Best external hard drive (Page 3): I will just throw it out there... I agree with Gene51 on avoiding the traditional consumer grade if it is for long term storage. I recommend saving...

Real Nikon Lover Loc: Simi Valley, CA

I will just throw it out there... I agree with Gene51 on avoiding the traditional consumer grade if it is for long term storage. I recommend saving the "best of the best" on DVD. I predict eventually that DVD and other drives will be replaced as was floppy drives etc.

When I bought my PCs I took the original 1 TB HD out and replaced them with SSDs. I bought enclosure boxes and put the old HDs in them as external back ups as well.

I bought my first PC in 1992 and in that time I have only lost 2 hard drives to failure. One was eaten by a virus, the other died of old age and a power surge.

With that said I have a three different external drives, and a spare PC for backups. I bought all at Costco. Costco has a great return policy. NO QUESTIONS ASKED.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

Jim Eads wrote:

... I recommend saving the "best of the best" on DVD. I predict eventually that DVD and other drives will be replaced as was floppy drives etc...

Home written disks are not an archival medium.
These disks depend on etching holes in an organic medium on a plastic disk. The organic medium is subject to aging.
Commercially produced disks use a metal coating on the plastic disk. The holes are pressed into the metal. Not something you can easily do at home.

The disks come in different grades. I have had DVDs that I had written degrade to the point that they were unreadable in as little as 3 years. These were supplied by the low bidder. They do come in archival quality but they're more expensive, and have the same basic limitation due to the medium.

Also, disks are not large enough to hold a significant amount of stuff. I have Photoshop files up to 2 GBytes. I can only fit 2 of those files on a DVD. OTOH, external hard drives can hold on the order of 1000 times more than a DVD.

I think there's a reason that new computers are being built without disk drives.

nadelewitz Loc: Ithaca NY

jdm wrote:

Hi, Awesome Hogs!

Yup, it is tax free weekend in Massachusetts; I’m planning to buy 2 external hard drives to back up my LR/PP files, just under 10k images. I would love to get your recommendations on which ones you think are the best and why. (I did do a search and the posts were rather dated.)

Thank you in advance for your advice.

Regards,

JDM

I don't know about your tax-free stuff, but if you (or anyone else) wants to buy the BEST external hard drives, they are made by a company named Glyph Technology, in Cortland NY.
USA-manufactured. Multi-interface drives (USB3, eSATA, Firewire) and RAID drives. They are beautifully designed and sold largely to the professional video and audio markets. Full size drives with cooling fans, 2.5 and 3.25 inch drives, on and on. All built rock solid.

I have two of their older drives for years that i would not part with for the world. Only problem has been fans wearing out. I can pick up parts at the plant 'cause I'm lucky enough to live nearby.

They don't sell direct to end users...only through dealers, which include B&H, Adorama, many others. They are not cheap, with good reason. Any of the familiar brands...Western Digital, Seagate, LaCie, etc, are toys in comparison.

Here's their site:

https://www.glyphtech.com

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

jdm wrote:

Hi, Awesome Hogs!

Yup, it is tax free weekend in Massachusetts; I’m planning to buy 2 external hard drives to back up my LR/PP files, just under 10k images. I would love to get your recommendations on which ones you think are the best and why. (I did do a search and the posts were rather dated.)

Thank you in advance for your advice.

Regards,

JDM

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/external-storage?_ga=2.147753535.946098148.1566150816-1150032625.1566150816

Great drives. Extremely well built and reliable.

bwana Loc: Bergen, Alberta, Canada

jdm wrote:

Hi, Awesome Hogs!

Yup, it is tax free weekend in Massachusetts; I’m planning to buy 2 external hard drives to back up my LR/PP files, just under 10k images. I would love to get your recommendations on which ones you think are the best and why. (I did do a search and the posts were rather dated.)

Thank you in advance for your advice.

Regards,

JDM

Western Digital gets my vote from several internal/external drives that have worked long and hard!

I've found Seagate drives to be inexpensive (cheap is a better word for them) and they're terrible!

bwa

Real Nikon Lover Loc: Simi Valley, CA

DirtFarmer wrote:

Home written disks are not an archival medium. br... (show quote)

Interesting and valid points. Also valid that I have not had any CD/DVD disks fail that I have written to. I have some going back ~20 years and they are kept in temperature controlled storage and are just fine. How about all those movie DVDs we own? Not one has failed. Hmmm.

bwana Loc: Bergen, Alberta, Canada

Longshadow wrote:

I like the WD Passport Ultras. I have had two of the 1Tb drives for a few years now.
I'd have no problem getting a 4Tb WD Passport drive.

I've used Western Digital hard drives for many years; 100 MB thru 10 TB and never had one fail me. A couple of 500 MB drives have run for over ten years.

I have four WD 4 TB external drives, two with built-in card readers. They simple work and keep working!

bwa

dick ranez

I've had better luck with LaCie drives than any of the others. Usually a little more expensive, but to me it's worth it.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

Jim Eads wrote:

Interesting and valid points. Also valid that I have not had any CD/DVD disks fail that I have written to. I have some going back ~20 years and they are kept in temperature controlled storage and are just fine. How about all those movie DVDs we own? Not one has failed. Hmmm.

The commercially produced CD/DVDs use metal film rather than the degradeable organic layer. They should last a lot longer.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

dick ranez wrote:

I've had better luck with LaCie drives than any of the others. Usually a little more expensive, but to me it's worth it.

Good for you. All four of the LaCie drives we had crashed within three years. One of them crashed a week after the warranty ran out.

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

burkphoto wrote:

Good for you. All four of the LaCie drives we had crashed within three years. One of them crashed a week after the warranty ran out.

This is so common. LaCie were always just repackaged mechanical cheap drives marketed to unsuspecting Apple users (could that be an oxymoron? Just kidding). There are only a handful of drive manufacturers - Toshiba, HGST/Western Digital and Seagate. HGST was purchased from IBM, which I suspect accounts for their reliability and performance.

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

bwana wrote:

img src="https://static.uglyhedgehog.com/images/s... (show quote)

WD makes some outstanding drives. They also make a lot of consumer-targeted junk. You get what you pay for, but you never get what you don't pay for.

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

nadelewitz wrote:

I don't know about your tax-free stuff, but if you... (show quote)

I once took apart an old Glyph drive - and found a Seagate inside. Hmm . . .

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Gene51 wrote:

This is so common. LaCie were always just repackaged mechanical cheap drives marketed to unsuspecting Apple users (could that be an oxymoron? Just kidding). There are only a handful of drive manufacturers - Toshiba, HGST/Western Digital and Seagate. HGST was purchased from IBM, which I suspect accounts for their reliability and performance.

Yep. I like to buy industrial grade or server grade drives. You really do get what you pay for. I’ve not had failures with OWC drives. Two are ten years old!

therwol Loc: USA

burkphoto wrote:

Yep. I like to buy industrial grade or server grade drives. You really do get what you pay for. I’ve not had failures with OWC drives. Two are ten years old!

I've not had any failures with consumer grade Western Digital or Seagate external drives. I do not leave them connected. I archive to them and copy back from them and then disconnect them, so they get light use. Needless to say, though, everything on them is backed up in duplicate and triplicate on different drives.