More about my new Ultrastar 20 TB hard disk backup system
I don’t quite know how I managed it but my personal/business dataset has now grown to around 17 Terrabytes. Most of it is spread across multiple smaller disks. This is becoming increasingly difficult to manage. In fact, we are decommissioning our 4TB drives. This is partly because they are well beyond recommended end of life, and partly because because running 5 of them side by side in our backup servers is quite power hungry. So we are replacing them with Western Digital’s latest offerings: its Ultrastar 20 TB hard disk.
WD’s latest and largest enterprise hard disks currently offer exceptionally good value – around £400 for 20 terabytes, brand new, c/w 5 year warranty. These are the descendants of Hitachi’s DeskStar series. These are beautifully engineered devices, designed to run, multi-user, 24/7. But with their vibration and fall sensors, they work just as well as single user backup drives too…
Stock image of Ultrastar 20 TB hard disk
Deployment
I fitted mine into ’em in these things: Ennotek aluminium SATA3 -> USB 3.2 enclosure. They cost a tad over twenty quid each from Amazon…
Ultrastar 20 TB hard disk in an Ennotek enclosure
I quite like Ennotek enclosures. However, there are plenty of other similar fanless aluminium enclosures available at this price point. The important thing is to check its chipset will handle large volumes. And of course, check it supports latest widely used USB (currently v3.2). I also like to ensure the enclosure uses a standard 12 volt power supply, so I can use a variety of different power sources, not just the horrid wallwart provided by the manufacturer…
Ultrastar 20 TB hard disk in an Ennotek enclosure, on water resistant plastic carry-case
I currently have two of them(in addition to various legacy backup/archiving systems). One lives here in my studio. The other lives 35 km away at my in my mother’s retirement flat, in a neat little water-resistant protective outer case (cost about a tenner off eBay). Every time I see her, I simply swap the disks over…
Ultrastar 20 TB hard disk in an Ennotek enclosure, in generic, padded, water-resistant plastic carry-case
More info
Final note of caution if I may: Backup disks can and do get lost or stolen, especially those that go off-site. They can also fail under warranty and need to be returned to manufacturer for replacement. Therefore, we always encrypt our back-up and archive disks with Veracrypt or LUKS or similar.