CO

I've been looking into an external hard drive to store photos. Which ones do UHH members use? Is magnetic disc or solid state best? I've heard that solid state storage can degrade over time as files are added and deleted.

Marionsho Loc: Kansas

WD (Western Digital) is touted as reliable. SSD are relatively small, memory wise.

PixelStan77 Loc: Vermont/Chicago

it depends upon your level of protection. My thought process is all drives will fail, the question is when. So, I back up my images to a G technology drive 1tb and to also a western digital 1tb and to a third western digital drive. I do not use a NAS system.

WayneT Loc: Paris, TN

You are not going to need the kind of speed that an SSD or M.2 drive delivers and they also have their limitations. The best way to back up is with multiple NAS drives, for most of us 2, 3 or 4 drives in a separate enclosure. A RAID system with NAS drives gives you a lot of piece of mind in the long run. If one of the drives fails you simply pull it out and replace the failed drive. The other drive or drives in the system will have a full backup on each of the drives. Both Seagate and WD have good failure rates with NAS drives.

brucewells Loc: Central Kentucky

I'd recommend a 1-2 TB drive for the purpose, and SSD is gonna be costly. Plus, if you're gonna do backups (and you should), you're gonna need at least 2 of them. I have 2 hard drives in my PC. The D:\ drive is for data and 2 TB in size. I employ 2 WD external, 4TB drives for backups. They perform wonderfully well. I regularly see 150MBps throughput to them.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Mechanical drives are cheaper, but not the crap you buy at Walmart, Costco, etc. The best mechanical drives are OEM drives with 5 yr warranties, that you put into a case that will set you back about $20-$30. These are hard to beat. WD Black, WD RE, HGST Ultrastar are all data-center rated drives.

SSD drives are less susceptible to shock, heat, cold, etc. but are more expensive. Yes, there is a finite number of read/write cycles, but you are not likely to hit that in 10 yrs of moderately heavy, daily use. Drive age is now being explored as a factor, as opposed to read/write cycles.

http://www.techradar.com/news/computing-components/storage/think-your-ssd-will-last-forever-google-has-some-answers-on-that-1316031

Tomcat5133 Loc: Gladwyne PA

As Mr Brucewells says I will agree the best drive is many backups. I triple back up. Some notes: G drives were hot for a while. I have one don't think it is so hot. Looks good. Online says mediocre.
Western Digital seemed to be the cheap no name guy. Guess what I am find them fast and very reliable. I have a lot of the book style. My WD book for Mac is running tons of video in and out of
of the video editing. Some of these drives are so old I can't date them. When you can transfer a bunch of files on your desktop from one WD book drive to another flawlessly they win.
If it get interrupted it will pickup and complete partial files etc.
T
PS I use a 2 T mini WD drive with my my Mac laptop. All my recent working files are on it. It works flawlessly. I recently bought a mini 4T seagate as a backup for most of my video and important files
to put in my metal file. Gentlemen at Best Buy recommended it for $130. A good buy. It didn't like the startup with the PC change to Mac. And it works but don't think it is as good as WD.

BlackRipleyDog

A good practice is have an SSD for your boot and another SSD as a separate drive for Lightroom or Photoshop work. Much faster than HDD's. House your archive files when you are done with them on hard drives. Way lower cost per gigabyte especially when you will be building up a library running into the multiple terabytes. Have two to be redundant which is a good back-up policy. I have two matched NAS enclosures each with a 1 terabyte HDD and a 2 terabyte HDD. The first for finished portfolio files and the second as an archive for the original files. I specified Western Digital Red drives as they only spool-up when I access them and they run at 5600 rpm which will extend their life. They also have on-off switches so you can shut them down should the need arise. Off, they are invisible to the PC. All my downloads and post work are done on dedicated SSD's. I have a full set of compact WD Passport's on flat USB cables mirroring all drives enclosed in a fire-proof box as the last line of defense.
Don't worry about SSD's degrading. With the use you will give it, it will not fail within your lifetime.

CO

Thanks to everyone for the recommendations. Everyone seems to have a lot of experience with the drives. I read all of the posts carefully. I'll need to make a list of all of the options and order.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I used to buy WD, but now I use HGST (owned by WD). I like their Ultrastar enterprise drives, designed for 24/7 operation. Amazon had a WD Red on sale yesterday for $116, and it sold out.

