The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/wunderforce on 2024-12-05 09:41:51.

I am considering getting a 24TB external drive. I need this mostly for archival backup and would like it to be accessible to Mac and Linux. I will be backing up ~22TB data in one go.

The WD easystore is $550 and I’ve seen reports of smaller models (20TB) getting around 220 MBps when empty. It looks like the WD comes formatted as NTFS and would require reformatting (I’m considering exFAT).

The Seagate expansion is $450 and I have seen two reports of the 16 TB model getting 280 MBps when empty. The drive comes formatted as exFAT so I wouldn’t need to reformat.

At $100 cheaper and with potentially higher write speeds the Seagate seems pretty tempting. I found this post however from another user on this sub who had _two different 24TB units die on him during a 24hr file transfer (which, as I mentioned, is my use case). A long time ago I had several bad experiences with Seagate products, but I’ve heard they’ve gotten a lot better since then. I’m still wondering though what corners have been cut to make this one $100 cheaper.

Which would you recommend? Does brand name still matter, or is it basically a toss up?