Amazon sells a 14TB MaxDigitalData enterprise laborious disk drive (opens in new tab) for below $120. Not solely does it include a full five-year guarantee however it’s also possible to seize a 3-year information restoration plan from Amazon for a mere $14.99 and get it serviced by Seagate’s Rescue Knowledge information restoration service ought to one thing dangerous occur to it.

At lower than $8.60 per TB (unformatted capability), that is the most cost effective laborious disk drive per TB we’ve managed to supply and that’s cheaper than any optical media. As compared, Blu-ray, for instance, is about $15 per TB, virtually twice the value of MaxDigitalData’s providing, when bought in 25GB bulk BD-R spindles.

Now there’s just a few issues to spotlight; MaxDigitalData (MDD) just isn’t what you’d name a family title. It’s not one of many three acknowledged laborious disk drive distributors which would come with Seagate, Western Digital and Toshiba. As a substitute, MDD – which is a white label model owned by Goharddrive – sources shares of what appears to be like like new however EOL (finish of line) laborious disk drives.

MDD, like the favored EOL HDD vendor Water Panther, sells each refurbished and non-refurbished fashions so be sure to choose the precise one. Confusingly, there may be one other 14TB mannequin from MaxDigitalData, the MD14000GSA12872, that prices the identical however has a decrease guarantee.

The MD14TGSA25672E is more likely to be a rebadged SATA-based Western Digital DC HC530 with a 7200RPM rotational pace, 256MB cache and a whopping 550TB/yr 24×7 workload score, making it superb for DVR, CCTV, surveillance and many others. 

This explicit mannequin have been a favourite for cloud storage suppliers in addition to hyperscalers (assume Fb, Google, Microsoft or Amazon) and its enterprise label implies that it’s geared in direction of very long run reliability.

Must you need a extra acknowledged model, then the Seagate Barracuda ST80000DM04 (opens in new tab) is the following most cost-effective mannequin at slightly below $100 for 8TB (below $12.50 per TB). It is a slower laborious disk drive (5400RPM) with 256MB cache and a giant title to again it.

Don’t overlook the backup

No storage gadget is 100% safe, which is why backing up your information makes a lot extra sense, particularly once we’re speaking of terabytes of knowledge. A Community Connected Storage (NAS) gadget with RAID capabilities will help mitigate present dangers of knowledge loss, particularly when paired with a cloud backup resolution like iDrive, Internxt or BackBlaze. 

Why is MDD controversial?

Seek for MaxDigitalData on-line and Reddit is your first end result. Not what you’d anticipated from a tough disk drive producer whose merchandise will retailer your information. That stated, the truth that it doesn’t have a web site could increase some alarm however there’s sufficient safeguards (refund coverage, guarantee) to reassure us that if one thing goes dangerous, there shall be an escape route.