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?

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[–] Telorand@reddthat.com 2 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Thank you! I didn't know that was a thing, but since I'm in the market to begin building a NAS, that will surely be useful to know terminology

[–] MagnificentSteiner@lemmy.zip 4 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (1 children)

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

[–] Telorand@reddthat.com 2 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

And thank you for that, too. I had no idea there would be so much to consider, but I'm glad to be informed.

[–] MagnificentSteiner@lemmy.zip 2 points 16 hours ago

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.