jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I like the HGST Ultrastar. It's an enterprise drive, made for 24/7 operation, and it's gotten good reviews. I buy an internal drive and put it into a case. If you buy a pre-packaged external drive, you don't know what's inside the case. WD Black are also good drives.

https://smile.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=hgst+ultrastar&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Ahgst+ultrastar

Case/enclosure -
https://smile.amazon.com/Rosewill-Aluminum-3-5-Inch-Enclosure-BLK/dp/B004K4TE5O/ref=sr_1_3_sspa?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1516102363&sr=1-3-spons&keywords=hard+drive+enclosure&psc=1
https://smile.amazon.com/Sabrent-External-Lay-Flat-Docking-EC-DFLT/dp/B00LS5NFQ2/ref=sr_1_5?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1516102400&sr=1-5&keywords=hard+drive+enclosure

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I had an expert evaluate my 30,000 photos, and they're not worth more than - well, nowhere near $900.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

BboH Loc: s of 2/21, Ellicott City, MD

I use Buffalo and Synology

berchman Loc: South Central PA

Can you recommend a case for two drives that would allow hot swapping?

achesley Loc: SW Louisiana

Been using a WD 500 for years and finally got a WD 1T a few years back. Never a problem and even use them to transfer files from desktop to laptop. I too need to go to a larger drive and it probably will be a WD 2T.

The Villages Loc: The Villages, Florida

Wasn't aware of "USB Hubs". Made a note of it for future reference. Thanks.

bobmcculloch Loc: NYC, NY

I use portables, last couple were Western Digital, 2T's, works for me

jccash Loc: Longwood, Florida

My preference for external hard drives is G-Technology:

G-Technology G-DRIVE USB 3.0 4TB External Hard Drive (0G03594) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ND4DV9M/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_0GFxAbJ07HWER

jcwall396 Loc: Roswell, GA

Like most of these posts, I've used Seagate and Western Digital over the years and have had great luck with both. I recently purchased a LaCie 2TB Rugged Thunderbolt mobile drive for traveling and have been extremely impressed with the speed and durability. I have an iMac using a combination of Seagate and WD for backups, and use the LaCie with a MacBook Pro for traveling.

dcampbell52 Loc: Clearwater Fl

I have a WD (Western Digital) 1 tb USB3 external drive that I use as my "Photo" drive on my laptop. It gives me enough storage that I can go through and evaluate and pre-process my photos while on a trip.... then I can either transfer the images to my main computer when I get home and do my main "processing" or whatever. I also have a Western Digital Cloud 4tb drive that is attached to my computer network. I love it because, if I am at a hotel/motel with Wi-Fi, I can upload ALL of my shooting for the day to my WD cloud back home. It gets all of the photos "backed up" and out of the motel to a "safe" place... or at least another place for safe keeping. Once I get home, I can transfer the images from my 4tb cloud drive to my storage drives on my main computer and do "final" processing. For me, this gives my images safety as they are not only on my local (in the motel/hotel room) but also already back home.. so if there is a fire at home, or the hotel/motel has a fire or we are broken in to, then I have copies of my images elsewhere. In addition, my computer at home does a much more robust and is a better place to do post processing than the laptop... however the laptop lets me see what I got and what I may want to reshoot or go a different way on.

photoman022 Loc: Manchester CT USA

You need at least two external hard drives; they will fail. I've had two fail on me. This becomes increasingly important as you run out of hard drive space and store more and more of your photos on them. But at least two external hard drives.

quick235 Loc: Niagara Falls, NY

First I build my own computers- that's to qualify me for giving advice. You do not need a SSD, you do not need the speed and it costs way too much for what you need. I have ssd main HD, a backup 2tb hybrid, and a 3tb backup that I unplug when not using to prevent hacking. you can store a huge amount of photos on a 1 TB hard drive. Any brand name hard drive will do. do not worry about the speed, it's not important for what you want to do. Ther are two ways you can do this, 1. buy a bare hard drive then buy an adapter to put it in and hook up the USB. 2. Buy a hard drive that is already in a case, plug in the power cord, plug the USB into your computer and your good to go. If you are using windows (86) it will not recognize the hard drives 3 TB or larger, you need windows (64) for that. Personally, I would stay with a 1 or 2 TB drive. ($ 50-60)Ok, security- always unplug the backup drive when not using it, Hackers can access it if it is on and plugged into the computer. Try Newegg.com online to see what you can get for your money. They have a wonderful return policy, the best anywhere. Hope this helps-

Picture Taker Loc: Michigan Thumb

Only one point, I was talking to a guy (High up on the tech side) and he mentioned they don't store detain the new solid-state drives because they can fail with out warning and can NEVER be recovered. Don't think I would spend any extra money on a solid state drive at this time. They use them as working drives as they are supper fast.

ELNikkor

After 5 years and almost full, my Seagate doesn't connect reliably to the computer. I've always been gentle with it, and only connect 15 times per year.