Any here with experience with Seagate Archive 8TB 5900RPM SATA disks?
I have a huge movie collection with 1.500 DVDs and over 270 BluRays and it grows every month, when I buy or borrow movies to put into my system.
I'm now using 5 x 3 TB disks and 1 x 2 TB disk for this. And i have now under 1 TB with free space, so I have to upgrade at least one disk. I can double the 2 TB if I buy a 4 TB or triple it if I buy a 6 TB. So thats fine for now.
But then I saw the Seagate Archive 8TB 5900RPM SATA disks thats pretty cheap per GB.
It's for "cold storage" so the write/read speed is not very high. But when I look at a BluRay in full quality (35-45 GB) it's only 4-6 MB/s and the disk handles around 20-30(40-50) MB/s. (on the data sheet is actually says 150 MB/s write, 190 MB/s read so thats is much higher speeds then I need for this type of disks)
The disks I have today is single disks, no RAID, just I that use the system, so only one movie is watch at the time.
What do you think? Is it a waste of money buying a couple of this disks to store some of my movie collection on?
Comments
You should join #DataHoarder on Freenode
You recommend any good zombie films? I can't seem to find anything half decent.
Write speed from what I remember was a little sucky. Read seemed like an average SATA2 (even though its SATA3) disk.
From basic testing they perform almost the same as the WD green drives (older 1TB/2TB versions) (speed and latency wise)
Sound like you need to start coverting the movies into mp4 format. It will save you alot of space!
Yea, and will take allot of my time with so big collection. So I think hard drives is the best solution. I have found a couple of threads on the internet now, there people with almost the same need as me, ask around about the disks. And it's seems promised.
And that is not a issue, since watching a full HD, full 100% copy of a BluRay movie (35-45 GB) only uses 4-6 MB/s. So the disk can transfer allot more then that.
Seen some comments about that yes, but when I rip a BluRay, I don't get any more then around 20-30 MB/s max with my current 12x BluRay reader. The same or less with DVDs.
The only issue will be when I transfer the data from the old disks to the new one, but it can be done in the night, and I can copy from disk that I don't need yo use for some days, so no big issue there.
Do you recommend any movies?
I have a similar issue, but with own movies.
@myhken you do realize you need at least 2 copies if no raid? Unless you have the original too and can rip it at any time.
Ripping can be done directly into Xvid, no visible quality loss and way less space taken.
I have collected DVDs (then BluRay) on my computer since 2002, so I have learned the hard way to always have backup yes. Lost around 100 DVD movies at one time, and no backup. And then, that was maybe 25% of my collection.
Now I have a HDD in a docking station, so when I rip a movie, I also take a copy to the backup disk. When the backup disk is full, I send it out of my house, So I don't loose everything in a fire or something.
And I of course have allot of the movies on DVD or BluRay, so I can rip from again, but that mostly my BluRays. The DVDs have I given away, borrowed away etc, and never ask to get back.
I have now ordered two Seagate Archive 8TB 5900RPM SATA disks. Will see how it goes.
Rather than raid and that lot. why not just use a online backup service, such as livedrive and so.
It's around 18 TB with data. I have a 100/20 mbit connection. It will take for ever to upload all the files. And forever to download it. And you can't be sure if they still around or the files is intact when I really need the backup.
Much better to have them stored on HDDs outside my house. Within 10 minutes I can have the backup here, connect it to a SATA port, restoring it, then do it with all disk that had data from the defective hard drive, then I'm up and running within hours.
Not long ago a 3 TB disk full of movies died, and then I just fetched my backup drives, and restored everything the same day on a new disk. (I always have spare 3 TB disks laying around)
Using a online backup service, it would have taken 3 days (2.84) to download all files, IF I always got 100 mbit/s, and did not use my internet connection to anything else.
I lie in Norway, so the only real online service with good/max speed is Jottacloud.no, they have a limit on 10 TB on their "unlimited" plan. So I would have split it up to two accounts. Thats $20/mo - all year around. And it can take years before I need the backup.
Now I reuse disks I replace with new ones, or buy 500-1000 GB disks.
And when I change disks like I will now, I will let all the movies stay on the disks I replace, and send it to storage.
well that's the good thing about livedrive if they already have the data stored it's not uploaded.
Ok. My movie collection is DVD/BluRays with Norwegian subtitles and/or Norwegian voice (children movies). Don't think livedrive has to many movies with Norwegian language.
it would surprise you
Maybe so, but using a online backup storage for 18 TB of data, that is not located in Norway is not a good solution for me. And the price on llivedrive is really high. That £11/mo price is based on a two year contract. And they don't have any info about what a such account will cost month by month.
