Most external single drive HDD enclosures run on 12 volt via a simple barrel jack. You might consider a dock that can take two drives. Then you can use the 2.5" in combination with a 3.5" drive.

To save power I think you want to avoid having the HDDs spinning all the time. Instead use a large SSD with your computer. Less power. And use the HDDs to replace and update contents on the SSD. You can pack away the dock between uses, together with the HDDs in a padded case.

Here is an example of a 2 drive dock that runs on 12 volts, can use both 2.5" and 3.5", can handle >20TB drives, use USB C and seems generally decent: (I have no personal experience with it.)

https://sabrent.com/collections/docking-station/products/ec-ch2b

When it comes to HDDs, I’d go with drives that have 5 years warranty. Exos? The biggest you can afford.

And a nice padded water proof padded box…

Yes. These hardware devices are called “computers”. They run software that use the Gutmann algorithm to erase the contents of a hdd.

Today hdds are more likely to be physically shredded in order to destroy the data on them. Faster and less labor intensive and less likely to be used wrong.

Superparamagnetism is used to “flip” magnetic fields of small particles on drive platters, in order to record data.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superparamagnetism

There is a slow relaxation over time because sometimes particles flip spontaneously. This means that after a very long time the magnetic patterns on the platters will become more and more random and errors will appear. Error coding, larger regions, and parity and similar tricks can minimize the problem. Higher densities can make it worse.

The rate of relaxation depends on the sizes and density of the magnetic regions, the magnetic properties of the material, external magnetic influence and temperature. If the temperature was absolute zero and no external magnetic fields were present, the magnetic properties of a hdd platter would last forever.

Modern large capacity hdds are filled with helium for cooling and to create a gas cushion between the platters and the reader heads. Since helium is a very small molecule, over time it will leak out through the case of the hdd, making the hdd performance reduced or fail. The helium will slowly leak out, even if the hdd is not being used.

Typically hdds fail early, after less than 10 years, due to vibrations, drops, head crashes, overheating, misalignments and failed electronics. Not because of magnetic relaxation or helium leakage. But eventually magnetic relaxation and helium leakage will cause problems.

No, but I asked the owners of the website and they say that you should not give up but keep trying and also reload the page and perhaps click on some of the ads.

Consider getting a good external multibay enclosure. A DAS. Directly Attached Storage. If you share it on your local network you have a form of NAS. Network Attached Storage. You can access the contents of the DAS/NAS from any device in the network. TV, tablet, phone or other computers.

It is possible to pool all the drives to create a larger filesystem. But before you do that, especially before you consider RAID, fix the backup problem. HDDs can and will fail at any time. You can (and will) delete files by mistake. You protect against this by having more than one copy of everything. The harder to replace and the more valuable, the more copies you should have.

RAID means Redundant Array of Inexpensive Drives. It is a way to pool drives so that if one drive fail, the contents of the remaining drives in the pool still can be used to reconstruct what was on the missing drive. I don’t use RAID. RAID is great for businesses that need to stay online 24/7. They still need backups. I think the most common reason for data loss is user error. You simply delete something when you thought you were doing something else. RAID provides no protection against that. Backups do.

Consider using only very large HDDs. The largest you can afford. Use old smaller drives for extra backups or get rid of them. That way you don’t need as many drive bays, use less power and makes less noise. Multibay enclosures are great because they reduce the clutter of cables.

If you have two 20TB drives in an external enclosure, you can use one drive for storage and the other for backups of the first. Later, when the first DAS is full, get two DAS. One for storage and one for backups of the first.

Look up 3-2-1 backups.

You might consider buying a second hand small, low power, office PC and use it as a headless (without monitor, keyboard and mouse) server, connected to the DAS.

I only use Linux.

I do both.

I have two SSD in both my PC and my laptop. And two DAS connected to the PC and shared over wifi. One of the DAS hold my large media and backups. The other DAS is mostly used for backups.

Every time I boot my PC, or laptop, a new rsync snapshot of the full /home on the primary SSD is automatically created on the secondary SSD.

I also manually create rsync snapshots of folders on the PC/laptop primary on the primary DAS and also of folders on the primary DAS to the secondary DAS. By manually I mean automatically, but only after I trigger it by double click on a script on the desktop.

