Ultra-Man Loc: Budapest, Hungary

Hello fellow Hoggers and Hoggets. I need your help and expert advice. Time to clean up my computer. I have a mac and need to transfer my Lightroom catalog to one convenient place. Which portable hard drive do I get and how big? If necessary I'll buy 2 so I can have backup. I shoot RAW with a D800 Nikon, so the files are large. Thanks

blankmange Loc: down on the farm...

I have several external harddrives for storage for my Mac - I've used many different brands over the years, all the way back to when Connor drives were the 'performance' choice...

I prefer Western Digital harddrives - they seem to have fewer failures to me.... and I refuse to buy Seagate drives...

but this is a personal opinion and you're going to get as many answers as there are brands to choose from...

jethro779 Loc: Tucson, AZ

I would recommend any of the drives by G Technologies. They have a G Drive 2Tb that I have and it uses the firewire port to transfer. You can also plug another firewire object into the back of it for a daisy chain effect. You could also go with a Western Digital My Cloud Mirror 4TB as it has dual drives enclosed and you can set it up in a raid 1 configuration and have 2 TB mirror drives. The WD gives you the ability to swap out a drive if one goes bad.

docphoto Loc: Illinois

I too have a MAC and use Lightroom exclusively. For my external drives I use almost exclusively La Cie External drives ( La Cie Rugged Thunderbolt USB 3.0 2 TB). They are portable and come in 500 GB, 1TB and 2TB.They are small enough and rugged enough to carry with you on assignments. For my home MAC I use the La Cie Porsche Design Desktop 5 TB. The La Cie Porsche Design Desktop comes in 3 TB,4 TB,5 TB and 8 TB. I have used La Cie for may years and have not had any problems. That's my take. I hope that helps

Wallbanger Loc: Madison, WI

This is a few years old, but the workflow remains relavant. It may give you some ideas that you can scale down to your needs: http://youtu.be/Y-6EQo6it7Y

bjprovo Loc: Northeast CT

I recently purchased a Western Digital My Cloud. It can be placed anywhere in your home (or business) that you have access to your network and can be accessed from anywhere with a wifi or phone signal. This allows me to use documents that I have placed on the device, such as the camera manual or techniques and tips I have picked up and saved as documents over the years. I have the 3 terabyte version and I really like it.

SteveR Loc: Michigan

I prefer not to backup photos by wifi. I like the WD My Books. The software, then, is the question. If you only have a USB2 port, I find the WD software quite slow. Acronis True Image is much faster and also provides a full image of your entire computer (including programs and operating system) or you can select files only. True Image can be purchased separately and used with MyBook.

brucewells Loc: Central Kentucky

Many good options available. I gravitate to Western Digital or Seagate, but there are others. My best recommendation is to get a USB 3.0 compliant drive. You may not have USB 3.0 on your current machine, but your next one will have it, and you want that faster throughput.

SteveR Loc: Michigan

I have wondered if there was any way to upgrade my current computer to 3.0. Everything else is fine. I have the i7 chip, 16 gigs of RAM, a new motherboard about a year ago as well as hard drive. It just takes awhile to backup.

DavidPine Loc: Fredericksburg, TX

I like the firewire on the LaCie 2GB. I also have 2 SeaGate drives (2GB and 4GB) that are USB 3.

Wallbanger Loc: Madison, WI

If it's an i7 and a recent motherboard, you probably already have USB 3.0 ports.

brucewells Loc: Central Kentucky

My desktop was not USB 3.0 compliant. So, I bought an expansion card, and inserted it in a slot in my PC, that gives me two USB 3.0 connections. From that, I connected a 7-port USB 3.0 hub so I now have a total of 8 USB 3.0 ports.

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

There are 4 types of hard drives - cheap consumer, enthusiast, enterprise, and surveillance. The cheap consumer drives are pretty awful - they break, often without warning and in a way that makes the data pretty much unrecoverable. They are slower, usually 5400 rpm, and cannot match the performance of any of the better drives. They usually come with 1-2 yr warranties. The enthusiast drives are usually better built, they have 3 or 5 yr express replacement warranties, and are usually faster than the consumer stuff. The enterprise drives are built for datacenter use. Rugged, 5 yr warranty, good for RAID, and rock solid dependable. The surveillance drives are a special class that you need not concern yourself with.

That being said, it's best to avoid any drive in a passively cooled (no fan) enclosure. All the cheap consumer multi-terabyte drives you see for around $100 fit this category. Junk. You will be much better off with an enthusiast drive or enterprise drive, in an actively cooled enclosure, like those from Rosewill, which you can get from Newegg for about $30. Big fan, keeps the drive nice and cool, and will contribute to it's longevity.

Buy cheap and you will regret it. Dual drives is the way to go though - back up twice and you will not likely loose data due to hardware malfunction.

I like Western Digital - Blue and Green are cheap consumer drives, Black is high performance (5 yr warranty), and Red is for light-duty home RAID. Red Pro, Re. and Se are all enterprise drives, and come with 5 yr warranties. Any of these enterprise drives, along with the Black, would give you better piece of mind.

As far as installing a drive in an enclosure, it takes a screwdriver and about a minute - its all plug and play.

jims203 Loc: Connecticut

Both Western digital and LaCie drives are excellent. I have used both for many years. The new iMac works better with LaCie as all external drives appear on the desktop upon boot. This was not always the case with Western Digital, but neither companies drives ever died on me either.

jims203 Loc: Connecticut

B please delete