The largest hard drive. Which hard drive to buy. The best external hard drives
Computer technology has reached unprecedented heights and the most voluminous hard disks exceeded the capacity mark of 60 TB. This is shocking because the average user has a maximum of 1-2 terabytes of storage and still can't get full. The professionals understood what kind of 60 TB equipment we were talking about - this is the so-called Lacie STFK60000400. In essence, it is a modular box, inside of which are placed 6 hard drives equal capacity, but the convenience is that the device clearly regulates their operation. There is somewhere in the world the largest HDD of 100 TB, but it is excessively bulky, comparable to the first punched card processors. But what should ordinary people do who don’t really understand the issue and get bogged down in various buses, spindles, and caches? It’s simple: you need to read this material and put everything in order, defining the selection criterion for yourself. The study was conducted to identify the volume/price/functionality ratio, so some manufacturers were not included in the list. It is worth noting that manufacturers have modular systems, ready-made home cloud storage, etc. - all this was also ignored.
This review covers standard 3.5” drives and external drives HDD format(not to be confused with SSD), which are commercially available and acceptable for home use. If something is really worthy of attention, it is mentioned in inserts in the text without participation in the rating.
The most capacious hard drives
3 TOSHIBA MG07ACA12TE
Best price/quality ratio
Country: China, Thailand
Average price: 27,500 rub.
Rating (2019): 4.6
Third place is again occupied by Toshiba, and it is here for a simple reason - price. Of all the most capacious 12 TB drives, without division into server and home ones, the MG07ACA12TE model is the cheapest. 1 TB of this device will cost a little more than 2,000 rubles, with a difference from the previous ones of only 2 TB. Server hard drives are more reliable, work according to a different algorithm, and are able to warn of the onset of a crisis in order to save data. One question: what data individual user data of some corporation is less important?
There is nothing special about this product - the same equipment, which is an order of magnitude better than a regular disk for personal use. By the way, the closest model in terms of price, which is positioned for the home, costs more than 32,000 rubles. Perhaps this is the most acceptable option among large HDDs.
2 TOSHIBA MG07ACA14TE
The most reliable and safe
Country: China, Thailand
Average price: RUB 39,500.
Rating (2019): 4.7
Toshiba MG07ACA14TE does not use the latest technology, so it ends up in second place. No, he's no worse. Why is this so: the manufacturer paid attention to the reliability and intentional destruction of data in the product, but the technology for reading data is previous. Relatively speaking, Toshiba convinces with great caution, while Seagate tries to test everything new as quickly as possible. The disk is convenient for quickly hiding information: Sanitize Instant Erase technology allows you to instantly delete all data from the drive. It should be noted that the probability of occurrence of a bit uncorrectable error is 1*10 16, which is 10 times more than its main competitor - Seagate, but still the differences are negligible. For greater reliability, the “Persistent Write Cache” function has been implemented into the disk when working together with “Power Loss Protection” will be able to ensure the safety of data in the event of a computer power failure. Additionally, if the buyer was able to purchase the product under review with a SAS interface, then it may be worth reconsidering this rating, provided that the home computer also supports it. If you need automated security, look no further than the MG07ACA14TE. You will also be pleased with the energy consumption (lower by ~15-20%), but this is already important for those who are building large infrastructure.
Disadvantages include: high price, lack of firmware for home use. However, even under such strict conditions, the model received approval from ordinary consumers and professional testers. The following products are slightly less capacious and here it is necessary to explain the nuances of purchasing and using those already listed. Both models have a high price, at which you need to pay almost 2800 rubles for 1TB of memory. With the same success, for the Euro-Asian territory you can buy 2 disks of 8 TB and pay only 2000 rubles for 1 TB, and get a total of 16 TB. In addition, it is difficult for the average user to obtain objective information. So, the Toshiba website is basically not for quality choice, and Seagate is mostly in English and without details.
1 SEAGATE ST14000VN0008
Most modern
A country:
Average price: RUB 39,500.
Rating (2019): 4.7
If the average buyer does not distinguish between noise of 2 dB, if for him there is no difference between an operating life of 115 years or 289 years, then he has surpassed everyone HDD Seagate ST14000VN0008. A similar drive from a competitor is also good and gets second place in the rating, but here’s why the one in question HDD is better. First of all, it is adapted for working with other drives in a NAS scenario, in which up to 8 similar instances can be combined, for example, for a home station. A total of 112 TB is achieved. The next leading feature is the IronWolf Health-Managment system, which scans almost 200 parameters. It notifies the user of violation of operating standards: too heat, shock, shaking, etc. Other advantages include a maximum temperature of 70 degrees (suitable for Sochi, Gelendzhik) and is better suited for single use on a home computer, thanks to the separately supplied firmware. There is no point in comparing with capacious predecessors of 8-12 TB , and given that there is only one competitor for the next 3-6 months, other characteristics will become standard rather than an advantage technical parameters, like: access speed to a block with information - 7200, volume random access memory disk (cache) - 256, form factor - 3.5”. For Russia and other CIS countries, slightly increased energy consumption plays practically no role. This parameter is more sensitive for Europe and large businesses, such as Sberbank, Aeroflot or Yandex.
