datahoarder

6716 readers

18 users here now

Who are we?

We are digital librarians. Among us are represented the various reasons to keep data -- legal requirements, competitive requirements, uncertainty of permanence of cloud services, distaste for transmitting your data externally (e.g. government or corporate espionage), cultural and familial archivists, internet collapse preppers, and people who do it themselves so they're sure it's done right. Everyone has their reasons for curating the data they have decided to keep (either forever or For A Damn Long Time). Along the way we have sought out like-minded individuals to exchange strategies, war stories, and cautionary tales of failures.

We are one. We are legion. And we're trying really hard not to forget.

-- 5-4-3-2-1-bang from this thread

founded 4 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Large external HDD noise levels (kbin.social)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

6 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Apologies if this isn't the right community to ask in, I figured folks who use them would know, but if there is a better place to ask, please let me know!

So - I need to buy some external storage, and looking at prices and with the long run in mind, I was leaning towards a 18TB WD Elements or 16TB SEAGATE Expansion, but after looking at the reviews I am concerned about the noise levels, since I have sensory processing disorder, making me really sensitive to noise and this is going right by my bed and will hopefully function as an active backup, so will be always on.

Apparently there's a thing called Preventative Wear Levelling which will cause the drive to rev up every few seconds, and all drives (HDD anyway) do it, but it's the size of the drive that affects how much sound it makes, is that right?

If that's the case, is there a size drive where the noise becomes noticeable that I should stay under, or is it a case of trial and error and "my mileage may vary", and actually any drive could end up being noisy?

Alternatively, is there a quiet but affordable (in terms of ££ per TB, I wouldn't buy a significantly smaller SSD for the same price as those I mentioned, for example) alternative?

TIA

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Thanks for the info

consumer level HDDs

Is this a size limit, or more to do with the actual hardware?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

There's no hard limit or standard, but I think 14 TB might be the largest you could find in a consumer HDD. The WD EasyStore goes on sale pretty often and sells for a good deal. Those should be quiet and already come in an external case. Look for reviews about it before buying.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Thanks, will definitely give it a look!