Beginner question: Searching for my first dedicated server setup, and I have no idea what to look for in a hard drive. I see a huge difference between drives of the same capacity, so what makes the difference? I am looking to eventually have a media server that can run “-arr” programs, Jellyfin, Immich, sync music, books, etc.
What are the factors I should be paying attention to other than capacity? Is it a lot of branding and smoke and mirrors, or will I see a significant change in performance/reliability with different drives?
It’s not that Seagate improved (which it may have), it’s more that WD has noticeably declined. It’s not a race to the bottom (yet), but there’s effectively no competition any more, so they aren’t incentivised to improve quality.