Western Digital WD Purple Pro Surveillance HDD 8 TB

These robust, high speed, "24-hour video recording" 18TB HD's make for a terrific solution for churning out monster-sized file renderings from 3D software (Maya, Houdini, etc). The things are absolute beasts, and their resilience and beefiness is exactly why I use them for my "small" personal render farm (one 2-disc 36TB RAID-0 for smaller renders, and a 5-disc 90TB RAID-0 tower for bigger renders) in my home office. Sure, I could have gone for the "Black" version that a lot of gamers prefer (if they are using SATA instead of SSD), but these drives are larger capacity with the same speed, and built to handle even more stress.Should last me several years, no problem, but I will collect a couple more to keep on hand in case (or when) any of the originals ... MoreThese robust, high speed, "24-hour video recording" 18TB HD's make for a terrific solution for churning out monster-sized file renderings from 3D software (Maya, Houdini, etc). The things are absolute beasts, and their resilience and beefiness is exactly why I use them for my "small" personal render farm (one 2-disc 36TB RAID-0 for smaller renders, and a 5-disc 90TB RAID-0 tower for bigger renders) in my home office. Sure, I could have gone for the "Black" version that a lot of gamers prefer (if they are using SATA instead of SSD), but these drives are larger capacity with the same speed, and built to handle even more stress.Should last me several years, no problem, but I will collect a couple more to keep on hand in case (or when) any of the originals fail...Eventually, yes, I'll likely go all-SSD in the future, but not until they are at the same price-point, with the same-or-greater TB size, and equally "indestructible".Brilliant slabs of hardware.

Commercial grade at a fair price

I have a lottttt of data so I got this. I did not realize the transfer rates on 3.5inch spinning drives have gone up. With a USB 3 adapter/reader dock this was transferring over 100mbps. It makes the spinning drive sounds that these make, but it is actually quit quiet. I use it exposed versus enclosed so it is a little more clicky sounding, but sound wise, if it were enclosed, it would probably be unnoticeable. Plus, it doesn't sound that bad - I actually miss the sound of data moving around haha. I would need it to be used for years to really write on reliability as I have neevr owned these, but looking at the specs, this appears to be a similar design, if not the same drive as their commercial grade drives for business. I always try to go for the best and I take ... MoreI have a lottttt of data so I got this. I did not realize the transfer rates on 3.5inch spinning drives have gone up. With a USB 3 adapter/reader dock this was transferring over 100mbps. It makes the spinning drive sounds that these make, but it is actually quit quiet. I use it exposed versus enclosed so it is a little more clicky sounding, but sound wise, if it were enclosed, it would probably be unnoticeable. Plus, it doesn't sound that bad - I actually miss the sound of data moving around haha. I would need it to be used for years to really write on reliability as I have neevr owned these, but looking at the specs, this appears to be a similar design, if not the same drive as their commercial grade drives for business. I always try to go for the best and I take my data integrity very seriously which si why I chose this specific model. The specs that relate to reliability were the highest I could find at a reasonable price point so I am not disappointed. It actually stays quite cool as I transferred multiple terabytes worth of data at a time and it never really got hot, just warm - and this was in an open dock without a fan or active cooling. When I need to access data or write, it is very quick and never gives me trouble. I am pretty sure I will have this for years - especailly as I always get an overkill for my needs to ensure reliability and longevity.