I am debating between those Western Digital portable drives that go up to 5tb that function with USB only (WD my passport) and the bigger ones (eg my book) that are bigger and need power outlet besides the USB connection.
Is there any difference in quality or durability to store media?
If it’s for a NAS try to make sure it’s CMR (conventional) and not a shingled drive (SMR). Shingled will be slower and noisier and SMART tests will take days to run as it gets near full.
ETA: Western Digital - Seagate
And thank you for that, too. I had no idea there would be so much to consider, but I’m glad to be informed.
No problem. I unfortunately found out about shingled drives after I bought them. Now I have a noisy 8TB drive that takes 18hrs to run a long SMART self test plus 2 4TB ones. The transfer speeds are lower too but otherwise they work fine and fortunately I’m just using them for media.
AFAIK there’s no advantage to shingled drives at all. They make them because they’re cheaper than CMR. It was a few years of the manufacturers selling them before they actually admitted it IIRC.
Any drive you see labeled as NAS or Enterprise will definitely be CMR. It’s the regular/gaming/external ones you need to watch out for.