mr spock Loc: Fairfield CT

Costco is about to offer a 5 TB Seagate portable hard drive for $95.00
Sale runs from 11/23 to 12/24

Wanderer2 Loc: Colorado Rocky Mountains

Thanks for the tip. I'm about to need one.

jayluber Loc: Phoenix, AZ

Check the price on the 8TB drive at B&H

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Use GENTLY. Check the warranty before buying. If you still buy, get a couple and back one up with the other, or better, use them as a RAID 1 mirrored array. OR, back one up to an enterprise-grade desktop RAID array when you get back to your home or office.

I've had a couple of cheap portables die on me over the years. As a result I will no longer use conventional spinning platter drives on location. I only use them as long term storage devices.

A good portable NVMe drive connected to a recent laptop via Thunderbolt 3 or 4 (which uses Thunderbolt-rated USB-C ports, connectors, and cables) is a much safer, faster, and workable solution. It may be less costly, should it prevent the need for data recovery services or the loss of priceless images and data.

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

Not worth buying - better to get a more robust bare drive with a 5 yr warranty and a $30 enclosure for it. Western Digital has a few Data Center/Enterprise drives that are engineered for intense duty cycles - like 24/7/365 and over 500 TB of data transfer per year. Which is considerably better than the 50 TB of data transfer and light duty that the cheaper drives are engineered for, which, in part, explains why the are only warrantied for 1-2 yrs.

BTW, Amazon has a 5 TB Seagate external for $99 - their regular price -

https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Portable-External-Hard-Drive/dp/B07VS8QCXC/ref=asc_df_B07VS8QCXC/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=380013417597&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=13587274058932669911&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9007515&hvtargid=pla-811131199882&psc=1&tag=&ref=&adgrpid=77922879259&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvadid=380013417597&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=13587274058932669911&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9007515&hvtargid=pla-811131199882

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

I would not use a drive that is not certified for RAID in a RAID array. RAID certified drives are more robust (typically having 5 yr warranties), and have error handling that is optimized for RAID arrays. A non-RAID drive will take too long to recover from the reallocation of data that happens when there is a soft error - and will consequently be dropped from the array - even if it is a mirrored drive. It's probably better to simply do a scheduled drive sync using a standard backup program to copy the contents of one drive to another every night.

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

Gold, black or purple? Not red, blue or green?

Here is a 6TB gold that, with a case, would be about twice the price of the Costco/Amazon 5 TB portable.

Drive: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1463048-REG/wd_wdbbur0060bnc_wrsn_ultrastar_6tb_3_5_drive.html
Case: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1071716-REG/startech_s3510smu33_hard_drive_enclosure_3_5.html

Harry0 Loc: Gardena, Cal

I'm a gonna insert a segue right in here.
MOMENTS ago I just paid $169.00 for a WD 10tb external at Newegg.
It was $189, then a $20 promo code paid the sales tax.
It's Black Friday, getting late, limited supplies.
Good luck to y'all

Harry0 Loc: Gardena, Cal

My bad,
Distracted by my wife, I didn't add/remember that I also spent on other items.
Price was $149.
YES BestBuy had the 14tbs. Had. Out of stock. Hence Newegg.