The only disadvantage of the device is the high price. At the time of writing the review, the device was difficult to find for general sale, but it had already been tested on specialized sites, where it received a high rating. If the reader prefers to wait until 2019, then Western Digital has planned to release a disk with 16 TB of memory, as well as the following manufacturer. Now the bulk of the volume is being bought by data centers and, as soon as they satisfy their demand, the retail price will drop and some will begin to flow to the mass consumer.
The most capacious external hard drives
3 SEAGATE STEL8000200
Best price
A country: China/Malaysia (assembly), Ireland, USA, Thailand (parts)
Average price: 14,000 rub.
Rating (2019): 3.8
The last place among the drives should have been taken by the WDBWLG0100HBK from Western Digital with a capacious memory of 10 TB, but it is not on sale in Russia. Therefore, the Seagate STEL8000200, which was mentioned earlier, comes here. The computer community gives a good rating because the product has been tested by time and users, has best ratio price/terabyte, and is also accompanied by detailed documentation and software.
The disadvantages include, like the entire product range, a high design and small legs, which do not at all reduce sensitivity to shocks. Reviews note heating and slowness. If the goal is backup data storage on external media, then this is the best option.
2 SEAGATE STEL10000400
Optimal set of features
A country: China/Malaysia (assembly), Ireland, USA, Thailand (parts)
Average price: 19,000 rub.
Rating (2019): 4.0
The Seagate STEL10000400 model is positioned as external storage for backup data storage. In this regard, full compatibility with the program “ Time Machine» to create backups. The product does not have particularly outstanding characteristics among analogues of the same capacity: interface speed 160 MB/s, USB 3.0 A, plastic case. As users correctly note, this disk costs much less than its internal counterpart by as much as 6,000 rubles. Therefore, savings can be made if volume is more important than speed.
Among the shortcomings, the lack of anti-vibration feet is noted. Instead, they have 3 mm racks and a high design – it’s not difficult to hit them with your elbow and drop them. The older brother STEL8000200, at an average price, will be a more suitable option for a computer, since the manufacturer has thought out a built-in hub for it and developed copying software.
1 LACIE D2 THUNDERBOLT 3 10TB STFY10000400
The fastest
A country: China/Malaysia (assembly), Ireland, USA, Thailand (parts)
Average price: 33,000 rub.
Rating (2019): 4.6
If you need all the power, speed and latest advances in one drive, then you can't miss external hard LaCie d2 Thunderbolt 3 10TB STFY10000400 drive with 10 TB of space. Its price is incredibly high - at 33,000 rubles. Suitable for those who care about interface bandwidth and shock protection. However, if you take away 2 TB, you can buy the same technologies at half the price. Why choose this device: Thunderbolt 3 speeds up to 40 GB/s, suitable for 4K video and 3D graphics, can be shipped in metal case, has shock-absorbing struts and vertical stability.
The disadvantages include: it only works with systems above Windows 8.1. and Mac OS X, heavy weight of almost 1.5 kg, the highest price per 1 TB. If the selection criterion external hard disk - thoughtfulness and best technologies, then it's worth taking. There are no analogues among single-disk systems. It’s worth passing by: a 12TB external hard drive is the most spacious of all its counterparts, but overly expensive - more than 50K rubles. At the same time, according to reviews, it is very heavy and slow - instead of the stated 15,000 rpm, it produces only 7,200.
Fixstars, a company that creates storage media based on flash memory, has decided to eclipse all previous records set by SSD drive manufacturers. This company has released the most capacious SSD in the world, with a capacity of 13 TB. It also comes with a less capacious model, with a memory capacity of 10 TB.
Thus, the company also set a second record, breaking away even from manufacturers of traditional HDDs. For example, Seagate, like several others manufacturers of hard disks, produces HDDs with a maximum memory capacity of 10 TB. And here is an SDD with 13 TB. 
The performance of the device is also excellent, at least as the manufacturer himself claims.
As with gel HDDs, this SSD is not intended for everyday consumers with their home personal computers. These drives are intended primarily for data centers that support cloud services. The drives are ideal for receiving and transmitting huge amounts of information, including streaming, CG/VFX creation, and video processing. As you might guess, the cost of such SSDs is equal to the price of a small yacht. For a 13 TB model you will have to pay $19,000. The cost of GB in this case is about $1.46 - which is much more than in consumer models.
