from Amazon, so the chances of getting a "like new" return shouldn't be all that high. I'm not saying the SMART counters are some magical data; all I'm saying is that some vendors scrub the info to conceal how much those "refurbished" drives have been hammered on.

Although normally 5 years is somewhat excessive for a warranty, I don't think that's true in this case. Hard drive reliability isn't binary beginning after 90 days; we've all seen the failure curves and experienced drive failures ourselves. BackBlaze's data set shows that for hard disk drives that do fail, their life span is on average short of 3 years. OP is intending to invest north of $500 (times 2) in a large storage device. Perhaps a 12TB hard drive won't have much value in 2026 but I'd rather have a long warranty than a non-existent one.

Paying $20 more for 3rd party coverage makes no sense when you can buy the same drive from the same vendor directly with the 5 year warranty standard. I don't think OP is opposed to other solutions as long as they will fit their stated needs.

 

[Shmee]

What I meant is that accessing a NAS over GigE may not be good enough for OP's use case. The industry is transitioning to 2.5GbE but it can't happen quite fast enough at the consumer end of the market.

Nobody said all refurbs are used drives with lots of hours on them. But I think you're vastly underestimating where these drives come from; maybe the newer Exos X20 is a little different but I'd surmise a lot of similar drives are server pulls. These drives are coming from goHardDrive directly and not from Amazon, so the chances of getting a "like new" return shouldn't be all that high. I'm not saying the SMART counters are some magical data; all I'm saying is that some vendors scrub the info to conceal how much those "refurbished" drives have been hammered on.

Although normally 5 years is somewhat excessive for a warranty, I don't think that's true in this case. Hard drive reliability isn't binary beginning after 90 days; we've all seen the failure curves and experienced drive failures ourselves. BackBlaze's data set shows that for hard disk drives that do fail, their life span is on average short of 3 years. OP is intending to invest north of $500 (times 2) in a large storage device. Perhaps a 12TB hard drive won't have much value in 2026 but I'd rather have a long warranty than a non-existent one.

Paying $20 more for 3rd party coverage makes no sense when you can buy the same drive from the same vendor directly with the 5 year warranty standard. I don't think OP is opposed to other solutions as long as they will fit their stated needs.

You mention the possibility of a 1Gbps ethernet bottleneck. Could OP simply use something like a 10Gbps thunderbolt to ethernet adapter?

 

[Tech Junky]

thunderbolt

I use qnap nic for my server 5ge quad port and it was $200. Single port options though are less. Going TB is usually more cost than it's worth. I'm not sure if the Mac mini will have room for a nic or not. All the reason to use a PC. I added dual TB 4 to my server for $60 and adding 10ge would be about the same. Apple is like a boat when it comes to money. Getting a 10ge dock though besides just the network port might be worthwhile since they're about the same price.

 

[Shmee]

Yeah what I meant by a thunderbolt ethernet adapter is an external one. I figure no one is going to open up a Mac Mini and put an actual NIC in there. Of course, OP will also need a greater than 1Gpbs capable switch to take advantage of said NAS and Mac Mini, if they want greater than 1Gbps speeds over network.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Yeah I would recommend building a NAS and setting up an Apple share. Make sure you have redundancy.

There is a wide range of users. I would build the NAS; you would build a NAS. Some folks want a simpler backup solution. They are the ones who will choose the ready-made external drive option.

My preference that would come closer to the OP's external backup drive is a hot-swap-enabled ICY-DOCK 2.5" drive bay for a 4TB or 5TB Toshiba or Seagate. But the OP has 6TB of files, so more likely to buy a 3.5" HDD implementation of an external HDD box.

If you can find a "kit" to build an external USB or eSATA drive, you can buy surplus HGST "He" (helium) drives that are pulls from server farms with low power-on hours, some with 5 years warranty -- perhaps 8TB for between $50 and $100. But you can also still find hot-swap bays for 3.5" HDDs. If not ICY-DOCK, then StarTech or some other outfit.

 

[00Logic]

The enclosure you want MUST have a UASP (USB Attached SCSI Protocol) capable controller chip:
UASP enabled USB is much faster and enables the use of NCQ (Native Command Queuing) which is much quieter.

USB Attached SCSI - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Faster USB 3.0 Performance: Examining UASP And Turbo Mode

Why is it that an interface that operates at 5 Gb/s never reaches corresponding transfer rates? Our investigation reveals that not all USB 3.0-based solutions are created equal, and we explore two technologies used to bolster the performance of USB 3.0.

www.tomshardware.com

Things to NB when buying a UASP capable enclosure:
Some ctlr chips are indeed UASP capable BUT only do SATA 2 (300 MB/s) rather than SATA 3. (600 MB/s)
Thats ok for HDD where you only lose a bit of burst speed, from/to the drive's DRAM buffer, but is a bottleneck if you ever put a SSD in the enclosure.

If you want to make a drive quieter:
Choose a drive that does Automatic Acoustic Management (AAM) and set it to your liking with something like CrystalDiskInfo.

AAM/APM Control

Automatic Acoustic Management (AAM) Count Level 00h Vendor Specific 01h Retired 80h Minimum acoustic emanation level 81h-FDh Intermediate acoustic management levels FEh Maximum performance FFh Reserved Advanced Power Management (APM) Count Level 00h Reserved 01h Minimum power consumption with...

crystalmark.info

NB: UASP reqd to get these ATA commands to actually get from the computer to the HDD via USB.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I myself have some 3.5" hot-swap caddies and bays, and some 2.5" hot-swap caddies and bays. But I have been exploring the benefits of using INEO external USB 3.x devices made to house NVME sticks.

I think we may be approaching a breakeven point between NVME external storage and traditional HDD external storage.

You can buy a TeamGroup 4TB gen-3 NVME drive with a 5-year warranty and a guarantee of 1,200 TBW for as little as $160. The INEO product costs less than $35.

The resulting external drive is powered solely through its USB connection to your PC, laptop or device.

Also, another comparison about NVME usage in this 4TB flavor. You can find a refurbished HGST/Hitachi 3TB or 4TB drive with various warranties (depending on power-on-hours) for something in the range of $50 bucks. Of course, they are SATA-III and slow. Considering also your limitations of household Gigabit Ethernet, there would only be speed gains with NVME network accessible storage if you have a 10Gb Ethernet sub-net.

But suppose you aren't ready for 10Gb ethernet now. Using NVME drives in some 3x4TB NAS arrangement should save you about $85 per year (@ $0.20 /KWhr) over a 3x 4TB HDD, which is still an advantage. NVME drives use considerably less than a Watt of power, while your HDD may consume between 8W and 12W, or at least 5W for a 2.5" HDD. We just aren't so sure where the decision point exists for making that choice, but it is close. Think of the vastly improved reliability of NVME NAS as opposed to HDD NAS.