to the mods: should this post belong in a different forum, let me know where it gets moved to, please. i've opted for this forum to hopefully reach a general audience rather than those that specialise in a particular media...

i currently have a couple of external SSD drives - one that remains my constant mainstay, always in use, and one i'm using for back-up/cold storage, making sure to plug it in once a month or so to avoid degradation as much as possible. it is my understanding, however, that HHDs are truly best for cold storage, and as such, i'm in the market for an HHD external to house my files.

i am not one to use cloud/DropBox type options, though i do understand the 3-2-1 ideology...

i've started doing research, reading reviews, etc., as my tech guru is no longer available to assist. but i'm having trouble with sorting through so many conflicting opinions, and some of what folks have to say is tech speak that i simply do not understand, and i will if i must, but i truly don't have the mental accumin to also research all the meanings and specs and nuances of things i need to maybe consider, but seem unimportant as i just want a drive that works, is reliable, and can keep my files secure. i do understand that experiences are individual as the unit itsel is individual, but surely there must be a general consensus... maybe? hopefully?

anyway, i'm curious what folks here have used, are using, and whatever recommendations, experiences, advice and thoughts anyone cares to share...

thank so much in advance! :))

I have set up multiple long term storage devices using external enclosures as well as off site locations and when looking at HHD step away from looking at regular desk top hard drives and start looking at server grade hard drives which cost wise are very similar as regular desktop drives but are meant to be used for longer term storage and built to last longer and do not degrade as quickly desktop HHD have a usual lifespan of 5 years some have been know to last longer depending on brand serve grade HHD lifespan is usually 10 years Seagate Iron Wolf and Seagate Exos are the only drives I use for long term storage and most modern PC can read data off these drives with no issue. I hope this info helps to some degree

Lobo3433

Blender Maya & 3D Forum Moderator

I'm using a quite similar way of keeping backups: external HDD's that are connected only at backup time. And I use SSD's everyday (1 system disk and one for my Poser stuff).
I still have from the time I was an employee a Synology NAS for all kind of documents, 3D resources, etc..
That plus a regular check of all my connected disks using a portable version of ClearDiskInfo.

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hey! thanks so much for responding, guys!!

and thank you for providing specific HDD brand names. in doing my research and not understanding all the tech/spec meanings, i did stumble across a website that makes a list every year of the drives they're connected to and failure rates. it was very thorough, but all those numbers and ratios and stuff - well, i just could not digest it all.

however, there was some info that i gleaned upon that suggested certain capacity/size HDDs have greater failure rates than others, though some of that data may be skewed simply because perhaps more people own a certain size, thus of course, more reported failures. i did try to corroborate the findings against other reports, and again, it does seem that certain sizes within certain brands tend to lose viability sooner than others. and i should have been taking notes, as i can't seem to find half the stuff i was looking over last week regarding all of this.

with all that in mind, what brands & specific names [such as the Seagate Iron Wolf that Lobo mentioned] AND sizes are you guys using?

again, many many thanks!!!

Hi Gina

When looking at drives make sure you look at what purpose they serve you have drives that like used in store or video surveillance like the Western Digital 4TB WD Purple Surveillance Internal Hard Drive these drives would not be good for long term storage so make sure you look at specs and what the drive is being marketed for. I personally only use Seagate HHD have been using them for more than 20 years after they bought out Maxtor HHD. I am sure each person will have their favorite brand Western Digital is a decent brand but I have always run into issues with them. Stay away from refurbished reconditioned HHD they will never last as long a new drives and tend to have very limited warranties

Lobo3433

Blender Maya & 3D Forum Moderator

Giana posted at 2:20 PM Sun, 17 May 2026 - #4506469

hey! thanks so much for responding, guys!!
and thank you for providing specific HDD brand names. in doing my research and not understanding all the tech/spec meanings, i did stumble across a website that makes a list every year of the drives they're connected to and failure rates. it was very thorough, but all those numbers and ratios and stuff - well, i just could not digest it all.

For anyone who *does* want to go through that data, I'm sure you're referring to https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-drive-stats-for-2025/

I also have a Synology NAS. Any single drive can fail.

I mostly backup onto SSDs though, not HDDs.

hi!!

you're so smart...heh. that is exactly the data i was trying to decipher.

in terms of SSDs vs HDDs, i have been told that SSDs are more likely to degrade over time, esp. if not plugged in and played with every few months of so. honestly, i prefer SSDs for my externals, but am now wondering, in terms of cold storage, if i shouldn't be using HDD, hence this post and such.

can you explain to me like i'm 6 years old what your Synology NAS is and what its features are, and what is of import to consider, etc, please? :))

If you surf YouTube for Synology NAS, you will get several videos explaining its set up and installation. The units are affordable to expensive, depending how extensive a set up you want. Those videos will also point out some of the problems users have with connectivity and networking, but they should be informative for those considering such backup storage.

As a starting point, NAS = Network Attached Storage. Basically, it's a drive that connects to your network rather than to a specific computer. That's extra convenient if you have multiple computers you want to share files between.

NAS will usually support multiple drives in RAID which is Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks. A reasonable starting point is a unit that has two hard drives configured as RAID 1, which just means that the two drives always have the same content. If one of those drives fails, the NAS will flash some error lights (and there are other ways of getting those messages) and let you know. You can then swap out the bad drive and it will automatically copy the data to the new drive. So you never lost any data and you can reestablish that level of safety.

There are various bells and whistles, like being able to connect to the drive from anywhere on the internet, but personally I don't use any of those things, I'm just using it as a backup and to move files around. (Oh, also I have all my music there to be played by Sonos.) Synology has a good reputation though.

You can of course backup files from your computer to a NAS. That's not cold storage because the drive is still accessible, which is good and bad; it makes it easier to make frequent backups, but if something malicious happens (rather than simply a drive failure), it could also affect any attached drives. Those sorts of trade-offs are why there is the 3-2-1 sort of guidance.

Forum: Community Center

Subject: ISO: Cold Storage Options & Experiences