3-2-1 is a suggested default backup strategy.

3 backup copies. 2 different types of media. 1 copy stored remotely.

I use a mix of backup strategies. 8-3-3 to 1-1-0, depending on what it is I backup. For example, I have two internal SSDs on my PC. Every boot a new updated versioned rsync snapshot of the primary SSD is automatically created on the secondary SSD. Only new and modified files are actually copied. Files present in the previous snapshot are simply hardlinked. So each snapshot looks like a full copy, but takes up very little storage and is very fast to make.

In addition I have two large DAS, a small NAS, a small cloud account and various external drives and devices, some stored with relatives. They are also used for backups.

I use internal SSDs in external USB enclosures. Typically after upgrading internal SSDs.

For example I have 2TB and 4TB Crucial MX500 SATA drives and 2TB Samsung EVO 970 Plus NVMe drives in external USB enclosures.

No.

Answer to the question in the title: No.

I strongly advice against that DAS. I have an identical(?) 10 bay ICY BOX DAS. IB-3810U3.

It works perfectly fine, but is flimsy and noisy.

On the other hand, the 5 bay enclosure, IB-3805-C31, is great! Solid, robust and silent. Especially compared to the 10 bay enclosure. I assume the 5 bay Sabrent enclosure is the same.

I can have the 5 bay enclosure turned on, with idle Exos drives, in the bedroom and sleep fine. Not so with the 10 bay enclosure.

Check for Uncorrectable sector count. As long as that is zero, your reallocated sectors were reallocated without any dataloss.

Modern hdds are designed to reallocate sectors in order to “self-heal” during the warranty period. So reallocated sectors may not spell immediate disaster. Just normal and expected behavior.

If you think the hdd is going bad, avoid writing to it. Only read and rescue your data ASAP.

No. I don’t think you should use USB Flash at all, except as part of daily use. For long term storage, up to a year, use a proper SSDs and/or HDDs. And check and migrate.

I organize my digital photos by date and time. I rename them using the embedded timestamp. There are various tools that can quickly rename all your photos with a timestamp as prefix. ExifTool, for example.

Once the photos are renamed with a timestamp prefixed, it is very easy to group and organize them. One folder per year. Subfolders per month or for special events. Add name of the event, persons and places to the filenames or subfolders.

I think it is better than most other flash. In other words, no. It is not good for cold storage. But it is a very good flash memory for normal use. I have never lost any data stored on one.

There is nothing that is good for long term cold storage.

You need multiple copies on different types of media. Check/repair it regularly and migrate to new media every now and then. Every 3-5 years.

I suspect that you have already lost it.

Do an experiment. Go out in some “natural” environment. Using ONLY the natural stuff you find there, no tools and nothing you brought with you, make a fire. Keep it burning for at least an hour. No metal. No string.

The ability to make and control fire is a very important part of what it means to be human.

Are you human?

SD cards are ephemeral. All SD cards. SanDisk SD cards are popular, so that may bias your perception.

There are some SD cards that are better than others. The best cost much more and are often slower. They usually have the word “Endurance” in the model name. Like “Max Endurance” or “Pro Endurance”.

There is a very strong correlation between low price and poor endurance. And a slightly weaker correlation between high price and good endurance.

Saving stuff to a SD card is what especially cause it to wear out. Reading stuff is not quite as bad. Heat makes a SD card fail extra fast.

It is good practice to offload photos to a PC, or the cloud, as soon as possible.

It is related to retardation force when dropped. That in turn is related to the height at which the drive is dropped and the elasticity/softness/hardness of the surface.

For example, if you drop the drive from 1 meter of height, less than 350G means the floor material must be soft/elastic enough to stop the fall after about 2.8 mm, or more. In other words, a thick carpet, rubber, foam or elastic plastic. Drop the drive on a hard stone/ceramic non-elastic surface and the retardation force, when it hit, will be way higher than 350G. And the drive is likely to break. A soft wood floor that get a 3 mm dent might perhaps be OK.

Seems to me that must have been a great drive. Lasted 10 years, despite the warranty being only three years. I would be happy if all my drives lasted that long.

Thanks for letting us know about your great experience with this drive.

10 years! Amazing!