Portable hard drives

I have a transcend 2tb - £87 Amazon - works fine for me..
Don't see the point in buying anything that isn't USB3.
 
sorry should have mentioned - it works so well that I'm thinking of getting another.
 
I noticed a good selection on ebuyer, and the prices seem to have come down a bit even the 2TB ones seem reasonable.
There was a survey doing the rounds that had Seagate worst for sudden failure, Western Digital was among the best.
 
MyPassport 1Tb £39 at Staples

MyPassport 2Tb £80 Amazon

USB3
 
I've got a WD MyPassport 2TB....never had any issues with it, except it's already nearly full, so I'll have to buy another.
 
Don't see the point in buying anything that isn't USB3.
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The speed of most external hard drives will not benefit one jot from USB 3.0 support
At least it shows that for some potential buyers, marketing and advertising campaigns are more effective at selling goods than the actual factual truthful specifications.
 
Guys, wouldnt the problem be, getting a 1 or 2tb drive like putting all your eggs in one basket? Wouldnt it be better to get a few 500gig drives?
 
Redsnappa,

I really don't understand that answer...

Why would you not advise buying the quickest easily available tech - most computers have USB3 now & its very reliable. ?
 
Raincloud said:
Guys, wouldnt the problem be, getting a 1 or 2tb drive like putting all your eggs in one basket? Wouldnt it be better to get a few 500gig drives?
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Get two 2tb drives and make sure they are synched regularly. Any drive that isn't backed up is a disaster waiting to happen!
 
I'm looking for a new one. I've had a seagate one for a few years. Rock solid stable, then last week, I moved all my photos and files to it while I cleared out my storage drive and the damn thing died, wiping out everything. Gutted :(

I've got no luck with this sort of thing! I'm wondering whether I should just get a load of large internal drives now.
 
As mentioned do not rely on a single external backup drive, also remember it is your backup so do not leave it connected to the PC or MAC any longer than required......................why do I say that well IMO the death of HDD's is accelerated if they are run too hot for too long too frequently. My PC has the internal drives with fans actively blowing air across them but external drives are of course in unventilated enclosures and though they no doubt dissipate heat well allowing them to 'heat soak' to me is wrong.

Oh the other reason to remember it is your backup....................if you have precious "must not be lost" images keep one off site as a mitigation against loss due to a calamity befalling your house/premises. And as you need to add to it do so with the 2nd one and then swap that out with the one currently offsite.


Lastly, HDD's it has been said for years come in two versions ~ those that have failed and those that will fail, so statistically the more separate physical drives both internal & external you can copy your image files (and other important documents) onto the better if only on the basis of 'not all your eggs in one basket....'

FWIW I use WD drives for all the internal ones and Freecom Tough Drives (not sure I recall what brand drives they use?) for the external ones.
 
Bluesmachine said:
I'm looking for a new one. I've had a seagate one for a few years. Rock solid stable, then last week, I moved all my photos and files to it while I cleared out my storage drive and the damn thing died, wiping out everything. Gutted :(

I've got no luck with this sort of thing! I'm wondering whether I should just get a load of large internal drives now.
Click to expand...
As everyone says multiple external drives with EVERYTHING on rotated to an offsite location (office draw in my case) the only other option I would consider is a cloud backup solution but my broadband connection is slow and I'm happy with what I have at the minute.
 
redsnappa said:
The speed of most external hard drives will not benefit one jot from USB 3.0 support
At least it shows that for some potential buyers, marketing and advertising campaigns are more effective at selling goods than the actual factual truthful specifications.
Click to expand...

If you say so. My USB2 hard drives Max out at circa 35megabytes per second transfer. My USB3 hard drive runs at about 110megabytes per second transfer. This is both real usage and benchmarks...

There is also a lot of evidence that drives that are run at a consistently warm temperature last a lot longer than those that are kept too cold or those that are heat cycled. The main reasoning behind unplugging a backup external drive is to take it to a separate location and/or to keep it protected from viruses/cryptolocker type infections.
 
a1ex2001 said:
As everyone says multiple external drives with EVERYTHING on rotated to an offsite location (office draw in my case) the only other option I would consider is a cloud backup solution but my broadband connection is slow and I'm happy with what I have at the minute.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I normally have two backups as well as the original file. Sods law that I moved the folder to the other drive when I did. I was having a couple of problems with a BSOD due to a driver and thought I'd move them over as I wasn't sure it was the internal HDD failing. I'm going to try taking it to bits as the unit isn't detecting any power, so it may just be the sealed plug or power connector. I've got a new kitten, so I'll check for nibble marks too :D

Oh I've still got the RAW files and the catalogue backed up so it's not the end of the world. It just means reprocessing photos in this case. 22.6gb of them :|
 
redsnappa said:
The speed of most external hard drives will not benefit one jot from USB 3.0 support
Click to expand...

Er, wrong. Just Google USB2 vs USB3 hard drives and you'll see that everybody else in the known universe gets improved speeds. Perhaps you need to be looking at your USB3 implementation.
 
Raincloud said:
What is a good free program to sync the files?
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I use robocopy and a couple of batch files. Very quick, reliable and configurable, just need to spend the time learning how to use is.
 
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