The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/bsgapollo on 2025-07-22 22:25:31.
I'll start off by saying all of my nvme slots are occupied before I get recommendations for that, but I'd still like to get some extra storage, also at a cheaper price, I've done a fair amount of research myself, but I would really like to get a second opinion on what would be the best option for my specific usage case.
The models in question and that seem to make the most sense in my region (price wise) are the: Seagate HDD 3.5" 24TB ST24000DM001 Barracuda and the Toshiba MG10 20TB 3.5" SATA III MG10ACA20TE
- The 24 tb Seagate costs €289 (price per terabyte is €12.04)
- The 20 tb Toshiba costs €326 (price per tarabyte is €16.30)
Obviously the 24 tb looks way more appealing in terms of price and what you are getting for it, but the 24tb model has 2 years of warranty while the Toshiba one has 5 years of warranty.
- 24 tb seagate specs:
- Maxmium data transfer speed: 190 mb/s
- Cache buffer: 512mb
- Rated workload: 120 TB/year
- Load/unload cycles: 600,000
- Noise: (unable to find in the manual)
- Power on hours (per year) for annualized failure rate: 2400 hours
- 20 tb Toshiba specs:
- Maxmium data transfer speed: 268 mb/s
- Cache buffer: 512mb
- Rated workload: 550 TB/year
- Load/unload cycles: 600,000
- Noise: Idle: 20 dB, Seek, 32 dB
- Power on hours (per year) for annualized failure rate: 8760 hours
My specific use case for the hard drives would be storing movies & other forms of entertainment media, I would regularly access the drive probably up to a dozen times a day. So I'm slightly worried I would hit the 2400 hours per year on the seagate drive (6 and a half hours per day). In total I would probably write between 4-8 tb towards the hard drive on a yearly basis. Unless the hard drive had to be formatted/fully copied again, then it's more.
- In order, what would be most important for me would be:
- Total amount of storage (price)
- Noise
- Total life span of the product (failure rate)
- Quick access towards the drive
- Data transfer speed
As a last thing, something important to mention is I would buy 2 of these hard drives, one serving as a back-up, and one which would see every day use multiple times a day.
I know this is quite a detailed post but I'm looking to make an informed decision before I make my purchase, would it still make sense to purchase the seagate drive for my uses? I've seen other reddit posts mention it should mainly be used as cold storage. Any feedback is appreciated, thank you.
These are the manuals I was able to find of both models: