I’ve been buying seagate ironwolf only drives for my NAS but I’ve been wondering if it’s really worth it given that it’s a small server sitting in a corner and these drives are getting more and more expensive. What are your thoughts? Do you only go with NAS drives or anything really does the trick assuming I have a good backup strategy?
Purely anecdotal, but in my experience drive deaths have been more closely related to power cycling than their type. The drives that stay on 24/7 have generally been problem free, but those in desktops that get turned on and off regularly seem to have much shorter lives.
In one example, I had a set of 8 WD drives that I bought together from the same batch. Half went in a Synology NAS back in 2012, and the others went in desktops. The drives in the NAS and the desktop that always stays on are still running after 11 years. All the other drives died within 4.