Hard drive or ssd storage? (Page 2): __________________________________(reply) Everything digital can fail. That is the first premise. So redundancy is the key. You have to have one...

OldSchool-WI Loc: Brandon, Wisconsin 53919

mikee wrote:

I've recently purchased a gaming computer for photo editing. It has a 1 tb ssd for the operating system. My preference is to use an external drive for my data storage and not fill up my internal ssd. I see that one can purchase an 8 tb ssd on ebay new for under $50, or go name brand for half the capacity and $400. Should I get another external hard drive (mechanical) or external ssd? Does brand name matter? Thx.

__________________________________(reply)
Everything digital can fail. That is the first premise. So redundancy is the key. You have to have one heck of a lot of images to fill a tb of storage. I do art work and have a lot of just "library images" for inspiration. As a brand in HDs I like Toshiba, but also have WDs. I have a box next to my old laptop with a dozen 500GB enclosed peripheral HDs, labelled. In the group I do have a few 1TBs, also. I keep redundancy of all my own digitals, also. I try to unload memory cards as soon as possible, because those are a weak link. I also have a DVD of misc. programs for recovery and manipulations. Just recently a 32gb CF card locked up. I could do nothing to remedy except to use recovery and copy off the 160 raw images and then reformat the card. I also have a pile of thumb drives I copy images onto to view on a tablet. But, my takeaway---is think small in each unit and have redundancy.-----ew

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Longshadow wrote:

I personally would NOT go with a $50 8Tb drive

Definitely! You're not going to get a usable 8TB drive for $50. There are guys on YouTube who buy things like that, and they are never what they claim to be.

Canisdirus

Cheap drives are for porn
Expensive drives are for photoraphy.

rlv567 Loc: Baguio City, Philippines

Stardust wrote:

If 1 Tb SSD is your only drive, consider installing an internal hard drive for photos. Or just store your photos on your SSD (Operating System takes up about 1/2%) assuming it probably has 700-800 Gb of empty space after all programs, etc. If ever fills can always cross that bridge when it comes. (Obviously want to back up photos in the Cloud or off computer on portable storage).

I have Windows 10 installed on my PC's SSD, along with lots of programs, including ON1 2023. It shows 345 GB free of 476 GB. I use the program Sidebar Diagnostics, which shows all the major computer functions/statistics in real time; with 32 GB RAM, my software never has used more than 21% of the RAM - no matter what is going on. I have an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 GPU with 4 GB RAM - it never has run at more than 25% capacity. Internal storage is a 1 TB HDD - though storage requirements obviously depend only on "how much" you wish to store, and external backup always is necessary. There's nothing wrong with bigger drives and overkill on RAM - except waste of money!!!

There is no 8 TB SSD (especially) or HDD available for $50!!! - obviously a scam; don't even think about it!!! And in both, the brand does matter - and even the quality (and price) level within a brand (as in WD color designations).

Loren - in Beautiful Baguio City

ColonelButler Loc: Niagara-on-the-Lake ON Canada

Some worthwhile data to consider when selecting a hard drive. Real reliability data of a number of manufacturers and specific drive from Backblaze, a cloud based backup provider.

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-drive-stats-for-q2-2022/

sippyjug104 Loc: Missouri

Sadly, very sadly, there are far too many fake external storage devices claiming large storage capacity. Walmart sells one that claims 25TB for $25...yep, that's what it claims. When taken apart for inspection it is a 64GB mini SD card with a chip that provides a bogus reading of 25TB.

If something sounds too good to be true....it most often is not true.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

sippyjug104 wrote:

Sadly, very sadly, there are far too many fake external storage devices claiming large storage capacity. Walmart sells one that claims 25TB for $25...yep, that's what it claims. When taken apart for inspection it is a 64GB mini SD card with a chip that provides a bogus reading of 25TB.

If something sounds too good to be true....it most often is not true.

frankraney Loc: Clovis, Ca.

sippyjug104 wrote:

Sadly, very sadly, there are far too many fake external storage devices claiming large storage capacity. Walmart sells one that claims 25TB for $25...yep, that's what it claims. When taken apart for inspection it is a 64GB mini SD card with a chip that provides a bogus reading of 25TB.

If something sounds too good to be true....it most often is not true.

Yup

Dikdik Loc: Winnipeg, Canada

Two of my three external backup drives are SSD and one is a spinner (I like the term). I've not had a drive failure for over two decades... both those WDs and purchased at the same time. My son insists they were probably of the same bad 'lot'.

