[RamboUnchained]

I plan to backup a few blurays and some TV series soon. I've come to the conclusion that I will need roughly 4TB of storage to back up my favorites. I can't decide b/w this 4GB Seagate HDD http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...-_-Product and two of these 2TB Western Digital HDDs. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...-_-Product

My board only supports 3GBps so 6 vs 3 isn't an issue to me.

The Seagate is brand new, has a 2yr (limited) warranty, and runs at 5900RPM which should be quieter than the 7200RPM drives. However, if that drive fails, I lose everything, since my cloud storage is only 1TB.

On the flip side, I could use one WD drive for movies and the other for TV shows, so if my movie drive bites the dust, I'll still have TV shows backed up and vice-versa. The WD drives are also new and come with a 1yr warranty. I could easily make those warranties 4 years apiece for a total of $164. The total cost of the Seagate + extended warranty would be $160.

I'm at odds, because there's less than a $5 difference and I can't really decide which one would better suit my needs. I'm leaning towards the two separate WD drives for pseudo-redundancy, but I'm not 100% sure at this point.

I've used drives from both brands for years and had the same amount of issues with both, so I can't really go off history since 9/10 drives I've ever bought from either brand has been reliable.

[LazerBlue]

Are these drives that will always be in the computer or putting them in, backing up your media then storing them elsewhere after? If just a backup drive, I would go with the single drive option. I use three drives for my backups and it's a pain in the ass swapping out three drives to do my backups even though my case has two hot swap bays. If they are staying in the computer then I would do the two drives.

[RamboUnchained]

Are these drives that will always be in the computer or putting them in, backing up your media then storing them elsewhere after? If just a backup drive, I would go with the single drive option. I use three drives for my backups and it's a pain in the ass swapping out three drives to do my backups even though my case has two hot swap bays. If they are staying in the computer then I would do the two drives.

They will be staying in for a while. At least until I get ready to upgrade my desktop to a fullblown, headless NAS. I'll be doing 4-5k bitrates for movies that don't have a lot of motion and 6-9k bitrates for movies like Avatar and 300. I have about 100 blurays that I will be backing up, so 2GB should be a good starting point considering none of the files will be more than 10GB. If only I could afford this: http://www.amazon.com/Sony-BDP-CX960-Blu...B002M78J70

[LazerBlue]

What's funny is I was looking for a solution like that back in 2010 when I discovered this amazing piece of software.

[Qtrmeg]

Are these drives that will always be in the computer or putting them in, backing up your media then storing them elsewhere after? If just a backup drive, I would go with the single drive option. I use three drives for my backups and it's a pain in the ass swapping out three drives to do my backups even though my case has two hot swap bays. If they are staying in the computer then I would do the two drives.

They will be staying in for a while. At least until I get ready to upgrade my desktop to a fullblown, headless NAS. I'll be doing 4-5k bitrates for movies that don't have a lot of motion and 6-9k bitrates for movies like Avatar and 300. I have about 100 blurays that I will be backing up, so 2GB should be a good starting point considering none of the files will be more than 10GB. If only I could afford this: http://www.amazon.com/Sony-BDP-CX960-Blu...B002M78J70

Go with the Seagate 4TB drive. If you eventually go with something like an Unraid NAS box you can use it for one of your data drives, (a 2TB drive is getting kind of small to be taking up a drive slot).

As for warranty, what good is that going to do if all your data gets wiped out? Spend your money on another 4TB drive, or larger, and back up 1 to 1 until you do the NAS thing. And now you have 2 drives for your NAS. Here is a link to the Unraid box I built, you can see all the money is in the drives>>>

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/Qtrmeg/saved/#view=t23ypg

[RamboUnchained]

What's funny is I was looking for a solution like that back in 2010 when I discovered this amazing piece of software.

Ha. As much as I love my hard copies and display, they take up a lot of space. Space that could be used for something else. I also figured it was time to go ahead and start ripping once a few of my discs got scratched by people that aren't me and general wear and tear. I'd sell all of them if there was a legitimate way to watch 25/50 discs online. The illegal ways of going about viewing rips are for people with bad eyesight or small TVs. I have neither. I feel bad for anyone that doesn't notice the quality difference in a 25MBps bluray and a 2k bitrate, sub-HD, video stream.

[RamboUnchained]

Are these drives that will always be in the computer or putting them in, backing up your media then storing them elsewhere after? If just a backup drive, I would go with the single drive option. I use three drives for my backups and it's a pain in the ass swapping out three drives to do my backups even though my case has two hot swap bays. If they are staying in the computer then I would do the two drives.

They will be staying in for a while. At least until I get ready to upgrade my desktop to a fullblown, headless NAS. I'll be doing 4-5k bitrates for movies that don't have a lot of motion and 6-9k bitrates for movies like Avatar and 300. I have about 100 blurays that I will be backing up, so 2GB should be a good starting point considering none of the files will be more than 10GB. If only I could afford this: http://www.amazon.com/Sony-BDP-CX960-Blu...B002M78J70

Go with the Seagate 4TB drive. If you eventually go with something like an Unraid NAS box you can use it for one of your data drives, (a 2TB drive is getting kind of small to be taking up a drive slot).

As for warranty, what good is that going to do if all your data gets wiped out? Spend your money on another 4TB drive, or larger, and back up 1 to 1 until you do the NAS thing. And now you have 2 drives for your NAS. Here is a link to the Unraid box I built, you can see all the money is in the drives>>>

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/Qtrmeg/saved/#view=t23ypg

Yeah I guess I could just pick up the 4TB drive and then add a second one down the road before getting knee-deep in a NAS. As far as the warranty goes, it's not as much the data as it is the cost to replace the drive that concerns me. A 10-15$ restock/RMA fee vs another $70 or another $140 to replace a drive that fails regardless of care on my end is. I plan to stress test the drive for at least 24hrs upon receiving it though. Just like I do with all of my other PC hardware; I throw way more at it than I'll ever throw at it in a real situation and see how it responds.