External hard drive for backup
- Thread starter Mick616
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I have a couple of 4tb western digital drives that seem good. About £60 each recertified from the maker. I also store older images on them, and read times are decent for an external HDD.
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Hello Mick
hard drives are the least reliable part of a PC, with power supplies perhaps a close second.
I suppose, if your current total ‘used’ space is well under 1 Gb, that would be a pointer.
They are remarkable cheap now, so there isn’t a huge difference between 1 & 2 Gb.
hard drives are the least reliable part of a PC, with power supplies perhaps a close second.
I suppose, if your current total ‘used’ space is well under 1 Gb, that would be a pointer.
They are remarkable cheap now, so there isn’t a huge difference between 1 & 2 Gb.
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Can I please ask which specific model was it that you bought?
OP
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WD 2tb my passport
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Thank you
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I now only have spinning rust in my NASs and for monthly backups so I went solid state with this one from Crucial. I know it's three times the price of what you've ordered but I felt it was worth it for the reduced size and increased durability.
Very good advice, Seagate have a higher failure rate than WD in my experience. I also suggest backing up to your hard drive AND somewhere on the cloud. You can never be too careful with data.
Synology or QNAP NAS is a good option for data redundancy and you can use them for a bunch of other things like virtual machines if you are so inclined.
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But not exactly a bargain price for an amateur Togger looking after his data, unfortunately.
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Yes it is a good option and I have tried it but prefer the standalone HDD option. I have a usb 3 dock that takes two 2.5/3.5 HDD and that works fine for me.
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Perhaps I'm a little paranoid but I have 4 2TB drives with everything backed up on. 
2 are WD my passport and the others are Transcend and Intenso. The WD ones I bought from WD as recertified for about £40 each last year. I set up an alert on Hot UK Deals for external hard drives and buy them when they are super low in price.
2 are WD my passport and the others are Transcend and Intenso. The WD ones I bought from WD as recertified for about £40 each last year. I set up an alert on Hot UK Deals for external hard drives and buy them when they are super low in price.
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for storage and backup,are HDDSATA still preferred over SSD for longevity or is there little differenece?
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Two advantages:-
Price/Capacity Costs
In the evnt of failure a mechanical disk may be recoverable, but an SSD is toast!
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On a side related note....
I have been re-reviewing the possible options to add USB3 to my older PC which has PCI Express2.0 Standard slots.
I have found that some cards say the chipset is supported natively under W10 so a big tick for that to reduce the potential for poor compatibility of drivers!
All are reduced 'short' connectors but my next fastest PCI slot after the x16 used by the GPU is the x8 slot and both those slots are the longer ones. So the question is, is the PCI slot wiring suitable for using such shorter connection 'sets' such that most of the x8 slot would be unused or are these sort of cards obligated to utilise the minimal x1 PCI slots???
PS I am well aware that PCI 2.0 standard is slower than PCI 3.0 standard...................but provided the card will deliver faster USB than 2.0 I would be content, though the closer to USB 3 speed the better
PPS here is scan of the manual page showing the PCI slots to illustrate what I meant about the slot sizes
And this for clarity is one example of the type of card I am referring to re: short connector.
I have been re-reviewing the possible options to add USB3 to my older PC which has PCI Express2.0 Standard slots.
I have found that some cards say the chipset is supported natively under W10 so a big tick for that to reduce the potential for poor compatibility of drivers!
All are reduced 'short' connectors but my next fastest PCI slot after the x16 used by the GPU is the x8 slot and both those slots are the longer ones. So the question is, is the PCI slot wiring suitable for using such shorter connection 'sets' such that most of the x8 slot would be unused or are these sort of cards obligated to utilise the minimal x1 PCI slots???
PS I am well aware that PCI 2.0 standard is slower than PCI 3.0 standard...................but provided the card will deliver faster USB than 2.0 I would be content, though the closer to USB 3 speed the better
PPS here is scan of the manual page showing the PCI slots to illustrate what I meant about the slot sizes
And this for clarity is one example of the type of card I am referring to re: short connector.
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and i guess speed isnt really an issue on storage?
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Yes and you should buy the right type of HDD for the intended use - for eaxmple with WD they colour co9de their drives
WD Hard Drive Color Differences - Blue, Green, Black, Red, Purple
WD has Green HDD/Blue HDD/Black HDD/Red HDD/Purple HDD, also the Enterprise grade HDD. Each of color can represent the application that HDD fits. What's the difference between them?