It's also several things in their ToS that I don't like. They are talking about a limit
How can a exceed a unlimited limit? And they are mention this several times in their ToS.
And this, you will not see a statement like that if this is my only backup source:
And this, so if I use my server with 18 drives on it (not all is used for my movie collection, but 6 disk are) do 5 disk = 5 devices, so I actually need more then one account?
I still think Jottacloud.com here in Norway is better. Unlimited with computers and devices (I'm etc using my phones, pad, several computers, servers etc etc), and "unlimited" storage, that they have mention as around 10 TB.
And all of this for $9/mo (actually lower then that since I pay per year, and have used them for 5-6 years now)
I may give jottacloud a try for my plex library backup ;-)
I have two of them in a Synology DS214se. It's much cheaper than four 3TB drives in a four-bay unit, with a loss of only 1 TB. The write performance sucks, but the read performance is fine. Everything I put on it is write once, read many, so they work fine. My only concern is that Seagate's had a less-than-stellar track record on simple things (like firmwares.....) lately, so I hope they're durable.
@Damian I also have had bad experience with Seagate disk before, but I have to assume that they have done a better job with this "cold storage" disks. Hope I'm not wrong.
it is not a contract just a prepaid 24 months but its only £15 without prepayment.
i think this excludes 4TB+ they seem to be very reliable. also Avoid made in china seagate drives they tend to break quicker in my experience.
Almost 80% of the failed drives i experienced were seagate/maxtor. I still have some which only have bad sectors, I just write the data twice on them, but should be considered failed anyway. This is, of course, about consumer, not enterprise versions.
I'm waiting for 28 months later :-(
@myhken how are they treating you?
I was considering getting a couple as a few of my 500gb's and 1tb's in raid's are getting on a bit.
I can't decide on a 4x2tb/3tb array or a pair of these.
Yeah, like...a couple weeks. Whoa.
Seriously, with a reasonable processor you can easily convert 24 movies a day even if they take an hour each, and they won't. You can probably do twice that if you stage them on SSD.
Convert 24 movies at 50GB each and you will net a terabyte of savings.
45GB per movie? Wow.
Most of my movies are stored at 1 to 2 GB. Then again, I find 720p to be perfectly fine. But even 1080 is what, 3-4GB?
As to your original question...I am not a fan of Seagate. Or single drives for anything.
I have a pair of 6TB WD Red in a NAS that is the most recent add to the 20-odd TB I have at home. I prefer the black (5 year vs. 3 year warranty) but I've found the Reds to be very good.
I don't think you need more space. You just need to discover Handbrake :-)
Not everyone want to collect "highly compressed" videos. Some only collect movies in the best quality. It's like a car enthusiast is looking for a large space to exhibit his love cars and you ask him to discover ... Smart?
They are working very well. I'm using two of three 8 TB disks now, and I get around 42 MB/s (2.1 GB per minute) uploading to the disk, and from 100-150 MB/s when I transfer from the disk.
Filled one of the disk up with 5 TB of data, and the second with 3 TB of data.
Can't see any issues at all. But I of course know that Seagate drives can be destroyed at any moment, but hope that is not the case for their 8 TB cold storage series.
I have collected movies for 12 years now (in my digital movie collection), and the one thing I regret was that in the beginning, when I had small hard drives, the price was high, and I did not have so much money to spend, I compressed allot of my DVDs from DVD9 to DVD5. Still, today, I regret this, and often buy the same movie again (since I don't save on all the DVDs I put in to the computer) just to rip them in full quality.
Also why I buy many of the same movies on BluRay, just to get better quality.
So I will never compress anymore. Alway rip DVD/BluRay with 0% compression.
You totally right.
@myhken they setup in RAID or single disk?
Single disks, I never use RAID. And RAID often writes allot to the disks, and this is not the right disk for constant writing.
I've done an exhaustive amount of work reading up on these drives and seeing how they work under normal and in NAS/SAN environments. As I run UnRAID several users have gone through and tested these drives exhaustively and come to the same conclusion that many of you have:
The speed at which you read back is great but you'll reach a time when the disk starts to slow down the fuller it gets as the disk moves data around the drive to optimize.
If you are an extreme digital hoarder these drives are awesome at a price point you can't beat. There are certain limitations you have to accept and if you are OK with that then you got yourself a great drive set.
Here is a link to the discussion on these drives:
http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=36749.0
Yeah the more I read up on them I am not sure they are the right disks for me, some 4TB Reds or Blacks I think.