chikid68 Loc: Tennesse USA

I have always suggested that people have more than one backup for important pictures and at least one of them be off premises whether in the cloud or even a hard drive kept elsewhere.
This way you are protected against any type of failure and the off premises copy serves to protect you against the potential physical problems which can affect your home such as fire tornado or other disaster.
Most people don't think about this until the time they are actually seeing someone who is sifting through the debris that was the home and they come across the remains of an irreplaceable picture that is now ruined.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Is that when they came out with oiled paper tape?

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Honestly, I don’t know the make up of the tape. It was actually fairly robust to allow it to be used a number of times.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Oiled lasts longer than plain paper tape.

Lucian Loc: From Wales, living in Ohio

I have not read through all the responses but after two pages I see that most people are missing the OPs question and giving answers he was not asking about. The OP was not asking anyone how many backups he/she should have, so why are you all telling him how many they should be using? Read the question and answer only an OP's question.

Therefore, to answer, in case it was not already done, the difference is where you will be using your laptop. I use mostly USB powered external HDs because I don't want to always be sitting very close to a plug socket, in order to power up the AC powered external HD.

So to answer simply, there is no difference between the two you ask about, other than convenience. Using a USB powered external HD you can plug it in and use it anywhere that you can possibly take a fully charged Laptop.

If you choose an AC powered external HD, you can can't even use that in your living room, if you are not close enough to plug it into the wall and who wants a long extension cord laying all over the floor, in order to be somewhere in the room that is not close to a wall outlet, in order to get power to that AC powered external HD?

So there you have it, it is simply a convenience thing, I'd go with the USB powered HD over an AC powered one, any day, just so I can carry the laptop around and use it and the external HD where ever I wish, even in the car or at a picnic table in the park. Try that with an AC powered external HD!

Lucian Loc: From Wales, living in Ohio

I two have had ONLY Seagate HD's fail, both internal in my Laptop and external AC powered HDs and USB one. All three were Seagate and the internal was only 28 days old. The other two were about 6 months old and the third about 2 years old. I shall never buy another Seagate again.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Seagates used to be great years ago. I primarily go with Western Digital now.
But my salvaged internal hard drives so far are Seagate Barracudas, which used to be really great.
If the intent is a permanently attached drive (ie. E:), either should work, but there is the power adapter and cable to worry about for the one. If portability is a possibility, I would go with a USB drive.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Seagate has built some real dogs in the last years. It all depends on the model and what factory they are built in - some are fine and some have a 35% failure rate the first year. The one advantage of AC powered is that it can run a fan which can prolong HD life. On the other hand, an SSD solves all these issues (at a cost). Is faster, fits in your pocket, and unlike a HD, is very rugged.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Yep, I have some 4GB (yes GB) Barracuda SCSI drives in a drawer that are easily 20-25 years old, and last time I powered one up, it still works fine. The 15K RPM Cheetah used to be THE high performance drive until they took back over a million under warranty over a major flaw.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Wow, the 4Gb I'd wipe and recycle.
Mine are two 500Gb and I think one 1Tb.

chikid68 Loc: Tennesse USA

My external drive is 8Tb

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

My backups are currently about 300gb, so three fit on the 1Tb.
My desktop C: is a 2Tb, which is only 25% used.
Someday I'll need a larger drive.

11bravo

I always STRONGLY suggest that HDD's be provisioned before use. See this post for my method:

https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/tpr?p=12396112&t=704234

Quick summary: FULL (not quick format), then a full chkdsk, then a surface scan using StableBit scanner. Using this method, I've never had an HDD fail quickly, or really fail unexpectedly. For a 4TB HDD (I now use WD RED Plus's, previously, HGST 4TB - no longer available) it can take 16+ hours, but I know EVERY sector has been checked 3 times. I do monitor their health (and TEMPERATURE) with Hard Disk Sentinel (paid program) and have StableBit Scanner (paid program) do periodic surface scans. I understand any HDD will eventually fail, but by heavily exercising them first, those early surprise failures can be mostly eliminated.

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To reiterate my earlier answer to the OP, desktop enclosures built yourself can (should) include an internal fan to keep the drive cool and YOU can control the quality of the HDD. My usb drives are only used for travel.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Do it a second time to make sure doing it the first time didn't bugger the drive.

That's why I use WD Gold drives, already burned in.

Morning Star Loc: West coast, North of the 49th N.

Not giving advice, just telling you what I do.
For convenience, I start with putting my photos on the computer's hard drive.
Once a week or so, I copy them to an external drive, at the same time organizing them by date, subject, etc.
Once a month, more often if I have added a large number of photos, I bring the external drive that lives in my grandson's bedroom, some 10 km away, home and copy the new additions to that one, so that the two external drives have exactly the same content.
The images from the computer's hard drive are deleted, and one of the external's goes to grandson's bedroom again. Every so often I'll give him a few dollars for "rent".
This "system" seems to work for both of us!