Grace98 Loc: Waterlooville, Hampshire - United Kingdom

Hello - I need your expert help please. I've got thousands of photos on my laptop (Windows 8.1) and horror of horror, no back-ups. so I have to do something. Through a local points scheme (UK) I can get one free of charge as have enough points. I was thinking of this one : http://www.argos.co.uk/product/6557870
As Seagate is an American company, you might be familiar with these. I only want to store photos and documents. As it's portable, would be able to take it on holiday with me. Any help and advise very much appreciated. Thank you..Grace

Linary Loc: UK

I have used Seagate drives for years with only one problem. One day one of these drives failed, but it wasn't the drive, it was the housing with all it's electrical contacts. £30 for a new housing and it is back up and running again. I use these drives daily, not only for backups but for caching and temporary storage.

Seagate gets mixed reviews, but I have found them quick to respond and reliable.

I also have a Touro 4Gb drive, slow to respond but again reliable. Same kind of price as the Seagate drives.

SoftLights Loc: New Orleans, LA

Good morning. I've owned a couple of Seagate products and they have always worked as advertised for me. I also use a LaCie that is newer and more storage but I really can't see much difference in the two. I think this one will do what you need. The 2-year data recovery plan seems like a good bonus.

Just one old mans opinion :) All the best, JR

markngolf Loc: Bridgewater, NJ

That looks like it will do the job. If possible, to be safer, use two backup drives or backup to the cloud for the 2nd backup.
Mark

digit-up Loc: Flushing, Michigan

I have read here at the HOGG of many failures with/using "SEAGATE" and I lost a lot of photos with a seagate in the past.. I only use WesternDigital, anymore. digit-up

grinerphoto

The Seagate is reliable and fast enough for your needs.

One point to remember: if you are traveling with both sets of your images, one the laptop and on the Seagate you are still at risk. Whether theft or fire you don't have a backup if both drives are in the same place.

Beat practice is to backup regularly to a drive that you keep in a different location. Home of family, at work, in a bank deposit box.

Good plan, just tweak how you execute on it. Good luck.

John

Ken0west

Seagate is very reliable..use one all the time.
However, if you have so many photos, you might consider one of the terabytes. They are a bit larger in exterior size but still very portable.
Enjoy your photos!

MrBob Loc: lookout Mtn. NE Alabama

Do NOT do Seagate...way too many failures. Western Digital is very reliable and affordable. The MAIN point is you cannot have too many backups; develop a plan with at least ( 2 ) external drives .

Tomcat5133 Loc: Gladwyne PA

I have a lot of WD book style external drives. Have had other brands for a lot of files and video
and WD became the winner. Have some of them for years and the still work. Have a "G" drive
and all the others that seemed to me not as smooth running. WD.
I also think that WD works much better with Mac's. Seagate is alright but most of
the other brands require reformatting from PC format to Mac OS. Not a problem
but don't know why they can't make it easier.

wrangler5 Loc: Missouri

For backup purposes, those portable, USB powered drives are fine. I've been using them for years for all sorts of backup purposes.

For your reference, I've been taking digital photos for about 15 years. My photo library includes both the original files from the camera plus, until last year, the black and white files I turned many of them into for printing purposes. (Last year I got a printer that can take files directly from Lightroom, which allows me to do edits and prints without changing the original camera file directly, so now my disk only has to store the original file plus the little xmp file that Lightroom creates for an image once it has ANY adjustment made to it.)

ALL of my files are indexed in Lightroom, which says I have just under 90,000 images. At first I recorded large JPEGs in the cameras, but as camera processors got faster I switched to RAW file capture. For the past several years my original files are between 20 and 30+MB each. And my total disk space used for all these files is right around 500GB. Which means I'm about half way to filling my ONE TERABYTE backup drive.

So - even though the odds are that you're a lot younger than I, I'd predict that you would NEVER fill a 4TB drive with your images. Now the cost of these drives is far from proportional to their capacity. At my local computer store, the 4TB Seagate Expansion drive you link to is $120, but a 1TB Seagate Expansion is $53. In your position, I would seriously consider getting TWO of the 1TB models, which would let you keep double backups. One that you could take on a trip, the other that stays behind, just in case. The second one can be kept someplace other than your home and brought back when it's time to update it - again, just in case. (Having duplicate drives is a pretty common recommendation from folks with serious backup concerns, as for primary business records and such.)

Just a suggestion. Seagates are fine. I also have used Toshiba and Western Digital, all with equal results. I've read that the weakest link in these drives is the connector for the USB cable, so I tend to leave the cable plugged in as long as the drive is in active backup service. When it gets full (I have other backup projects that DO fill up drives) I unplug the cable and put the drive in a drawer, labeled for what's on the particular drive.

Grace98 Loc: Waterlooville, Hampshire - United Kingdom

Thank you all to those who kindly replied. I'm still in a dilemma as some of you have advised against Seagate and suggested WD. Now I can only get it from this company as it would be free. However, they also have a WD one (4TB). Please have a look at this link :http://www.argos.co.uk/product/6258021. What do you think...shall I go for the WD? Thanks again....

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

Seagate owns LaCie - since 2012, BTW.

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

None of the prepackaged consumer oriented "backup" drives are worth a damn. Enough of them don' t make it to the end of their 2 yr warranty term to avoid recommending them. Better to get a Seagate Constellation, WD Black or RE, or HGST Ultrastar drive - these are robust and come with 5 yr warranties. Then purchase an enclosure, perhaps with a fan, to connect it to your computer - preferably USB 3.0. You'll be happier in the long run.

brucewells Loc: Central Kentucky

I use one of these drives (the WD) and it works flawlessly. For many years, Seagate was a premier drive. Then, something changed. I had a couple of them fail, so switched to Western Digital (WD). No complaints.

For your security, please pay attention to having more than one backup. In addition to the technological failures, there are many physical issues that could render you without a viable backup. The key element to successful backups is redundancy. I have four copies of all my data, in different locations.

Ken0west

The only comment against Seagate besides the product is very good, it was suggested to not use their software.
I suspect their new Seagate that you have been looking at may be much better.
All the comments about backup - backup are excellent suggestions. Highly recommend!