External Hard Drives: Hello all. I know this has cropped up before but I need another external hard drive. I have had Seagate in the past with no problems currently I have a Toshiba.

PW4GDF

Hello all.
I know this has cropped up before but I need another external hard drive. I have had Seagate in the past with no problems currently I have a Toshiba. My laptop is about 4 years old so I need to get everything off it. The price difference between and 1 & 2 tb is not much (Amazon) suggestions welcome.
Thanks.

JPL

Just get a drive big enough for your backup and do the backup. That is all there is to do ;)

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

An HGST 3 or 4TB external would be my first choice based on reported reliability ( https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-reliability-stats-q1-2016/ )

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

I have two WD My Passport 1Tb USB pocket drives. They seem to be sufficient for me as primary and secondary backups.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

--Bob

TriX wrote:

An HGST 3 or 4TB external would be my first choice based on reported reliability ( https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-reliability-stats-q1-2016/ )

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

(1) get the largest drives you can afford. It will cover future file generation.
(2) don't just get one. You need a minimum of two backup drives (in case one goes bad) and preferably three.
(3) you probably should get a new set of drives every few years to offset aging of the hardware.

speters Loc: Grangeville/Idaho

PW4GDF wrote:

Hello all.
I know this has cropped up before but I need another external hard drive. I have had Seagate in the past with no problems currently I have a Toshiba. My laptop is about 4 years old so I need to get everything off it. The price difference between and 1 & 2 tb is not much (Amazon) suggestions welcome.
Thanks.

Seagate just came out with a new one, it is very small (size of a pack of cigarettes), so, nice to take on the road, under 200 bucks ($178), but quite powerful (5TB)!

Kmgw9v Loc: Miami, Florida

PW4GDF wrote:

Hello all.
I know this has cropped up before but I need another external hard drive. I have had Seagate in the past with no problems currently I have a Toshiba. My laptop is about 4 years old so I need to get everything off it. The price difference between and 1 & 2 tb is not much (Amazon) suggestions welcome.
Thanks.

What kind of advice do you expect? But the cheapest hard drive you can find and don't worry about it?

a6k Loc: Detroit & Sanibel

Local backup is good. I do it on two redundant HDD's. (Mac TimeMachine). But if you really value your files, you should also subscribe to a good "cloud" backup service. It's outside the scope of this posting to say which one but be aware that not all cloud space is fully suitable as remote backup. I can give more advice on this with PM or email if asked but I don't want to preach. At least, not here.

OK, so why have remote? It's really simple: fire, flood, windstorm, theft, vandalism, electrical storms and other real risks that could destroy your backups at the same time as your originals.

brucewells Loc: Central Kentucky

DirtFarmer wrote:

(1) get the largest drives you can afford. It will cover future file generation.
(2) don't just get one. You need a minimum of two backup drives (in case one goes bad) and preferably three.
(3) you probably should get a new set of drives every few years to offset aging of the hardware.

rook2c4 Loc: Philadelphia, PA USA

DirtFarmer wrote:

(1) get the largest drives you can afford. It will cover future file generation.
(2) don't just get one. You need a minimum of two backup drives (in case one goes bad) and preferably three.
(3) you probably should get a new set of drives every few years to offset aging of the hardware.

Why get the largest drive one can afford? Especially if the plan is to replace it every few years with a new one. Of course one may want to increase the size of the replacement drives over the years as the images accumulate, but to start off with an enormous drive seems like a big waste of money to me.

LoneRangeFinder Loc: Left field

I have 5 seagates-- one with only time machine updates. I recently had to use it to restore lost data. Fortunately, I had just run it so I lost at most a day's worth of work.

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

rook2c4 wrote:

Why get the largest drive one can afford? Especially if the plan is to replace it every few years with a new one. Of course one may want to increase the size of the replacement drives over the years as the images accumulate, but to start off with an enormous drive seems like a big waste of money to me.

I guess I should rephrase that.
Get a drive that's a little larger than you need right now. Hopefully you will take some more photos to be backed up.

Backup is not just for your photos -- it's for all your other files also. So the drive should allow for future usage as well as what you need at the moment. You have to evaluate (1) how much you need right now and (2) the rate at which you produce new files (photos, emails, word processing, program configuration files, all that stuff and more).

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

PW4GDF wrote:

Hello all.
I know this has cropped up before but I need another external hard drive. I have had Seagate in the past with no problems currently I have a Toshiba. My laptop is about 4 years old so I need to get everything off it. The price difference between and 1 & 2 tb is not much (Amazon) suggestions welcome.
Thanks.

I like HGST Ultradesk Enterprise, designed for 24/7 use. Never shop for hard drive bargains - sales, yes; bargains, no. I just had a WD Black fail after less than two years. Because it has a five-year warranty, they are sending me a new one.

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B004P8J3U6/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

NorthPacific

PW4GDF wrote:

Hello all.
I know this has cropped up before but I need another external hard drive. I have had Seagate in the past with no problems currently I have a Toshiba. My laptop is about 4 years old so I need to get everything off it. The price difference between and 1 & 2 tb is not much (Amazon) suggestions welcome.
Thanks.

I use Transcend externals....they are built to military grade standards and need no aux power source....Amazon has good prices....never had one fail and I have about a dozen of them....mostly 1TB......the bigger they are, the more stuff you can lose!!..so you have to be careful.