Suggestions for a good external hard drive to back up photos: I hope I'm asking the right question. I need to back up my photos and take them off my laptop. I've read all the Archived...

gmccaleb Loc: East KY / South AL

I hope I'm asking the right question. I need to back up my photos and take them off my laptop. I've read all the Archived posts here about them and saw several that seemed unreliable. Can you suggest something for me to purchase? As you can tell, my knowledge of technology is limited.

Thanks in advance.

rgrenaderphoto Loc: Hollywood, CA

Several options.

1) External USB 3 SSD drive. Western Digital's 1 Tb retails for $350.00
2) Standard HSB Hard Disk, you can get a Seagate 4 Tb for $100 on Amazon.
3) Western Digital My Passport, 4 Tb with built in access point and SD card slot for automatic backup.
4) The Go Big or Go Home option: Drobo external USB 3 RAID array, 5C with (5) 2 Tb drives for ultimate security. Will set you back about $900.

markngolf Loc: Bridgewater, NJ

There many reliable external drives on the market: Seagate, Western Digital, I use Fantom (I have 4). Do you know the size (GB) the photos occupy on your laptop? However, I did have a Seagate internal drive develop bad sectors.
Mark

gmccaleb wrote:

I hope I'm asking the right question. I need to back up my photos and take them off my laptop. I've read all the Archived posts here about them and saw several that seemed unreliable. Can you suggest something for me to purchase? As you can tell, my knowledge of technology is limited.

Thanks in advance.

via the lens Loc: Northern California, near Yosemite NP

gmccaleb wrote:

I hope I'm asking the right question. I need to back up my photos and take them off my laptop. I've read all the Archived posts here about them and saw several that seemed unreliable. Can you suggest something for me to purchase? As you can tell, my knowledge of technology is limited.

Thanks in advance.

I use western digital. I just bought a 6T and have an 8T, could not believe how much the price had increased in the last couple of years. I use them as a backup and copy, too.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

I have two WD "My Passport Ultra" 1TB External USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drives. One for the laptop and one for the desktop.
I'm very pleased with these "pocket" drives. I believe they are currently being superseded by a newer model though.
As with any external, don't unplug them without making sure the write buffers are empty and you "eject" (dismount) them!
(My primary backup on the desktop is by Carbonite.)

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

rgrenaderphoto wrote:

......
4) The Go Big or Go Home option: Drobo external USB 3 RAID array, 5C with (5) 2 Tb drives for ultimate security. Will set you back about $900.

Haha, I went home.

Robeng Loc: California

gmccaleb wrote:

I hope I'm asking the right question. I need to back up my photos and take them off my laptop. I've read all the Archived posts here about them and saw several that seemed unreliable. Can you suggest something for me to purchase? As you can tell, my knowledge of technology is limited.

Thanks in advance.

My personal experience, I use 5 external hard drives plugged into a USB hub that’s plugged into my desktop computer. All the hard drives are for backing up photos.

The brand that I have the most problems with is Seagate. It seems every couple of years they stop working and then I have to send them out for recovery. Seagate will send you a replacement hard drive for free but not recover your data. The second worst I’ve had problems with is Buffalo. They are cheap and go out within a year or two.

The external hard drive brands that I recommend to friends are Toshiba & Western Digital, so far no problems and complaints.

mborn Loc: Massachusetts

I have had problems with Seagate but WD no problems

Keldon Loc: Yukon, B.C.

I've had one WD fail out of 5. It gave me months of warning so I was able to save all the data on it. It never did completely die but I removed it from the stack just in case.

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

gmccaleb wrote:

I hope I'm asking the right question. I need to back up my photos and take them off my laptop. I've read all the Archived posts here about them and saw several that seemed unreliable. Can you suggest something for me to purchase? As you can tell, my knowledge of technology is limited.

Thanks in advance.

Most mechanical drives that are packaged as "backup" solutions are usually not great.

If you get an enterprise level drive - like a WD Re drive or a HGST Ultrastar, you will get a 5 yr warranty and a more robustly built drive.

You can usually buy an enclosure for such a drive for under $30, and you will end up with a far better solution than the "canned" backup solutions like MyBooks, Passports and similar.

I think that SSDs are generally even better, but they are still considerably more expensive. A 4 TB Re drive will cost around $300 or less after you add in the case, compared to 4 TB of SSD storage, using an external SSD array, which would cost $2800.

The WD Passport with the SD card slot is just one of their cheap consumer-grade drives packaged with a SD slot.

Seagate makes the only drives I have ever had trouble with. All HGST and WD enterprise drives I have used in my computer builds have way outlasted their 5 yr warranties. I do recall that Seagate did have a decent drive, their Constellation series, which was used in data centers for a while.

Chico 1948 Loc: Cincinnati

Just for balance I have used Seagate drives for years without problems. I agree that a more robust build drive would be preferable when backing up photos.

Doddy Loc: Barnard Castle-England

don't trust to one hard drive, put your precious info onto two or three..

ejones0310 Loc: Tulsa, OK

I keep my photos on two laptops and two external hard drives. Overkill? Maybe, but I am a strong believer in Murphy's law.

Brands? My only bad experience has been with Seagate. The one I bought from Costco is very slow compared to my Passport.

LarryFitz Loc: Beacon NY

ejones0310 wrote:

I keep my photos on two laptops and two external hard drives. Overkill? Maybe, but I am a strong believer in Murphy's law.

Brands? My only bad experience has been with Seagate. The one I bought from Costco is very slow compared to my Passport.

Two laptops and two hard drives, sounds like what I do. Plus some on a 128 Gb thumb drive. I have not had problems with either Seagate or AS. But all hard drives are susceptible to being dropped, bumped or other. Keep them in a safe place. Someone I worked with forgot the external hard was connect when they picked up their laptop, down when the drive.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

G-Technologies
--Bob

gmccaleb wrote:

I hope I'm asking the right question. I need to back up my photos and take them off my laptop. I've read all the Archived posts here about them and saw several that seemed unreliable. Can you suggest something for me to purchase? As you can tell, my knowledge of technology is limited.

Thanks in advance.