@Zenarcist listed DATA Center & enterprise HHDs. This is also my recommendation as well. I currently have HGST & Toshiba drives for long term storage. Plan to move them into external USB tool-less cases that can be stored away easily & safely while offering easy change out if needed.

Look for drives that have a 256MB cache at a minimum for steady reads/writes. Orico & Sabrent have good cases

• Model: ORICO 7688C3-CA-BK
• Model: ORICO 7688U3
• Model: Sabrent EC-ESTK

 

Hi @quadcore64, can you tell us more about it? Do you have a link?

 

Hi @Plendix, you should connect every hard drive at least once a year and let it run for a while.
Some lubricants harden and become gummed up.
I don't know if this is still the case with newer hard drives; supposedly, that issue has been resolved.

 

i just bought a solid state drive. because its a circuit and not mechanical i guess it will serve longer time. however i also backup all my hard drive files on blue ray media discs.. the discs wont crash will they?

 

I've burned a lot of Blu-rays too. Only 1 out of 1000 doesn't work. You should always store them well-packaged, protected from light and excessively high temperatures; then they'll last a very long time. Museums do it this way; they have a schedule for copying or cloning the Blu-rays after a certain period. For me, Blu-ray is the best method for backing up data. However, Blu-ray players aren't cheap.

The lifespan of Blu-ray discs is usually stated as at least 20 years. Verbatim is a good brand.

 

Last edited: Nov 19, 2025 at 12:15 PM

Yes, you’re quite solid now… unless they’ve got some Epstein files on Prince Andrew

 

What comes to drives, look up for @taskforce offers.. Cheap and legit with knowledge of the tech
If you have old computer laying around, I suggest unraid, I have with 14 TB drives, really easy to setup for noobs like me

 

I guess that's still an issue and you're right I definitely should do that. A lot of the stuff I need ever so often, thing is I wouldn't know whitch one I fired up and whitch one hasnt been moved for more than a year.
But so true, I put that on my to do list. And then I go full dead or alive "You spin me round round round like a record baby..."

 

I use an internal drive and a usb external drive case for hot swapping my drives. You don't really need the protective external case that's the selling point, unless you plan to travel with the drives.

I try not to throw mine around and they've all lasted a fair while.

I have Samsung HDD and SSD's and a WD one, they've all lasted a long time.

Tbh I do see everything as transient so I don't tend to do mass backups, the only thing I really worry about is music that I've created (or spent some time and energy collecting) and personal stuff, everything else is fairly easy to reobtain if the worst should happen

 

SSD are not suitable for long term backup.
If you don't power it up regularly you could lose/damage your data.
Even 1 year idle only could damage the content.

 

Once or twice a year, you should connect all external hard drives (HDD or SSD) to your PC and let them run for a few minutes.

 

Last edited: Nov 19, 2025 at 5:47 PM

You should be able to find those on Amazon or Newegg and the like. Local retailers may also be a source (Micro Center and the like).

Direct information links:
ORICO 7688C3
ORICO 7688U3
Sabrent EC-STUK

 

Western Digital and Seagate are the majority of my drives on several PC's and laptops, I also have several old 500 gb IDE drives from up to 20 years ago for archiving my DVD movies and CD collection only 2 of them failed after that long period of time, they are in enclosures someday I will have to transfer my favorites of them onto M-Discs, glad I bought 2 M-Disc writers 10 years ago, the discs will last longer than I will. I prefer physical storage to cloud.

 

Can your M-Discs be read in an ordinary BluRay drive?

 

As BD-R HTL was part of the Blu-ray standard, and M-Disc functions much the same way, any BD burner is physically capable of writing M-Disc BD media. But as my experience with the PX-B320SA proved, if the firmware doesn’t like it, it won’t work.

The logo on the front of an optical burner is actually only for M-Disc DVDs, and then only for writing, as many non-logo drives will read it just fine. Laser strength must be increased beyond that normally used with CD/DVD R/RW to ablate the data layer in M-Disc DVDs, so compatible firmware must be in place. Older drives could be upgraded for writing, but as there’s little financial incentive, don’t hold your breath.

Source: www.pcworld.com/article/427943/m-disc-optical-media-reviewed-your-data-good-for-a-thousand-years.html

 

Yup, I know the theory. That's why I asked if they can REALLY can be read in ordinary drives IN PRACTICE.

 

Yes, they can be read anywhere. For DVD variants you just need a compatible drive to burn them, for BD not even that. Recently, Verbatim puts the name on their conventional discs and sells them for a premium price.
https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/yu4j1u/psa_verbatim_no_longer_sells_real_m_discs_now/

 

HGST or Western Digital. Millions of *.wav sample files, I go with a CMR HDD.

 

Check Backblaze. Take individual’s manufacturer’s experiences with a fine grain of salt. For instance, some hate on Seagate. I personally have a 7200RMP 2gb Seagate drive that’s been running for over 15 years with a few Kontakt libraries on it lol.

 

Check BackBlaze stats for sure.
BUT never expect your HDD to last.
NEVER

In my 3 disks RAID 5, TWO WD red (almost) died at the same time.
I needed to take out 2 disks, repair bad blocks with Victoria (perfect software for that) on one disk, clone it AND recreate the last (brand new) one for scratch (RAID 5 logic).

I lost nothing but it was REALLY close
NAS makers don't include bad block fix ... a shame. And they don't even provide a "partial" data recovery.
Dead is dead.

Of course, it was NOT my main data, only films, backups, downloads ... nothing i could not redo/redownload.
That's why i didn't done NAS backup.

So yes, even some years old WD red for NAS can die, two at the same time