A bare 8TB hard drive can cost $250, so this is a good price. Shame you can't just shuck the drives any more because sometimes they have weird interfaces, I want another 4-8TB drive for my PC.

I know nothing about this but reviews of the SMR type drives drives towards the bottom of the Amazon page are worth reading.

And there's another model, Seagate Expansion 8TB Desktop External Hard Drive USB 3.0 going for even slightly less at US$ 143.

Im tempted by these - Seagate Backup Plus 5TB Portable External Hard Drive USB 3.0 powered drive.

Anyone know if that will run ok on an xbox one x? Stupid thing is full already.

No idea, but did plug a 2GB WD Elements portable HDD into an ordinary Xbox One bout a year ago and its still going strong.

richms:

 

Im tempted by these - Seagate Backup Plus 5TB Portable External Hard Drive USB 3.0 powered drive.

 

Anyone know if that will run ok on an xbox one x? Stupid thing is full already.

 

i have one of those but havent tried in anything but mu PC

I'm now wary of using drives of that type/size for main storage.

Having lost a few (smaller) hard drives that had stuff on it I wanted, I would be worried about losing 8TB in one go. Yes, I had backups. But recovering several TB from optical disks is still a PITA. It was circa 2TB using 4.3GB DVDs then, not I use 50GB BD-Rs, but it would still be a pain.

Recovering 8TB off 50GB BR-Rs would be circa 160 disks to copy. Even 40 disks for 2TB is irritating and takes a few days.

If you go that route I would recommend getting two, and keeping one as an exact copy of the other. Or getting a cheapish 2-bay NAS enclosure and mirroring the drives. Yes, it will cost more. But that will all be worth it when a drive fails. And that's when, not if. And if the data/material stored matters, you need a third copy as well (remember, RAID is not a backup).

JimmyH:

 

I'm now wary of using drives of that type/size for main storage.

 

Having lost a few (smaller) hard drives that had stuff on it I wanted, I would be worried about losing 8TB in one go. Yes, I had backups. But recovering several TB from optical disks is still a PITA. It was circa 2TB using 4.3GB DVDs then, not I use 50GB BD-Rs, but it would still be a pain.

 

Recovering 8TB off 50GB BR-Rs would be circa 160 disks to copy. Even 40 disks for 2TB is irritating and takes a few days.

 

If you go that route I would recommend getting two, and keeping one as an exact copy of the other. Or getting a cheapish 2-bay NAS enclosure and mirroring the drives. Yes, it will cost more. But that will all be worth it when a drive fails. And that's when, not if. And if the data/material stored matters, you need a third copy as well (remember, RAID is not a backup).

 

why would you even bother with optical discs? would be a huge amount more expensive to back that amount of data back up.

320 (25gb discs) at ~$2.5 each = $800

could buy 3 discs and have change. 2 for your place and one off-site.

being SMR, i'd be careful using these in certain software raid configurations.

Don't expect this thing to be a rocket-ship, its a solid performer for cold storage :)

Personally i still opt for the toshi's, they can be a little loud, get a little warm... but solid price and amazing speed.

Even my cold storage machine onsite, I'm slowly replacing with the toshi drives, as it simply preforms far better on rebuilds.

cheers for the heads up - have purchased :)

would you get pinged for gst on this ? or under $400 still a go? 

Under $400 (incl shipping) would be exempt of collection - I see Amazon might collect a deposit but if Customs doesn't charge it then Amazon refunds the deposit.

Jase2985:

 

why would you even bother with optical discs? would be a huge amount more expensive to back that amount of data back up.

 

320 (25gb discs) at ~$2.5 each = $800

 

could buy 3 discs and have change. 2 for your place and one off-site.

 

Because good optical disks (HTL, not LTH or organic-dye DVDs) are good for cold storage, relatively insensitive to light or cold, and can sit on a shelf quite happily for decades and still be readable. Reportedly (much) longer is you spring for M-Disks.

Also your cost numbers are quite a bit off. Buying in quantity I land 50GB disks for around $NZ 2.14 each ($US 225 for 150). So the calculation is more 160 disks at ~ $2.17 each = $342; which is only 43% of your estimate.

It's easy and, once over the initial hump, not too time consuming. I keep my media on networked a RAID5 server. As files are added to that I also copy them to an external USB disk. Each time the transferred media directory reaches 50GB I burn the files to a disk and delete them. So, I have an easily accessible backup if the server goes south. And a safe, albeit more inconvenient, off-site cold storage second backup if the first backup is defective.

It takes time and a bit of expense. But nothing like the time it took to capture and encode all the films/TV series, rip and encode the BDRs/DVDs/CDs and take the photos & video footage in the first place. Plus some of the content (photos, video, documents) is irreplaceable.

Coming back on topic, I would still use these disks for backup purposes, for temporary "scratch" storage or to move files around. But not for primary storage, for the reasons I stated.