The 2.5 inch SSD uses own controller, as well as Toshiba MLC NAND memory. Sequential read speed - 580 MB/s, write speed - 540 MB/s. Power consumption: 3 watts idle and 6.5 watts when peak loads.
Interestingly, this is technically a 2.5-inch drive, but its height is 15 mm. Such an SSD is unlikely to fit into a laptop.
Probably, only fairly wealthy organizations will be able to afford to purchase such a drive. In order for the price of such an SSD to be approximately $1000, the cost of a GB should drop to 7-8 cents. This is unlikely to happen in the near foreseeable future.
Film library in your home
Most recently, Western Digital created the largest custom hard drive, My Book Studio Edition II, with a capacity of 4 TB (4 terabytes = 4096 gigabytes). This device is designed specifically for Mac computer owners. The price of the largest hard drive is relatively high, namely $650. Its practicality is beyond question; it can easily hold about 1,500 DVD movies, as well as approximately 800 thousand photographs in digital format and approximately 1 million MP3 music files.
There is a cheaper option!
You can, of course, get by with a slightly smaller working volume - it will also be cheaper. My Book Studio Edition II can have a volume of 1 and 2 terabytes. By the way, in Russian online stores the price for such hard drives ranges from 7,000 to 17,000 rubles (depending on the volume). The disk is connected to the computer via a USB port. My Book Studio Edition II is quite bulky, its dimensions are 98x166x154 mm, and its weight exceeds 2.6 kg. Of course, food is provided through network adapter, the physical disk consists of two two-terabyte physical disks in a single enclosure.
What other advantages?
Judging by consumer reviews, size is the only advantage of this hard drive. The consumer properties of the model are strongly criticized by users. In particular, users criticize the fragile case, which is easily deformed and scratched. In addition, computers periodically “do not see” it, and it is not easy to detect it again.
Users also criticize the speed of information transfer from the drive; it does not rise above 12-14 MB/sec, but is often much lower. Reinstalling drivers and other manipulations do not help the situation. Users were not satisfied with software My Book Studio Edition called WD Drive Manager, which is unable to determine the percentage free space on the disk and outputs it to the drive minimum set information.
To take or not to take?
To summarize, we can safely recommend that readers do not mess with My Book Studio Edition: this disc has no analogues in capacity, but the quality of this drive does not stand up to numerous criticism, despite the fact that the price of the hard drive is quite high.
- 1. Hard drive capacity
- 2. Connection interface
- 3. Rotation speed
- 4. Buffer memory
- 5. Dimensions
- 6. Manufacturer company
- 7. External screw selection
- 8. That's all well and good, but what about SSDs?
Sooner or later, each of us is faced with a situation when the internal memory of a personal computer is running out, and we don’t want to delete the existing information. In this case, there is only one thing left - to purchase a new, more capacious hard drive, but you want to do this in such a way that similar problem was not looming on the horizon for the next five years. To help our readers make the best purchase, today we will talk about which hard drive to choose for your computer in 2019. First, let's discuss its most important parameters.
Hard drive capacity
Of course, the first thing any buyer thinks about is volume. hard drive. By the standards of history, just recently 20 gigabytes of space internal memory seemed like luxury and excess, and today not every game can fit on such a modest hard drive. When discussing what size hard drive you should buy to make the purchase profitable and effective, you should first look at the current state of affairs on the market. 
In the segment of hard drives, as with other computer components, you can notice a trend - top options are much more expensive than competitors that are not so much inferior to them. In order not to overpay for the fleeting right to feel like the owner of the best toy, you should look towards the middle price range, and there, in turn, notice that a 500 gigabyte screw is not much different in price from its 2 terabyte counterpart - then why save a few percent of the cost getting four times less free space?
Connection interface
The hard drive is connected to motherboard, and therefore all other components system unit via cable. This cable can have one of two types of interface - current SATA and outdated IDE. If your current home computer was purchased not 15-20 years ago, but much later, then you don’t have to look at IDE, and SATA is divided into three types - SATA 1, SATA 2 and SATA 3, respectively. 
The first of them, like the IDE, cannot be found during the day, and the second and third generations differ in data transfer speed - 3 Gb/s and 6 Gb/s, respectively. By the way, these two types of interfaces are interchangeable, but if you want to insert a SATA 3 hard drive into the connector for the second one, then it will work at SATA 2 speed. If you decide to purchase external hard drive, then preference should be given USB connector 3.0.
Rotational speed
The faster the spindle rotates, the higher the read/write speed of the hard drive will be, and therefore this aspect is also one of the main ones when choosing suitable hardware. In fact, this parameter has long reached its reasonable limit, which is at around 7200 rpm, and therefore choosing almost any screw regarding this characteristic will not be a mistake. 
