EU [WTB] Large qty of hard drives

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Yarik Dot

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Apr 13, 2015
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For our long term offline backup we are looking for high qty drives of almost any size.

Total capacity should aim at 1PB.
 

Samir

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Jul 21, 2017
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Are you sure about "almost any size"? 50x 20TB drives = 1PB, but so does 2000x 500GB drives, except that 2000x drives will take up 40x more physical space. With a single 3.5" drive taking up about 24 cubic inches of volume, the 50x drives would take up 1200 cubic inches versus the 48000 cubic inches needed for 2000 drives. This is a single 12x12x12 box versus almost 30x boxes for the smaller capacity drives.
 
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Yarik Dot

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Apr 13, 2015
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We are going to store them in our warehouse with some space available. However, I agree that higher capacity drives are prefered.
 

Yarik Dot

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Apr 13, 2015
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You could try contacting the WD shop, you might be able to secure a bulk supply of either new or refurbished drives.

Also how "offline" is "offline"? Because you could also consider LTO tape? If you could get an LTO-8 library machine you can store >1PB relatively easily. BL543A MSL4048 Autoloader Fully tested inc 2 x Ultrium3000 FC LTO5 Tested | eBay
I thought about it. We have no experience with these to be honest and our software is prepared for hard drives. I suppose it won't be difficult, but it will require some time.

Offline = fill backup drive with data, remove it from the backup server and store it in the shelf with correct label, so we can find it later.

I just bought 50x3TB drives and 4x2TB drives for approx. 1,970 USD.
 

bob_dvb

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Sep 7, 2018
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That's a risky backup/archive strategy if you only have a single drive with the content on. Hard disks are generally stable but over time you are likely to have mechanical and electrical issues even with stored drives. Tape helps because it has less mechanical issues.