# what external hard drive would you recommend for storage?



## sunnyVan (Jan 31, 2014)

It's mainly for secondary backup of my pictures. What brand would be great and what brand should I stay away from? I already have one WD. Now considering Seagate. Many thanks.


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## slclick (Jan 31, 2014)

Do you have any high capacity HDD's laying around? Enclosures are a great way to make an EHD on the cheap. Hell that's all they are, HDD's in a case.


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## sunnyVan (Jan 31, 2014)

slclick said:


> Do you have any high capacity HDD's laying around? Enclosures are a great way to make an EHD on the cheap. Hell that's all they are, HDD's in a case.



That's not a bad idea. Let me look into that also. Thx.


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## sjschall (Jan 31, 2014)

Ha, I usually stay away from WD and Seagate, but everyone has their own opinion. I have had great luck with LaCie.


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## sagittariansrock (Jan 31, 2014)

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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## sagittariansrock (Jan 31, 2014)

sjschall said:


> Ha, I usually stay away from WD and Seagate, but everyone has their own opinion. I have had great luck with LaCie.



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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## slclick (Jan 31, 2014)

It's all about triple redundancy since all drives will fail. So if you buy for aesthetics, such as a G-Drive, be sure you can swap out the 3.5 or 2.5 hdd inside at a later point.


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## sunnyVan (Jan 31, 2014)

That's why I am trying a different brand even though I am satisfied with my WD. If my WD fails due to a software problem, hopefully a HD of a different brand wouldn't suffer from the same issue. Just my theory.


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## dcm (Jan 31, 2014)

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.


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## Drizzt321 (Jan 31, 2014)

sagittariansrock said:


> sjschall said:
> 
> 
> > Ha, I usually stay away from WD and Seagate, but everyone has their own opinion. I have had great luck with LaCie.
> ...



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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## neuroanatomist (Feb 1, 2014)

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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## PhotoConceptsDT (Feb 1, 2014)

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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## TexasBadger (Feb 1, 2014)

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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## Halfrack (Feb 1, 2014)

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.


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## cliffwang (Feb 1, 2014)

dcm said:


> *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.
> 
> ...



+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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## sunnyVan (Feb 1, 2014)

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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## sengineer (Feb 1, 2014)

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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## FTb-n (Feb 1, 2014)

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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## RustyTheGeek (Feb 1, 2014)

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.


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## RustyTheGeek (Feb 1, 2014)

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.


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## sunnyVan (Feb 1, 2014)

RustyTheGeek said:


> 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.



Good tips. Thanks for your help. Buying a seagate 2TB tonight for $80. 

Thought about burning a whole stack of dvds but I'm glad you mentioned that they don't last long. Plus it's too much work burning so many dvds. 

Two 2TB HD will suffice for now. Will reevaluate later.


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## Tabor Warren Photography (Feb 1, 2014)

sunnyVan said:


> RustyTheGeek said:
> 
> 
> > A couple more things.
> ...



Awesome choice.

Also, I use backblaze to constantly and continuously back up all of my computer's data. It's fairly inexpensive and just added piece of mind.

Cheers,
-Tabor


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## wayno (Feb 1, 2014)

I use 2 1.5 TB portable WD drives which I swap over intermittently to back up all my data. 

I take one drive and leave it at work and swap them over regularly so no drive back up is ever too old.

I've found a free programme called SyncToy (a MS product) to be perfect to keep it all under control. And it's dead simple.


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## rpt (Feb 1, 2014)

I have Seagate, WD and Sony.


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## JustMeOregon (Feb 1, 2014)

Put me down for the LaCie Rugged SSD USB 3.0 Thunderbolt. It's so fast that now, when I get back to camp or the motel, I don't have any excuses _not_ to back-up the day's shots...


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## RustyTheGeek (Feb 1, 2014)

wayno said:


> I use 2 1.5 TB portable WD drives which I swap over intermittently to back up all my data.
> 
> I take one drive and leave it at work and swap them over regularly so no drive back up is ever too old.
> 
> I've found a free programme called SyncToy (a MS product) to be perfect to keep it all under control. And it's dead simple.



Any system that works and the user understands is ideal. Just make sure that you fully understand what is happening and you know how to recover. Perform a recovery to be sure the product works as it says. (Many products don't work like they should!) Many folks never test their recovery and find out too late it's flawed! Ouch!

Something to remember about Sync type scenarios. Depending on the sync schedule (frequency), the sync copy will eventually end up inheriting the changes of the master. That's fine if intended, not so fine if unintended. In *wayno's* case, he has another disconnected copy offsite that might save him if the unintended changes are caught before the swap. Just understand that a sync copy isn't quite the same as a backup, it's a delayed redundant copy. Sort of a like a slow mirror. So in the case of accidental changes, deletions or viruses, it's not much good because all the mistakes are copied too.

Don't get me wrong, a sync is great if it's used correctly and is fully understood. I do manual syncs only after I finish some work I am happy to have copies of. (And I know there is another true backup copy to go back to later if necessary.)


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## slclick (Feb 1, 2014)

I'd like to add that SuperDuper! is a favorite piece of 'ware that I use for backups and cloning. Hasn't failed me in 5 years.


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## RustyTheGeek (Feb 1, 2014)

slclick said:


> I'd like to add that SuperDuper! is a favorite piece of 'ware that I use for backups and cloning. Hasn't failed me in 5 years.



+1

Super Duper is the greatest, hands down! It really smokes most other backup software for Mac. Easy and it just works. I wish all backup software worked as well as SuperDuper!


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## gshocked (Feb 1, 2014)

Hi,

This a solution that has worked well for me

http://www.lacie.com/au/products/product.htm?id=10599

The Lacie rugged series have been really reliable. The rugged feature has saved my hdd a few times now.


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