Kfallsfotoman

I agree with previous comment - all drives will fail - period - the question is WHEN.
So multiple backups are best - and I have to add I send one of my backups to an off site location.

As far as magnetic vs SSD - I have not heard SSD'S losing data after time - doesn't mean it isn't true.
The points I consider are;
1 - ssd'S are faster & more stable from physical impact.
So ideal for both internal and portable use.
If you choose to use a SSD as an external drive the access speed will drop down to that of a spinning drive because of ISB conection.

Hope that helps and doesn't confuse things more

tdekany Loc: Oregon

That is exactly what I do. $24.95 a year and my hard drives is free of my snaps.

Marionsho Loc: Kansas

Did you mean USB?

eak

I've been using several 2tb rugged lacie drives(magnetic) for several years, for multiple photo copies. No problems to date. They are relatively small and bus powered, so carrying another power supply is not necessary.

lev29 Loc: Born and living in MA.

While I don't pretend to be any expert, I have two points to make:

1. Is this back-up drive to be used when you're traveling, or more to be at home? If the former, SSD is more durable.

2. I suggest you try to future-proof as best possible and practical for you presently, the connection & communication system that the drive uses, e.g. a USB 3.1 system using a type C connector.

Reinaldokool Loc: San Rafael, CA

While I agree that a good, professional grade Seagate or WD or HGST drive in a "home grow" box is a good route, there are big differences in the brands of boxes and while installing it is easy, you need to be careful about the box circuitry. SATA to USB can be done different ways, some better than others.

I have three Seagates purchased at Costco, one of which is seven or eight years old another five years. I also have WD drives. Of course, any drive can and WILL fail eventually. I hear all the Seagate bashing, but my experience in 20 years of beating computers into submission is that Seagate make excellent, reliable drives. Every so often, every manufacturer has an off day. In 2004 we went through about 10 bad WD drives. In 1998, it was Seagate's turn.

Nice thing about Costco is that they are just down the road. They will take back almost anything for almost any reason or no reason. (Not that half-eaten avocado) They also provide their own tech support for products they sell--and it is US based, responsive and speaks English.

chrisg-optical Loc: New York, NY

Magnetic, spinning hard drives are better suited for the studio where there is less physical movement, SSDs are great for the field where you need ruggedness and shock resistance. As far as SSD life span goes, as long as you are not filling the drive up constantly it will last a long time most likely longer than any spinning hard drive. SSDs have built in garbage collection and storage management so the same block of flash memory is not written to more than necessary. So if you are not filling up the drive to capacity, say only 30-50% it will write new blocks in different sectors to minimize # writes to a given block. SSDs also have faster access times since there is no mechanical R/W head.

Best best, use SSDs in the field for immediate backup, spinning drives/RAIDs in the office/home for longer term storage and edit work. Of course nothing will prevent you from using either or in the field or at home/office.

CO

It would be more for the home. That's a good consideration you pointed out.

bpulv Loc: Buena Park, CA

Tdekany,

That is a risky approach. If your cloud storage provider gets hacked, goes out of business or has other server problems, you could lose all of your photos. Experts will tell you to backup your photos in three different places. The cloud is fine, but you need to additionally backup to an external hard drive and one other place (an additional hard drive or other media that is stored off site). If you read my previous post, you can see how I do it incorporating both RAID drives and off site storage of additional hard drives. Of course that is expensive, but it is safe and I maintain complete control of my photos without trusting a third party that could be here today and gone tomorrow.

tdekany Loc: Oregon

So 99% of my snap shots are of landscape. No people pictures. If I was good at photography and or had family photos, I could understand backing up numerous times/ways, but otherwise, what do you guys have pictures of that are so important? IF Flickr goes out of business, I'll be fine. Again I don't have any picture that I couldn't live without

CO

Thanks for all of the replies. Lots of great information. I'm looking at all of the recommendations.

Tomcat5133 Loc: Gladwyne PA

I was desperate for a big external. I am editing a lot of short form videos for commercials and social networking. and my WD is 2/3 thirds full. I have other book drives but the have backups are full and other really getting old. I still like WD. But bought a Seagate 4T mini for travel and backup. It appears quite stable.
Saw this and grabbed it. Seagate Backup Plus Hub 8TB External Desktop Hard Drive Storage (STEL8000100)
Sold by: Amazon.com LLC $179.99. I will use this as main resource for projects that are all on external.

To keep my 27" Mac 6 years old running well I keep a limit of 30% HD memory use on my Mac. And only 2/3 memory use on a WD I use for main video editing and
and photoshop use. I still feel I am seeing some performance issues even though I upgraded ram as far as I can go. I am doing some 3D on FCPX and a lot of
video processing. I am doing some 4k for now. Maybe 20% of time. Processing DJI Mavic Pro drone 4k and these files are flaky. I had spinning ball processing.

I want to buy a new 27 I think they are great. The expense with dual processor is big. Need a 15 " laptop they are very expensive with decent processing. Have considered
a PC because of price and processing power but don't have the editing I use. And I think Apple is faking it try and get a straight answer about whether
4k files and the kind of work I do will work on their upper level machines.

I really don't like 4k it is 4 times bigger then HD but huge files and color is an issue. Sometimes looks like over sharpening.
But people are asking for it. I apologize for this rant but I think some members understand where I am at in my production. Thanks.