<div dir="ltr">On Fri, Nov 7, 2014 at 1:25 AM, Stephen Worthington <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:stephen_agent@jsw.gen.nz" target="_blank">stephen_agent@jsw.gen.nz</a>></span> wrote:<br><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><span class="">On Thu, 6 Nov 2014 22:30:41 +0000, you wrote:<br>
<br>
>I have a bunch of drives in the machine and tend to upgrade them one by<br>
>one, when they fill up or fail, with whatever the largest affordable drive<br>
>is at the time of upgrade (nowadays 4 TB). So there will always be smaller<br>
>and larger drives in there.<br>
<br>
</span>Actually, 6 TB drives are available at very reasonable prices. I have<br>
a WD60EFRX (Western Digital 6 TB Red) in my system now. The<br>
equivalent Green drive is also available and a bit cheaper, but<br>
actually draws more power than the Red model. I would love to have<br>
the Hitachi 6 TB helium filled drives, but they are much too expensive<br>
and I do not really need that level of performance except maybe on my<br>
system drive (currently a 3 TB Hitachi HDS723030ALA640).<br>
<div class=""><div class="h5"></div></div></blockquote></div><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">If I look on <a href="http://Amazon.co.uk">Amazon.co.uk</a> today, the cheapest WD60EFRX is 208.47 GBP (but not in stock), costing 34.75 GBP/TB. What I buy these days is the STBV4000200 at 94.99 GBP (also not in stock, so comparing apples to apples...), which works out at 23.75 GBP/TB. That's quite a bit cheaper than the WD Red! Given the rate at which HD recordings eat the terabytes, I always take the cheaper drives. I may not be doing the "redundant arrays" part yet, but I'm sure going for "inexpensive" ;-)</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">NB these Seagate external drives have been the "cheapest GBP/TB" drives for the past couple of years, in my research, ever since the 2 TB model. I can't figure out their strategy but if I buy one of these, open it up and take the bare drive inside, it works out cheaper than buying the drive on its own. So I also have plenty of USB3 3.5" SATA enclosures with matching power supplies ;-) They now make them up to 5 TB but 4 TB is currently the sweet spot.</div></div>