WD 6TB Mobile Drive

LunarMist

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Mercutio

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I'm obviously not the target user for such a thing, but it does give me hope that they're offering a variety of different SKUs. Maybe the more expensive "Pro" models won't be SMR nonsense.

The Seagate 15mm 5TB drives are fine-ish as backup targets and they have been reliable in my experience. I haven't ever had one fail and I have a couple dozen of them. Other than sliding in to a 2.5" bay on a rack server, I can't imagine why else anyone would want one.
 

LunarMist

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Since SSD prices are going crazy, I'm sure that the mobile drives are not dead yet.
One of the few HDDs I had that failed was a 4TB Passport around 2016, when that was considered large.
I'm willing to buy a 6TB if it is CMR, but not the painful shingles.
 
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Mercutio

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SSDs follow DRAM pricing patterns. We just happen to be on the high side of the seesaw at the moment.

(He said, having just coughed up $3k for 3TB of ECC DDR4).
 

LunarMist

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That's more like an investment in your LLC than coughing up money. :LOL:
 

LunarMist

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I'm glad to have folks in supply chain that monitor such things. It was certainly a problem especially in 2021 when some products were super difficult to source (like the microcontrollers) and had insane prices or >80 weeks lead times for some custom items we needed in large quantity (not computer stuff). At least you are mainly using COTS components, right? Still there must be some software that you can use for notification when lead times or price are increasing at a threshold rate and tie that back to BOMs or whatever.

Anyways, the 6TB drive is <$250. I'm having mental flashbacks to the pain and suffering of shingles for about three days.
 

Mercutio

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SMR drives have a place, especially as second-line backups and data hoarder media vaults. Hopefully, that $250 MSRP will get discounted to something realistic pretty quickly.
 

Mercutio

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For ~$650, you can get a new 8TB u.2 Intel drive with TLC NAND, although I think the overlap between people looking for 8TB u.2 drives and people willing to accept a 6TB SMR drive in a 15mm 2.5" package is probably pretty small.
 

LunarMist

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That's nice, but huge compared to the M.2 drive. I typically use much smaller NVMe enclosures since there usually multiples and weight limits are strict on small aircarft. I don't like to fly anything with less than 3000kg MTOW.
 

ddrueding

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I don't mind a Cub or an R22. If my M.2 drive enclosures are a problem, I should just exercise more. I'd save 20kg pretty quick.
 

LunarMist

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Your luggage is 20kg altogether or do you mean that you are overweight?
 

LunarMist

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Your height and weight have gone metric with the Danish. :LOL:
I found the metric BMW calculator. You are one large meal short of obesity, so it's really not too bad yet.
 
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