I have Red in my NAS along with a purple for my CCTV, and Black drives in my main PC supporting SSD's
Blue is fine for USB caddy backup type drives.
I think SSD is more reliable. No mechanical parts is better than mechanical by any stretch. Whether it is worth the money or not is only known to you.
Here is the latest data from Backblaze who publish their failure rates periodically.
www.tomshardware.com
Here is the latest data from Backblaze who publish their failure rates periodically.
Study Shows SSDs Are More Reliable than HDDs
An excellent side effect of no moving parts
Yes and you should buy the right type of HDD for the intended use - for eaxmple with WD they colour co9de their drives
WD Hard Drive Color Differences - Blue, Green, Black, Red, Purple
WD has Green HDD/Blue HDD/Black HDD/Red HDD/Purple HDD, also the Enterprise grade HDD. Each of color can represent the application that HDD fits. What's the difference between them?www.unifore.net
I have Red in my NAS along with a purple for my CCTV, and Black drives in my main PC supporting SSD's
Blue is fine for USB caddy backup type drives.
I would go Red Pro in NAS but in essence I fully agree with you.
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I think SSD is more reliable. No mechanical parts is better than mechanical by any stretch. Whether it is worth the money or not is only known to you.
Here is the latest data from Backblaze who publish their failure rates periodically.
Study Shows SSDs Are More Reliable than HDDs
An excellent side effect of no moving parts
Thats a little misleading, as the average age of HDD's under test is several years older than the SSDs, I don't doubt long term SSDs will be the weapon of choice, but for Jo Public, they are still an expensive option, I have 16Tb in my NAS drive, and 8Tb in my main PC (along with SSDs) - buying high capacity SSDs for these would set me back something north of 2K (6 x 4Tb SSD)
I’m 100% with you on this, there is no doubt value for money is NOT on SSD for the next few years. The average age of the HDDs was also noted in the article but it remains true that SSD is more reliable. Whether that kind of reliability is worth the money is another discussion and between SSD or good NAS I think NAS wins.
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ok let me be a little more definitive????
i want to have my photos app on my internal SSD on my Imac,I want my photo library on the external drive so i click on a photo do some editing and done.
Im only needing for this project a 550gig drive,if i go ssd im looking at £71 for the samsung T7,if i go hdd im looking at Lacie 1TB same price,yes i get an xtra half a TB ,forget that and do you think in practice the SSD would be more nippy or will it be curtailed by the connection,both usb C ?
i want to have my photos app on my internal SSD on my Imac,I want my photo library on the external drive so i click on a photo do some editing and done.
Im only needing for this project a 550gig drive,if i go ssd im looking at £71 for the samsung T7,if i go hdd im looking at Lacie 1TB same price,yes i get an xtra half a TB ,forget that and do you think in practice the SSD would be more nippy or will it be curtailed by the connection,both usb C ?
ok let me be a little more definitive????
i want to have my photos app on my internal SSD on my Imac,I want my photo library on the external drive so i click on a photo do some editing and done.
Im only needing for this project a 550gig drive,if i go ssd im looking at £71 for the samsung T7,if i go hdd im looking at Lacie 1TB same price,yes i get an xtra half a TB ,forget that and do you think in practice the SSD would be more nippy or will it be curtailed by the connection,both usb C ?
If it was me I would buy the Crucial MX500 (500GB for £55 or 1TB for £85) with the Sabrent external enclosure. The 500GB is cheaper than the T7 with a longer warranty and it is a better SSD altogether. I dare say the MX500 is the best mainstream SSD on the market. I have two running flawlessly, one in a laptop and one in exactly the setup above.
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This really - I wouldn't go less than 1tb for the SSD because you will find you need more space soon enough and SSD slows as it nears max capacity.
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I've ordered a Sandisk Extreme portable SSD which are extremely well reviewed.
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I don’t know about that. NVME is double the price of SATA SSD, I don’t think it’s anywhere near attractive pricing.Hmm! When needed I think I would be torn between ^^^ one and the Crucial X8
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Hmm! When needed I think I would be torn between ^^^ one and the Crucial X8
I got the 1TB for £112 from Amazon Warehouse. It's the one one that seems to get 100% reviews from everyone, including us MAC users and that's from over 2k reviews. Sandisk cards have always been spot on for me so I'd expect this SSD to be the same.
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Fair point.....my "go to" CF and now SD cards have always been SanDisk. But when I updated my PC with new C & E drives I got Crucial MX50O series ones.
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Yep, I've used the Crucials before in an old MacBook.