External Hard Drives

CC268

Final Approach
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CC268
Figured I would start another thread to supplement my NAS thread. Since PoA has the answer to all of life's questions, I figured I would ask. You old guys know more about technology than I thought :p

So I'd like to get a decent external hard drive to start keeping some of my archived media/video files on. It will probably be a little while before I decide to go the NAS route, so for now I will just be keeping it on an external HD (yes I know there is risk here, but it is not "critical"). Thinking I'd like to go with 4TB. There are so many different options out there. I'm looking at the LaCie Rugged 4TB external HD. Quite a nice package for $150, even though it isn't necessarily the cheapest option. The other option is to just get a WD Blue 4TB and a HD dock/bay, although this isn't my favorite option since it doesn't have great portability and you can't really travel with it unless you bring the HD dock with you.

I really like the LaCie stuff. You pay a bit of a premium, but it isn't over the top expensive either. The LaCie Rugged allows for good portability with it's rubber case as well. Great reputation for reliability as well.

Anyways, looking for any feedback, suggestions, thoughts, etc.

Thanks.
 
Figured I would start another thread to supplement my NAS thread. Since PoA has the answer to all of life's questions, I figured I would ask. You old guys know more about technology than I thought :p
You are pushing the limits. :D

If @denverpilot is really eating a lot of Ramen lately, that will affect his knowledge levels. :)
 
Yea I mentioned that in my OP...only downside is portability if I want to bring the HD on a trip, etc.
Enclosures are portable. Cheaper DIY version of the manufactured type of backup drive.

you mentioned "dock/bay" and I thought you meant something else.
 
You are over thinking it. Hard drives are a commodity. Buy what you can afford. Buy two and make another copy.
 
Enclosures are portable. Cheaper DIY version of the manufactured type of backup drive.

you mentioned "dock/bay" and I thought you meant something else.

I see what your saying now...some nice 3.5" enclosures.
 
You are over thinking it. Hard drives are a commodity. Buy what you can afford. Buy two and make another copy.

Understood - was just looking for some recommendations...
 
I thought a HD was a motorcycle. :confused:

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LaCie is just a marketing name. No reason to pay a premium over WesterDigital stuff. Samey-same hardware.
 
I'd go with the portable usb powered, if you want portable. 3.5 and enclosure or adapter if you just want a backup to throw in a closet. I tend to look at cheapest $ per GB, I think that's around 2 or 3tb.
 
I will have to ponder that for a while.
You do that. Take coffee or perhaps some other stimulant. Record your ponderings for later review and analysis. Report your results to a major media outlet. I’m sure the world wonders.
 
Yep, look for a sale and buy as much as you can afford. I would aim for two separate drives, so you can have two copies. There used to be quality differences between the major brands, but not so much anymore.
 
OK then... Feeling very old now, thankyouverymuch! Back (way, way back! ) in the day HD storage was $100/megabyte.

Now it is $100 for 4 Terabytes? Sheesh!

Moore’s Law, I suppose...
 
Yeah, buy two. I had a WD HD go bad after only a year or so. I was told it would cost $500 to recover the data, if it was recoverable at all.

Now I have two of them — one in daily use; the other kept offsite and updated once a month.
 
Bearing in mind that this is anecdotal and any drive can fail... I’ve had by far the worst luck with Seagate drives and 2.5” spinning disks. If I need another usb drive I’d probably just get a WD and be done with it.

Also best luck I’ve had has been with IBM/Hitachi drives. WD is usually good though and easier to find a good price on.
 
Costco always has piles of them, and the cost comes down every time we shop there. SSD only..........these days.
 
Costco always has piles of them, and the cost comes down every time we shop there. SSD only..........these days.

External SSD with the storage size I want will cost an arm and a leg. Really no reason for SSD as external storage in my case.
 
You do that. Take coffee or perhaps some other stimulant. Record your ponderings for later review and analysis. Report your results to a major media outlet. I’m sure the world wonders.
I wasted zero time on it. Decided not to ponder it. Instead I have decided automatically that your statement is unreally-unreal. :)
 
I wasted zero time on it. Decided not to ponder it. Instead I have decided automatically that your statement is unreally-unreal. :)
If it’s unreal is it imaginary?
 
I know this thread is already off the rails. But, I want to share about my recent acquisition.

Repurposed HDD from small form factor POS Dell + $64 on Amazon = 1TB external eSATA HDD:

 
I really don’t have any hard drives anymore anywhere other than at work in server farms. All my machine have SSDs in them and have for a while now and there’s a few ancient old external drives doing Time Machine backup duty on the Macs, that will probably die sooner or later but I’ll just grab whatever couple terrabyte drives are cheap and shove them in the USB enclosure when that happens.

I definitely wouldn’t pay for the LaCie name brand. I get cheap external enclosures with USB 3 from MicroCenter in whatever drive size I want (2.5 or 3.5) and slap whatever their sale drive is that day in them. They run for years. But that’s because I have everything backed up multiple ways.

@Rich mentioned Backblaze recently and their annual drive report. It’s not exactly all consumer grade drives, but it’s good info.

https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/175089-who-makes-the-most-reliable-hard-drives

We’re using Seagate equivalents of Dell branded drives and WD Red at work. Other than a bad batch of Seagates from a sketchy Amazon marketplace vendor we see so few drive failures it’s almost boring.

Most of our laptops and desktops have to be replaced for performance reasons long before their drives fail and most now have SSDs in them anyway.

Of course those will eventually fail too. Sometimes spectacularly. :) Poof. Data gone.

I do have one dead disk in my life. The second hard drive in my MacBook Pro (yes I removed the optical drive and put a second useful drive in there) has been dead for a while. I have a Samsung SSD sifting here that I haven’t found my Round Tuit to put it in there. Too many little screws and fussy crap. And that’s the machine I use the least anyway. Everything on it is either in the cloud anyway, or on other machines. The second SSD would simply be in there to handle onboard Time Machine backup location duty so it could back itself up. I don’t really need it to do that nor need more space in it. So the SSD has been sitting here after buying it on a screaming good sale.
 
The only problem with SSDs is that if they fail, there is no way to recover the data. You must have backups. If you have backups I'm hard pressed to find anything wrong with them. They are FAST compared with spinning media drives. That said, everything I have in on spinning media. And my pictures are on multiple computers (and drives). So far, so good. However, there is one gotcha left. If the house burned down all those backups would go too. Hence, Carbonite on several machines. Off-site backup. I'm not paranoid, but it never hurts to have backups to backups. I've been dealing with computers for too many decades...
 
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