what external hard drive would you recommend for storage?
- Thread starter sunnyVan
- Start date
I usually use Seagate due to their compatibility with both Mac and PC. I am using a few of their Backup plus 2 and 3TB drives as well as GoFlex 1 and 1.5 TB ones (just checked and saw 7 Seagates connected to my Mac 
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sjschall said:
All brands of hard disk can fail, and I say that even though so far I've had no issue with my Seagates yet. The key is keeping multiple backups.
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Multiple drives, multiple locations - even when traveling. In addition to my current working copy, I have 2 complete backups (one 2.5" USB3.0, one 3.5" SATA drive that are updated when I download from camera or weekly) in a firesafe, and another 2.5" USB3.0 I store offsite and update monthly. All this times 2 since I have a different sets for different purposes.
The 2.5" backup travels with my so I can download to it on the road from my laptop. I also download to my Ipad and let it upload to a PhotoStream on the road when I've got a WiFi connection for my offsite backup.
I retire my drives every 2-3 years and start with a fresh set. I keep the old ones around for archive, just in case. I store them offsite with other family members.
The only failures I've had were not the drive mechanism itself, but the cheap USB interface card (Seagate and WD, 2.5" and 3.5"). In both cases I was able to remove the hard drive from the enclosure and plug it into a SATA enclosure with no problems or lost data. After that I began buying enclosures and drives separately. I'm currently using a Thunderbolt enclosure on my Mac - noticeably faster than USB3 and FireWire.
The 2.5" backup travels with my so I can download to it on the road from my laptop. I also download to my Ipad and let it upload to a PhotoStream on the road when I've got a WiFi connection for my offsite backup.
I retire my drives every 2-3 years and start with a fresh set. I keep the old ones around for archive, just in case. I store them offsite with other family members.
The only failures I've had were not the drive mechanism itself, but the cheap USB interface card (Seagate and WD, 2.5" and 3.5"). In both cases I was able to remove the hard drive from the enclosure and plug it into a SATA enclosure with no problems or lost data. After that I began buying enclosures and drives separately. I'm currently using a Thunderbolt enclosure on my Mac - noticeably faster than USB3 and FireWire.
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sagittariansrock said:
And inside that LaCie case is a WD, Hitachi, Seagate, etc drive. They don't make their own drives, although perhaps they do burn-in/acceptance testing to catch early-failure drives.
But yea, everybody has drives that fail. Although sometimes *cough*deathstar*cough* there are statistically significant rates of drive failures in certain series.
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I have a bunch of 1 TB LaCie Rugged drives, bus-powered, FW800 (a couple of the newer ones also have USB3).
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If you are not concerned about portability, you could consider a NAS (network attached storage). You can get various sizes and run the box in a RAID format which can allow you to automatically create a second back-up.
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Check out the Corsair Voyager Air. It is a 1TB drive that is WiFi, USB 3.0, has a NIC so that you can use it as a NAS drive, has a seven hour battery that you can recharge in the car, and will also function as a media server. Perfect solution fot tablets. There is a free app for iPad and android.
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Mobile or not, how much space are you currently using and how much do you fill it? Mac or PC?
http://blog.backblaze.com/2014/01/21/what-hard-drive-should-i-buy/
Basically, if you're only using it at home, do a single USB/FW external as big as you think you'll go, and grab a USB dock for 3.5" drives. Purchase a few (1,2,5??) naked 3.5" drives from Newegg. On a regular basis you should replicate the content of the USB/FW drive to one of the naked drives, then put it back in it's packaging and put a date on it then take it offsite. Rotate through these drives and you should be good.
http://blog.backblaze.com/2014/01/21/what-hard-drive-should-i-buy/
Basically, if you're only using it at home, do a single USB/FW external as big as you think you'll go, and grab a USB dock for 3.5" drives. Purchase a few (1,2,5??) naked 3.5" drives from Newegg. On a regular basis you should replicate the content of the USB/FW drive to one of the naked drives, then put it back in it's packaging and put a date on it then take it offsite. Rotate through these drives and you should be good.
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dcm said:
+1
I currently store all my photos and videos in a 9TB RAID5(3TB x4) with WinFS. I backup all of them into another 4TB internal hard drive and backup two external hard drives. I rotated the two external hard drive every month and bring one of them to my company to insure the data is safe.
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What you guys are suggesting is much more extensive than I was prepared to do. Currently I have a 2TB WD external hard drive attached to my imac. All pictures go there only. Very dangerous I know. That's why I am moving ahead to a secondary layer of backup which is to have a second HD. I do realize the value of having an extra set of offsite HD but I think I have much bigger problems to deal with than losing my collection if something happened to my home.
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Get the Synology 4 drive external NAS. It has free software to do a lot of different things. The backup works great. I have a DS411j with 4-2TB drives in their Raid 5 system. You can add larger drives at any time an it will reconfigure it. The initialization with this amount of memory will take 2-3 days. I have had it for 2-3 years with out any problems on backup. I also use it as a network drive to store my copies of my photographs. My eldest son has a newer and faster version with 4-4TB drives that works great. My advice is go with the fastest you can afford with 4 "NAS" style drives 1, 2, 3, or 4 TB. A good online company is Newegg.com. We have never had problems with. They have great service.
