What hard drive to use for backup only?

[torchyear]

I'm seeking advice on which 3.5" hard drive to choose for backing up my files. Apologies if this has been covered before - but I couldn't find anything in the forum search.

I have 8+ TB of files (mostly RAW images and video) and have been backing up to a single Seagate Ironwolf NAS drive via hotswap bay using Acronis software. It's time to get a pair of bigger backup drives, around 14-16TB.

Given that this drive is mostly write activity, and rarely read activity, what would be the most cost-effective (yet reliable) model to choose?

1. Another NAS drive (WD Red, Seagate Ironwolf)?
2. Security camera drive (WD Purple, Seagate Surveillance)?
3. Standard desktop drive (WD Blue, Seagate Barrracuda)?

Cheers

 

[Kshipper]

Since it is for backup it can be any type of drive. If you really want reliability I am curious why you are looking at NAS drives. NAS don't handle self repair the same way a standard drive does. NAS drives relay on the Network Attached Storage or RAID to handle repair.

I have quite a few Drobos in the field and I ran into a huge problem with 6TB WD Reds. The smaller WD Reds use SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording)

Western Digital Announces Red Plus HDDs, Cleans Up Red SMR Mess with Plus Branding

www.anandtech.com

I got corrupted data on any Drobo using these SMR Reds. I was working with 45 Drives and they recommended Seagate Exos and I started using those and so far I have had zero problems on those drives and they were not a lot of extra money when I got the drives on sale. I even have had a 6TB Ironwolf fail on me that was 6 mos old.

You could search for Backblaze drive reliability charts. They are famous for publishing drive reliability on 1000s of drives.