Two 3TB drives or one 6TB drive?

[MikePM]

I just ordered a two bay QNAP TS-251 and can get two WD Red 3TB drives for only a little less than one WD Red 6Tb drive. Any opinions on whether I would be better off starting with one 6 TB drive and upgrading later, or just getting two 3 TB drives now so I have a somewhat greater degree of back-up protection?

 

I expect to backup my Cd collection to a USB drive since it will be the most time consuming effort, but its not big enough for some of the other media I expect to save so I will have some data at risk for 6 months to a year.

[Kelly]

I just ordered a two bay QNAP TS-251 and can get two WD Red 3TB drives for only a little less than one WD Red 6Tb drive. Any opinions on whether I would be better off starting with one 6 TB drive and upgrading later, or just getting two 3 TB drives now so I have a somewhat greater degree of back-up protection?

 

I expect to backup my Cd collection to a USB drive since it will be the most time consuming effort, but its not big enough for some of the other media I expect to save so I will have some data at risk for 6 months to a year.

 

I'd be wary of the WD Red 3TB drives. By some accounts they seem to have a much higher fail rate than the other sizes. Don't know why but I checked several review sources.

[MikePM]

Thanks. I just saw the thread showing the Backblaze 2015 ratings, and the 3tb WD Red looked a little worse than some of the other WD drives. However, the 6Tb sample size was a small, and the drives were relatively new so it may be a little early to make a valid comparison. Unfortunately, I'm using some gift cards I purchased with credit card points and the retailer does not have HGST drives available -- only WD and Seagate.

[skolis]

Thanks. I'm using some gift cards I purchased with credit card points and the retailer does not have HGST drives available -- only WD and Seagate.

 

Check out Seagate enterprise drives 7200rpm and more robust than consumer drives - but more expensive.....

[astrotoy]

It depends on the size of your collection, now and in the future. Having more than one drive is crucial for any redundancy. Whether 3TB or 4TB (my current choice for my NAS drives are WD Red 4TB) or 6TB, if you only have one, then you are going to have a failure sometime, guaranteed, and lose all your data. Enterprise drives just extend the average lifetime of your drive, but they too still fail. If you have some other backup or can download the files you have without paying for them again, then a single drive is OK.

 

Larry

[MikePM]

If it is primarily redundancy that I would be missing, then I think I will start with one larger drive and risk it for a year. I'll back up downloads, and will still have the CD's SACD's and DVD's if it comes to it.