If you just want correct metadata (no own adjustments), then getting it from the MusicBrainz database is probably easiest. You can use MusicBrainz Picard for that: https://picard.musicbrainz.org
It does also seem to have a scripting API. No idea how well that works, though.
Purchased 5 renewed drives from amazon, 10 months in 3 have had to be replaced because of escalating bad sectors, all three were outside of the refurbish guarantee… one by only a week. Save your money and go with the new drives.
Where can you get two 16 TB HDDs for $320? Cheapest I could find was a 14TB Toshiba N300 for around $320 each and I'm on the fence about getting them because they're supposedly pretty noisy. Were the models OP mentioned not for NAS use?
I was referring to drives like the Seagate 16TB HDD Exos X16. That said there are MDD drives that are apparently cheaper but I haven't heard of them before.
A couple of years is a life time in tech, but despite that, I think the one thing that should be the deciding factor is if you’re actually going to need the space in the mean time. If not, waiting won’t make a difference. On the flip side, if you’re going to need it in the next couple of years anyway, then it might be easier to recognize that $320 over 2 years is less than $0.50/day… taking the initial hit and take advantage of it earlier will probably work out great.
I have been hoarding for a while now and to me storage prices really seem to have plateaued in the last few years, and it doesn't seem to be picking up as we get back to normal after the pandemic. So I don't think waiting for a couple years is going to save you much. Personally I'd just keep an eye out for good deals like Best Buy WD Easystore sales, or Black Friday in general, and pull the trigger then.
Black Friday is definitely a good option. I'll also point out that WD and Seagate are working on 20TB-30TB drives that should be coming out in the next couple of years which should, in theory, drive the prices down further for smaller capacity drives.
In general, technology gets cheaper for better products over time. Short term that's not always true, but the longer timescales you look, the better is it for consumers.
A year or two is a long time, and probably worth waiting.
In general, technology gets cheaper for better products over time. Short term that’s not always true, but the longer timescales you look, the better is it for consumers.
Yeah that's why I linked the graph above. I asked here because I thought someone might have looked into this before and have a better insight on it. Maybe they've read about foretasted chip shortages or some kind of technological improvement with manufacturing? I am not sure. It's something I only sporadically see articles about.
A year or two is a long time, and probably worth waiting.
If the price of a HDD on sale this year is equal to the average price of the same tier of HDD two or three years from now I'd probably just pull the trigger now.
There are a number of storage technologies in the works right now. However, I think they will result in a new type of memory device rather than HDDs getting cheaper. Kind of like how a stack of CDs isn't cheaper now than it was in 2005, rather there are new types of storage that offer more memory and longer life spans.
So if you are definetly going HDD, prices are probably not going to get that much cheaper, if any cheaper at all.
I'd say keep an eye out for sales & that will probably make a bigger difference than waiting a set amount of time.
That tech looks super cool & might be worth waiting for, but from what I've been reading it is still being perfected and will likely see big improvements fairly quickly after release.
Heres a clip from this article I think is relevent:
Teh said the new drives have double the capacity of storage systems using conventional 16TB perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) drives, and this can be doubled again over the next four years. The company is projecting 4TB platters in the next couple of years, with 5TB coming shortly thereafter, and 6TB out beyond the current roadmap.
So there's a chance you wait for those drives, pay a little extra cuz the tech is new, then have something twice as good get released a year or two later.
It's definetly a tricky situation & ultimately up to you and what you want.
Do you need that extra storage asap, or is it more of a eventually kind thing? Does new tech have its own intrinsic value to you, or is it more about price per terabyte?
Good luck with your decision! I know how hard these kind of choices can be. You never know what the market will look like after you finally make that big purchase.
Waiting can be good if there is something on the horizon, but often with tech if you wait for the next thing you'll find there's another new thing on the horizon then. You do kind of have to decide that you're putting your stake in the ground at some point
My stake is really that 30 TB mark. That should be enough to consolidate all my storage conveniently in one spot. I don't need incredibly fast transfer speeds so I think an HDD would do fine.
Then whenever you're ready. Just do a table of price per TB and go then. Best Buy usually has WD Elements on sale every other week where you can pick up an external for cheaper, then just shuck it and you get a WD red or white you can just pop into your NAS. I did 16TBs not too long ago and they were the cheapest per TB
RAID is your friend. If you can't afford to lose one, you might have a bad time (applies to all drives anyway). Manufacturer refurbs are your best bet.
I've been using renewed (refurbished) 8TB drives off of Ebay - SAS 8TB for $50-60 each. Not a single failure in over a year on the dozen or so drives I'm running right now. I'm running unRAID with a combination of unRAID's native array drives (for media and "disposable" stuff) in a dual parity config, and ZFS (with snapshots replicated to a live backup on a secondary server) for important personal stuff (and backed-up off-site a few times a year).
Even if something were to perish, I have enough spares to just chuck one in and let it resilver without worrying at all. I'm content with this as a homelabber and when I'm not supplying critical service for a business, etc.
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