I recently purchased a Raspberry Pi 500+ for downloading and storing media. It has a 256 GB NVMe drive, and I plan to connect a 5 TB WD Elements Portable USB hard drive to hold movies and TV shows. My setup will run 24/7. Periodically, I intend to back up the content onto an offline hard drive. My plan is to replace the USB hard drive with the backup drive when it eventually fails and continue buying larger backup drives as needed. I only need to stream 1-2 videos at a time, and I prioritize low power consumption. Is this a reasonable plan or is it too risky?
4 Answers
Absolutely sounds doable, but I’d keep an eye on that WD Elements drive. I've found it can overheat quite easily, especially if it’s doing a lot of read/write tasks or if it’s in a warm area. It’s best to avoid putting it in a closed space without sufficient airflow. It’s not the longest-lasting drive for continuous heavy use, but with a backup plan, you should be fine.
This kind of setup is definitely doable and quite common! Just make sure your Raspberry Pi’s power supply is strong enough—ideally 5V/3A or more. That’s key to keeping everything running smoothly.
That setup should work just fine! Just a heads up, what kind of drive are you looking at? Some older drives with USB Micro 3.0 connectors can be a bit unreliable. However, since you mentioned it won’t be unplugged or moved often, it shouldn’t be a big deal. And make sure the media you’re streaming doesn’t need transcoding, right?
Just a heads up, the WD Elements drives can have overheating problems. I've dealt with that myself.
You’re totally right to consider backups! I’ve been running a similar setup with two 8TB Western Digital external drives for about 7 years, and they’re still going strong. They are both online all the time, and I use a simple script to back one up to the other. You might want to look into how long these drives last, as you could be pleasantly surprised.
I’m looking at the WD WDBU6Y0050BBK-WESN model. No unplugging or moving for me—plus, I’m using Plex, so hopefully, no transcoding will be needed.