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I'm using two Seagate 3 TB USB 3.0 drives (STBV3000100) and manually mirroring them so I have two sets. In addition, I burn to BluRay discs.
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OK, I'll throw in my thoughts...
I've been an IT guy for over 20 years. I've seen a lot of hard drives of all kinds. Mechanical hard drives these days are made by a handful of major players like Seagate, WD, Samsung and Toshiba. Hard drives fail with no regard for anything - time, brand name or type. Internal, external, retail, enterprise, doesn't matter. Enterprise drives WILL last longer in most cases but it's not absolute.
When it comes to external drives, it is often the USB/Firewire/etc interface or the power supply that fails. I have had more reliability with portable external hard drives that don't use power supplies. They are slightly more expensive than the larger AC powered versions unless you are looking for maximum capacity and then there's no comparison because the small portable units top out at about 2TB. The brand names aren't that big of a deal, get what works for you and don't waste a ton of money of fancy cases and names. Buying your own cases is fine but watch the cost. It's usually cheaper to just buy a decent external drive new, the case is almost free in most cases when compared to similar internal drives. However, if you insist on spending more money on fancy external drives for your mac, go to Other World Computing. They have great drives for less than some of the others. Many mac heads love OWC.
The OP doesn't give much info on what his needs are. Does he need max capacity? Or is portability important? Does he need high transfer speed? What interface is he limited to? Without knowing these things, it's hard to suggest something. However, if I was just shooting in the dark, I would go with a basic Toshiba 1TB USB3 drive from Costco that also comes with a 16GB USB stick all for about $70. Buy at least 3 and rotate them weekly and also offsite.
Another option to consider these days is SSD. If capacity isn't an issue or the data is for in the field backups, SSDs are very fast, lightweight and extremely rugged. Shocks, drops and magnetism can't hurt an SSD just like they can't hurt your media cards. This is where I would likely buy a case due to the higher price of SSDs and the comparative lack of availability in prebuilt external SSDs. The sweet spot is about 120GB which is fine for most field work but not big enough for workstation backups.
Shop on Amazon, NewEgg, etc and see how the reviews rack up on a few units. PM me if you have questions. Don't forget backup software. Automatic local and online backups are a good idea. You can do basic image backups to larger external drives using Macrium Reflect Free or pay for more features, etc.
I've been an IT guy for over 20 years. I've seen a lot of hard drives of all kinds. Mechanical hard drives these days are made by a handful of major players like Seagate, WD, Samsung and Toshiba. Hard drives fail with no regard for anything - time, brand name or type. Internal, external, retail, enterprise, doesn't matter. Enterprise drives WILL last longer in most cases but it's not absolute.
When it comes to external drives, it is often the USB/Firewire/etc interface or the power supply that fails. I have had more reliability with portable external hard drives that don't use power supplies. They are slightly more expensive than the larger AC powered versions unless you are looking for maximum capacity and then there's no comparison because the small portable units top out at about 2TB. The brand names aren't that big of a deal, get what works for you and don't waste a ton of money of fancy cases and names. Buying your own cases is fine but watch the cost. It's usually cheaper to just buy a decent external drive new, the case is almost free in most cases when compared to similar internal drives. However, if you insist on spending more money on fancy external drives for your mac, go to Other World Computing. They have great drives for less than some of the others. Many mac heads love OWC.
The OP doesn't give much info on what his needs are. Does he need max capacity? Or is portability important? Does he need high transfer speed? What interface is he limited to? Without knowing these things, it's hard to suggest something. However, if I was just shooting in the dark, I would go with a basic Toshiba 1TB USB3 drive from Costco that also comes with a 16GB USB stick all for about $70. Buy at least 3 and rotate them weekly and also offsite.
Another option to consider these days is SSD. If capacity isn't an issue or the data is for in the field backups, SSDs are very fast, lightweight and extremely rugged. Shocks, drops and magnetism can't hurt an SSD just like they can't hurt your media cards. This is where I would likely buy a case due to the higher price of SSDs and the comparative lack of availability in prebuilt external SSDs. The sweet spot is about 120GB which is fine for most field work but not big enough for workstation backups.
Shop on Amazon, NewEgg, etc and see how the reviews rack up on a few units. PM me if you have questions. Don't forget backup software. Automatic local and online backups are a good idea. You can do basic image backups to larger external drives using Macrium Reflect Free or pay for more features, etc.
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A couple more things.
The larger the volume, the harder it is to deal with. Don't go over 2TB unless you just love lots of stress and pain when it comes to failed backups and hours upon hours of worrying if it will finish successfully. Even 2TB is pretty large, even with a fast transfer rate.
Optical Media uses dyes and will only be good for a few years. Eventually, depending on the quality of the disc and the way its stored, it will fail. Hard to say but a hard drive, SSD or flash media will outlast optical media so keep that in mind if the data is archived to store for a long time.
The larger the volume, the harder it is to deal with. Don't go over 2TB unless you just love lots of stress and pain when it comes to failed backups and hours upon hours of worrying if it will finish successfully. Even 2TB is pretty large, even with a fast transfer rate.
Optical Media uses dyes and will only be good for a few years. Eventually, depending on the quality of the disc and the way its stored, it will fail. Hard to say but a hard drive, SSD or flash media will outlast optical media so keep that in mind if the data is archived to store for a long time.
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