SSDs are more reliable, but when they go, they're gone! Using two external drives is a pretty safe alternative. With a spinner, there is a possibility for data recovery.

Seagate has a pretty good arrangement with a data recovery firm that will try to retrieve your data in the event of a failure. The price is modest (quite cheap) and I understand their success rate is over 90%. I use 3 drives because my data is critical and drives are cheap, but subject to a lightning strike getting past my UPS, I'm pretty confident. My spinner is Seagate 10TB, and my two SSDs are 2TB, each.

Just added... I don't use cloud storage and any time I take data out, it's on an encrypted USB stick, in case it gets lost.

Jeffcs Loc: Myrtle Beach South Carolina

I’d put that with the “1960 v8 Chevrolet $200 (corvette) story

Dikdik Loc: Winnipeg, Canada

Wanna buy a bridge?

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Dikdik wrote:

Wanna buy a bridge?

photoman43

mikee wrote:

I've recently purchased a gaming computer for photo editing. It has a 1 tb ssd for the operating system. My preference is to use an external drive for my data storage and not fill up my internal ssd. I see that one can purchase an 8 tb ssd on ebay new for under $50, or go name brand for half the capacity and $400. Should I get another external hard drive (mechanical) or external ssd? Does brand name matter? Thx.

For data storage on a desktop computer, I use spinning drives , two of them, installed in my desktop. My 1 TB ssd in the desktop is reserved for operating programs and not data storage. My internal HHDs for data storage are large--12 TB to 14 TB.

I also use external hard drives for data storage and moving image files and business files from my laptop to my desktop. I usually use a 1 or 2 TB SSD drive to do this. My computer guy does not recommend SSD drives for long term storage unless they are plugged in (turned on) from time to time as activation from time to time is needed to insure that data is not lost. As a result, I use large HHD drives in external hard drive enclosures for long term data storage and do not use SSD drives for long term data storage.

gwilliams6

BebuLamar wrote:

In most cases brand name doesn't matter much but in this case I think it does as the 8tb SSD for under $50 is in the category of too good to be true.

No one is selling an 8tb SSD for $50 unless it is hot, or a scam.

I use SSDs for portable storage as well as at-home alongside my disc drive storage. SSDs are solid state and less prone to wear and failure vs spinning disc drives, just a proven fact.

You can get larger capacity disc drives for less cost than the same size SSDs, but disc drives in my experience dont last as long under hard use. Never had an SSD fail yet, ever, but have had several WD disc drives fail over the years.

I prefer a combination of Seagate large capacity disc drives (10TB) , along with Sandisk SSDs (4TB) for my storage. The Seagate are having a better longevity than my WD large capacity drive drives have had.

I know my Sandisk SSDs are also made by WD, but there is a difference in the reliability, as the Sandisk SSDs have been bounced all around the world with me as a traveling pro photojournalist and never any failure , but my WD disc drives sitting comfortably in my home office have one by one died after a couple of years and i had to have Geek Squad recover the data . Geek Squad has confirmed that they are seeing WD disc drives failing at a faster rate than other brands. obviously not the quality-controlled WD of the past, that was the industry standard bearer. My Seagate large capacity disc drives have lasted much longer with no failures yet.

Look for sales on these Sandisk SSDs, they often go on big sales. They come in different speeds and capacities. The faster read/write speeds and larger capacities cost more. I now have six of them and they have been bulletproof for me as a pro.

https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-4TB-Extreme-Portable-SDSSDE81-4T00-G25/dp/B08RX3343D/ref=asc_df_B08RX3343D/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=524539433517&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=1044733005645156610&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9027222&hvtargid=pla-1130472663741&psc=1

Cheers and best to you .

sabfish

mikee wrote:

I've recently purchased a gaming computer for photo editing. It has a 1 tb ssd for the operating system. My preference is to use an external drive for my data storage and not fill up my internal ssd. I see that one can purchase an 8 tb ssd on ebay new for under $50, or go name brand for half the capacity and $400. Should I get another external hard drive (mechanical) or external ssd? Does brand name matter? Thx.

There have been many posts in other forums on scams selling fake ssd's on ebay. Just Google Scam SSD and ebay and you will find many links to click on. If it is too good to be true, it is. Go with Samsung, Crucial, Western Digital.