mackphotos Loc: Washington, DC

Hello,

I'm need two external hard drives one for backup and a 2nd for photo storage. What do you use? size? manufacturer? backup software? etc.
Costco has a Seagate 4TB for $109 which seems like a good deal. What do you think. Thanks.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

If someone gave me a Seagate, I wouldn't use it. Yes, I know many people have them and love them, but they have a reputation for a high failure rate. There is a class action suit against them for just that reason.

I now buy the HGST Ultrastar drive, 3 or 4TB, which is an enterprise drive, designed for 24/7 use. It has a 5-year warranty. Buy the drive and then buy an enclosure for it.
https://smile.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=hgst+ultrastar
https://smile.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=hard+drive+enclosures&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Ahard+drive+enclosures

I use SyncBack SE for backing up.
https://www.2brightsparks.com/

Gitchigumi Loc: Wake Forest, NC

I use a Western Digital MyCloud Mirror. That has two identical drives in it that are mirrors of each other. If one drive fails, the data (photos) is still there on the other drive. Just remove the dead drive, put in a new one and the unit copies the data to the new one. So, you always have a backup. 👍😎👍

Trynforpar Loc: The Villages, Florida

I use 2 G Drives. More expensive but very reliable.

Kuzano

Over the years, Seagate has purchased every hard drive manufacturer on the verge of failure as their means for acquiring market share. This has taken a toll on a relatively good history in the market.

They purchased Quantum, Maxtor, and most recently LaCie (abject market fail of it's own). There have been a couple of others. I have worked in PC building and consulting, including networking small businesses for closed to 30 years.

While Seagate has done well with this market share growth strategy, often bringing some fairly poor mfrs lack of quality control up to their own standards, every one of these acquisitions has caused "hits" on their own reputation.

I have done quite well with Seagate purchases in my own choices, but been considerably aware when Seagate has made these questionable acquisitions, and avoided the acquired products for a while during change overs in their lines.

I like Seagate as a rule, but do not make referrals to their products very often. I am a supporter of Western Digital, but I have saved money on Seagate purchases over the long span. Seagate's purchase of LaCie was a real shock to me. I have never dealt with a worse HD/Storage brand.

mackphotos Loc: Washington, DC

Wow! thanks for the Seagate heads up. UHH rocks :-)

kymarto Loc: Portland OR and Milan Italy

I save on mirrored RAID plus a separate backup on small 2.5" HDDs which I keep offsite. RAID is fine if one drive physically fails, but if you have a controller error of some sort or any command (possibly via hack, etc.) it will write to both drives. Or drop the drive case on a hard floor or if there is a flood and you've lost it all from both drives. Therefore I always use a RAID 1 as main and then use small disks protected against physical shocks as a second backup. In any case, two separate drives in separate drives cases is preferable to a single RAID 1, but of course it is more of a pain to keep the backup updated.

Kmgw9v Loc: Miami, Florida

I currently use a LaCie that I purchased at the recommendation of an Apple Store employee. Since then, I have become aware of negative reviews. What makes it the worst brand that you have dealt with? Should I replace it today--before it fails? Serious question.

mcolie

By this time, I have had catastrophic and unpredictable failures of every single manufacture's hard drives. It has gotten so bad that nothing important is stored on only two devices. Images and other things the I expect to need access to are on a machine drive and a NAS. I think that they are 2T, but sitting here, I am not sure. That makes for my random access.

For storage, I buy chips like some people buy chips for snacks....
SD chips are so cheap, that I do not reuse them. If you old enough to remember the cost of chemical photography, you will understand. I am currently hunting up old memory because I have a single 64G that I am already getting lost in. It is just too huge. I have an incoming order for a fist full of 16G.

Next trick: In most OS (I use two and neither is Mac) you can add names to the daily daily directory that my Canons create. I do this almost daily. I pop the chip out and stuff it into the traveling laptop and look at all the directories that are still only the camera name. This does cause an issue that some cameras now cannot access the image for viewing, as I only rename the directory when that shoot/event/excursion is over, that has only caused a little difficulty.

How do I store them? Good Question and I am glad you asked. (Can you tell I have been asked before?)
When the chip gets near full, I use cut and paste to print the directory list to a text editor (word processor?) for printing. I frequently have to pull this into a real editor to arrange the directory in columns so it will only be one page long. Then, I print it and attach the chip to the page and throw it in a file. Hopefully, when in the long distant future, I go to find these images, the technology to read them will still be available.

Matt

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Definitely!

jethro779 Loc: Tucson, AZ

If you use only the one drive I would get at least one more, I have 7 external drives and have an Airport Extreme. I have 3 computers and an iPhone & iPad I back up. I have Seagate, WD, and G Drive. The thing I like about the WD drives is that they connect thru a Cat 6 cable and have USB 3 ports on the back so I can hook USB drives to them for backup.

Kmgw9v Loc: Miami, Florida

I also use a WD, but remain concerned that the LaCie should be replaced

jethro779 Loc: Tucson, AZ

If you are concerned about the LaCie then get another drive and back it up. I find that when I start worrying like that it usually breaks/dies/goes bad.

Kmgw9v Loc: Miami, Florida

brucewells Loc: Central Kentucky

The trick to being successful in your backup strategy is 'redundancy'. Yes, having a drive to which you back up is great, but get 2 or 3 of them. ALL of them will fail at some point. The trick is to have another with all your precious data when it does.