Does anyone out there use a Western Digital external hard drive?
Apr 23, 2018 18:33:28 #
therwol
Loc: USA
Gene51 wrote:
This is the only advice that makes any sense.
It still makes sense to have more than one copy of anything you consider important. Nothing is 100% reliable. Don't put all of your eggs in one basket.
Apr 23, 2018 18:44:51 #
therwol wrote:
It still makes sense to have more than one copy of anything you consider important. Nothing is 100% reliable. Don't put all of your eggs in one basket.
Or in this case a 4TB mobile basket.
Maybe look at a couple of those and copy one to the other occasionally. But HDDs wear out in time. They are much better than they used to be but they have a finite lifespan. Problem is you never know when the end of that lifespan is near.
Apr 23, 2018 18:51:54 #
julian.gang wrote:
I am considering purchasing a Western Digital 4TB external portable hard drive to hold all of my photographs. If you have input on this subject, let me know...Julian
I only use WD HDs and now have two 4TB drives, 1 primary and 1 backup.
Apr 24, 2018 05:27:31 #
julian.gang wrote:
I am considering purchasing a Western Digital 4TB external portable hard drive to hold all of my photographs. If you have input on this subject, let me know...Julian
Have a pair of 2TBs. One active and one backup. Unless your backing up in the cloud, get a pair.
Apr 24, 2018 06:23:48 #
Yes, I have two...one external H/D and a portable. They are excellent, and have never had a cough or burp from either one.
Apr 24, 2018 06:25:28 #
Apr 24, 2018 06:40:46 #
julian.gang wrote:
I am considering purchasing a Western Digital 4TB external portable hard drive to hold all of my photographs. If you have input on this subject, let me know...Julian
Western Digital is the one of the ONLY 3 brands that I will purchase.. Seagate is one of the worst for reliability. WD is one of the best.
Apr 24, 2018 06:42:05 #
Same as someone above, have it tethered to my router via Cat5 - available on my network. Works great - been running it that way for 2 years. Also, have a portable that I carry with me on trips to backup each days shoot. Been flawless so far.
Apr 24, 2018 06:44:57 #
Apr 24, 2018 06:51:38 #
I have a 2TB and just picked up a 4TB portables for secondary /travel and a older 2 TB Mybook, and 8TB my cloud on my home network all Western Digital drives also a 8 TB on my sister's network (they have one on mine) for off site backup Her husband is a big cyber security guy and set that up
Apr 24, 2018 06:58:46 #
Retina
Loc: Near Charleston,SC
If using the spinning type, that is an HDD rather than SSD, I recommend trying not to move it while powered up, or at least doing so very gently. Same for laptops with an HDD installed when the drive is not asleep. (I think of a laptop as an external drive that comes with a computer. These drives fail more so than desktops and some believe carrying around a spinning drive is one cause.)
Apr 24, 2018 07:03:01 #
julian.gang wrote:
I am considering purchasing a Western Digital 4TB external portable hard drive to hold all of my photographs. If you have input on this subject, let me know...Julian
I have 6 of the slightly older 2TB WD "My Passport Ultra" external drives for back-up and archiving photos, music, and documents. So far they have all worked fine, but I only use them intermittently when actually moving, reading or writing files. From what I hear it might be safer for continuous use to get your own WD full sized PC HDDs and put them in your own housings with fans.
Apr 24, 2018 07:04:17 #
julian.gang wrote:
Thanks for the reply, do you think the 4TB size is good for someone in my situation?...Julian
Julian, the 4TB WD is good and maybe more than you need as you haven't mentioned how many images you are backing up. A 4TB drive will hold a LOT of photos. I use one of mine, a 4TB My Book drive to back up my computer (7TBs but only about 3.5-4TB used), (everything on it including 15-20 years of digital photographs) though I do have a couple more back ups of the photos on other drives too.
My portable drives are smaller, I have two 1TB and one 3TB portable drives. I don't keep photos on the portable drives.
Apr 24, 2018 07:07:39 #
DavidPine
Loc: Fredericksburg, TX
I use WD and Toshiba. If you use them hard like I do you will eventually have a failure. Make sure you backup everything daily or make an extra copy of your images. I also use DropBox for my finished images and I have never had an issue. I have and use 8 external drives. I have had 3 disk failures in the past 5 years.
julian.gang wrote:
I am considering purchasing a Western Digital 4TB external portable hard drive to hold all of my photographs. If you have input on this subject, let me know...Julian
Apr 24, 2018 07:15:23 #
I have several Western Digital external drives that I use to backup my computers and have never had any problems. I also have used a couple of other brands (Toshiba and Seagate) over the years without any problems. I really don't think there is a quality difference between the major brands.
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