Desktop vs Surveillance HDD in depth comparison - Which are the best for general purpose use?

Video Description

In depth performance, noise, power testing and price comparison of a range of desktop and surveillance drives from Western Digital, Seagate and Toshiba. Which perform best, and which ones should you avoid like the plague. Includes WD Blue, WD Purple, Seagate Barracuda, Seagate Skyhawk, Toshiba P300 and Toshiba S300 drives. Best Disk picks from these tests: WD Blue 2TB WD20EARZ 5400 CMR: https://amzn.to/41bEjDz WD Blue 4TB WD40EZAX 5400 CMR: https://amzn.to/3AUhbyH WD Purple 2TB WD23PURZ 5400 CMR: https://amzn.to/42tfdQu WD Purple 4TB WD43PURZ 5400 CMR: https://amzn.to/426w4ao Seagate Skyhawk 4TB ST4000VX016 5400 CMR: https://amzn.to/4l73u1o 4TB link here, as the 2TB versions are not the most recent ST2000VX017. Check the linked datasheet below to make sure you are getting a CMR when buying a Skyhawk, or stick with the WD options. Seagate link to what is SMR and CMR: https://www.seagate.com/gb/en/products/cmr-smr-list/ Note that they claim all Skyhawk's are CMR here Link to Seagate Datasheet for Skyhawk: https://www.seagate.com/content/dam/seagate/migrated-assets/www-content/datasheets/pdfs/skyhawk-3-5-hdd-DS2118-1-2208-AMER-en_US.pdf Note that there are a couple of models listed as SMR here. Not good, so be careful. Link to WD Purple Datasheet, all models listed as CMR on 04-04-2024: https://documents.westerndigital.com/content/dam/doc-library/en_us/assets/public/western-digital/product/internal-drives/wd-purple-hdd/product-brief-wd-purple-hdd.pdf Link to WD Blue Datasheet, watch for the SMR models: https://documents.westerndigital.com/content/dam/doc-library/en_us/assets/public/western-digital/product/internal-drives/wd-blue-hdd/product-brief-western-digital-wd-blue-pc-hdd.pdf Links to connected content: SMR vs CMR Technology and testing: https://youtu.be/rC0UDtCiYgI Desktop drive performance testing: https://youtu.be/hAijmZsTd2A Seagate HAMR high capacity technology deep dive: https://youtu.be/JNGsTHuFcvM Reliability/AFR review of high capacity hard drives: https://youtu.be/IgJ6YolLxYE 0:00 Intro 3:05 Test Overview and whats included 5:10 Large file write testing and performance 6:44 Large file read testing and performance 8:52 Mixed file write testing and performance 11:10 Mixed file read testing and performance 12:38 Mixed non-sequential write testing and performance 14:50 Power draw, noise and pricing comparisons 19:20 Conclusions 20:00 The pain of Shingled Magnetic Recording 20:20 Toshiba drive comments and observations 20:55 Seagate drive comments and observations 22:20 Western Digital comments and observations 22:50 Picks