However, if you buy the filling for gaming computer, then we recommend stopping at hard drives with an indicator above 10,000 rpm, and the most preferable purchase will be a hard drive made according to SSD technology, but such instances will be discussed later. By the way, the vast majority external hard disks operate at a speed of 5400 rpm and no special problems this fact does not cause.
Buffer memory
Buffer memory, also known as cache memory, is a place in which data is localized that has already been read from the disk, but has not yet been transmitted through the interface, which means that the larger it is, the higher the overall performance of the system. External drives they are content with 8 MB, but for the internal screw it is worth choosing 32 MB or higher - 64 will be ideal. 
Dimensions
Hard drives, despite identical functions, can have very various sizes, the main ones are Small Form Factor of 2.5 inches and Large Form Factor of 3.5. The former, as a rule, have lower basic indicators, for example, the spindle rotates at a speed of 5400 rpm, but they are used in laptops due to their compactness. Large ones are suitable for familiar personal computers, but in last years There is a noticeable trend towards converting even more powerful hard drives into a smaller format. 
Manufacturing company
Despite the fact that dozens of brand names appear in the price lists of computer hardware stores, only two giants produce them - Seagate and Western Digital. It is difficult to say anything unambiguously regarding the advantages of a particular manufacturer, but after sifting through hundreds of reviews on the Internet, we came to disappointing conclusions for Seagate - their screws are much less reliable. Yes, many of those reading these lines may well do this thanks to the use of a screw from this company that has been faithfully and faithfully for five years, but why hope that you will be lucky if you can choose a more stable option? 
By the way, we recommend that after purchasing a new disk, you immediately give it an increased load, this way you will test it under stressful conditions and if it was defective, then you will have time to take advantage of warranty service or replace it defective goods, and if it survives this stress test without incident, you can be almost 100% sure that it will last a long time. We must understand that Russia is far from the main market for computer equipment manufacturers, and then the task is to find service center often looks almost insurmountable; those who have experienced sending their components abroad for repairs know very well how long and expensive it is. In general, in 2019 I personally would give my preference to WD, but this is not an advertisement and the choice is up to you.
External screw selection
IN in this case A third is being added to the two giant manufacturers - Transcend. The advantages of such gadgets are obvious - no fuss with mounting into a laptop case or system unit, you just need to connect it using one of the current connectors; we remind you that preference should be given to USB 3.0 - it is compatible with USB 2.0 and can be connected to absolutely any system. 
The form factors of portable hard drives are the same as those of their older brothers, but in this case the dimensions are even more important - a compact device is much more convenient to carry, so if you plan to use it often outside the home, take a closer look at the 2.5 inches. The speed, of course, will most likely be lower, but the ability to tuck a screw into a jacket pocket is priceless. By the way, since you are going to carry it with you, it would be nice to think about its durability - anything can happen. Such equipment often fails when dropped from a height of only 10-15 centimeters, and therefore a rubberized case or case is almost a must-have. 
In recent years, connectivity has gained widespread popularity regular hard disks as external ones using special boxes that have a USB connection to the computer, and modern system units often already have such a compartment - very convenient.
This is all well and good, but what about SSDs?
In recent years, SSDs, also known as solid-state drives, which are sometimes mistakenly called hard drives. They are more like a large flash drive with microcircuits, because they do not have mechanical parts like the usual HDDs. All data here is transmitted electronically, and to connect such a device we use SATA interfaces 2 or SATA 3, but buying one powerful tool it’s worth getting the most out of it, and therefore we recommend using much more high-speed connection PCI Express. 
Such drives are much more compact than their predecessors, and therefore they almost always go on sale together with an adapter that will help insert the device into the HDD slot. Despite the fact that SSDs are much more problematic to damage, they, unfortunately, still break, and therefore reliability can hardly be considered one of the undeniable advantages of these devices today. Another drawback is the significantly higher price, and therefore not everyone who is faced with an urgent need to purchase new hard the disk will be able to afford this option.
If only a very wealthy user can purchase an SSD drive with a capacity of several terabytes, then small solid state drives are available to almost everyone and this opportunity must be used. The point is that speed operating system depends very much on the physical object on which it is located, and therefore with the help of a small SSD, for example, 128 gigabytes, you can make incredible progress in the speed of the OS.
Just place Windows or another operating system on an expensive medium, as well as a number of the programs you most need, and store the rest of the information on the HDD and you will be happy at an affordable price. By the way, owners of old systems should remember that this medium They support Windows 7 and up, so you won’t be able to overclock your XP with it.
We hope that this material was useful to you and now you can imagine the sequence of actions if you decide to update the hard drive in your personal computer. You shouldn’t overly trust sales assistants in an electronics store - they have their own goals and motives, which may be far from the desire to choose the best option for you, and then keep your finger on the pulse and constantly update your knowledge about the most important components of the system unit, good luck!