I buy internal drives and use them externally. You can get enclosures or temporary adapters. If you buy drives already in a case, you don't know what you're getting. SSDs are small and light, more expensive, but I'm not sure about their longevity, but they're probably fine.

Sabrent is good.
https://smile.amazon.com/Sabrent-External-Lay-Flat-Docking-EC-DFLT/dp/B00LS5NFQ2/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1493634483&sr=8-2&keywords=hard+drive+enclosures

Rosewill
https://smile.amazon.com/Rosewill-Aluminum-Enclosure-RX35-AT-SU-BLK/dp/B004K4TE5O/ref=sr_1_18?ie=UTF8&qid=1493634511&sr=8-18&keywords=hard+drive+enclosures

dpullum Loc: Tampa Florida

Historically, my DVD/CD slots were filled with card reader and two DVD/CD drives... times change. Now one DVD/CD reader and one Hot Swap Drive drawer. Not that I do Hot Swap; I put the drive in cold and boot. I use a drive to backup the C drive and one to backup my internal photo drive. These drives are stored in antistat bags and placed at the back bottom my clothing drawer. Should my C fail, it is a simple take side off Desk Top computer and swap.

Recently I purchased SSDs to use for backup. I can drop them from the desk or spill coffee on them and they will survive... Rugged counts. Are they not external drives like most consider.. ie. USB. No but they are sorta like external; they are using power and SATA directly from the Motherboard and become external when removed. You can duplicate a permanent internal drive quickly. Removing protects them from that one in a million lightening hit or the heat due to the accumulation of cat hair and dust when we forget periodic cleaning is part of maintaining a computer.

Newegg $18 StarTech.com 5.25in Trayless Hot Swap

dcampbell52 Loc: Clearwater Fl

It depends on what you are using them for. Solid State is great as a primary drive with your OS and programs. Magnetic is great as a Drive "D" or more and to hold your data. The Solid stat technology is still fairly new and developing but is extremely fast for your OS and program files. As for degrading, all drives can degrade and develop bad sectors. Most drive software constantly evaluates the drive and marks degrading or dead sectors or blocks as bad and attempts to recover any data to good sectors (this occurs on both solid state and magnetic drives). Having said all of this, I still make good backups of ALL of my drives (solid state or magnetic). As they say, I prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

marty wild Loc: England

You have had some good suggestions, why not use a pro Flickr account in private you can get extra space in the cloud. Not only it will be safe! You can access from any where and you will never forget it, drop it or lose it! You can set up access only with family and friends also. Or keep me only.

bpulv Loc: Buena Park, CA

The goal should be to have backups in three places. That means two backups at home and a third at an offsite location so that if your house burns down, you will still have your photos. I do not trust cloud storage because the owner of the server is in control and could go out of business, raise prices, etc. This is how I protect my photos.

1) Editing is done on an external Western Digital 5Tb MyBook USB drive. The iMac's internal hard drive is used for programs and non-photographic storage only.

2) The iMac's 1Tb internal hard drive is backed up to one of two 4Tb MyBooks using Get Backup Pro 3 software that allows full and incremental backup, cloning and synchronization. The reboot program is saved both on that backup and on a USB memory stick.

3) The 5Tb "Photo Editing Drive" is backed up to a Drobo RAID system that allows expansion to five drives. I currently have four Western Digital 4Tb Red Drives. Drobo recommends Red Drives because they are designed for a RAID's duty cycle. The Drobo automatically senses and compensates for impending hard drive failures, signals the impending failure and allows "hot swapping" of drives. It ensures that I always have four drives with mirror image backups. I use "Time Machine", Apple's backup program, to make automatic backups of my photos every 30-minutes.

4) Every Friday, I clone the 5Tb MyBook to the other MyBook and remove the fourth WD Red Drive from the Drobo and take them to the bank where I swap the hard drives in my safety deposit box. When I return home, I connect the MyBook and install the Red Drive in the Drobo and I am ready for the next week's work.

cjc2 Loc: Hellertown PA

All of my drives are Western Digital (WD) Red or Red Pro. Most are housed in Synology NAS servers and configured in RAID 1 pairs. I also have a WD Thunderbolt drive attached to my iMac for local storage of my images, Lr Catalogue, etc.. Those drives are a pair of WD Red 4TB also in RAID 1. Multiple backups, including a set off the premises, is the norm for me. 6TB are the largest I presently have but I am considering another 4 bay Synology system with 10TB drives. Best of luck.