Question Advice for External Hard Disk Purchase

[Hemmer]

Which are any reliable external hard disks for backing up personal and work data, these days, in your personal experience? My old Maxtor hard disk (3TB) is giving signs it could die soon, so I need a new HD for backup my data. I was searching information and reading mixed reviews about WB and other brands and I can't decide which I'd be safer to buy. Any suggestions?

 

[punkncat]

IMO portable hard drives as back up biggest failure is the portable part. HDD just don't react well to being bumped around. If you truly want storage to be external/portable my suggestion is SSD. In the case that you are looking single drive with no redundancy I think I would look to put it inside one of your PC if space is available. Share on the network if needed.

edit to add- if you don't need the portability purchasing one of the portable HD options and then "shucking" it is cheaper than buying the same drive stand alone. I do suggest plugging it in to verify operation before ruining the warranty though.

 

[Bob.B]

Which are any reliable external hard disks for backing up personal and work data, these days, in your personal experience? My old Maxtor hard disk (3TB) is giving signs it could die soon, so I need a new HD for backup my data. I was searching information and reading mixed reviews about WB and other brands and I can't decide which I'd be safer to buy. Any suggestions?

I don't have a pref on brands you might want to check the warranty length.

 

[Hemmer]

IMO portable hard drives as back up biggest failure is the portable part. HDD just don't react well to being bumped around. If you truly want storage to be external/portable my suggestion is SSD. In the case that you are looking single drive with no redundancy I think I would look to put it inside one of your PC if space is available. Share on the network if needed.

edit to add- if you don't need the portability purchasing one of the portable HD options and then "shucking" it is cheaper than buying the same drive stand alone. I do suggest plugging it in to verify operation before ruining the warranty though.

Unfortunately my PC is a Surface, so upgrading the SSD isn't a viable solution.

Fortunately I don't need to move the drive around, so an external HD wouldn't get damaged from getting bumped around.

On a related note, it occurred to me that I could alternatively buy a couple more of micro-SD, probably SanDisk, if I can't decide on an external drive.

 

[Hemmer]

I don't have a pref on brands you might want to check the warranty length.

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll check that too to help me to decide.

 

[Eximo]

External 4TB SSD will set you back a little. A 4TB disk, not so much, maybe $100 with an enclosure.

I just use loose drives, plop them in an external dock for simple back ups and them put them on a shelf for a few months/years at a time.

I would say there is little difference between WD (Hitachi/Toshiba) and Seagate (Samsung). And they are pretty much it that is left in terms of manufacturers. All other brands are either owned by them or they are now the true OEM after having acquired the factories.

Picked myself up a WD Red Plus the other day. Seemed to be the safest choice. CMR drive rather than SMR. And I don't really care that it is 5400 RPM, performance is not that critical but the tales of SMR drives being extremely slow at certain tasks put me off.

 

[Hemmer]

External 4TB SSD will set you back a little. A 4TB disk, not so much, maybe $100 with an enclosure.

I just use loose drives, plop them in an external dock for simple back ups and them put them on a shelf for a few months/years at a time.

I would say there is little difference between WD (Hitachi/Toshiba) and Seagate (Samsung). And they are pretty much it that is left in terms of manufacturers. All other brands are either owned by them or they are now the true OEM after having acquired the factories.

Picked myself up a WD Red Plus the other day. Seemed to be the safest choice. CMR drive rather than SMR. And I don't really care that it is 5400 RPM, performance is not that critical but the tales of SMR drives being extremely slow at certain tasks put me off.

Thanks for all the helpful information! You helped me to make my mind.

 

[punkncat]

I just use loose drives, plop them in an external dock for simple back ups and them put them on a shelf for a few months/years at a time.

I agree. I still keep a couple of HDD as "on the shelf" backup, and have also been toying with the idea on SSD. Another method I used was with "SD" style flash memory. I got an insane deal on (whatever format) camera/photog style cards some years back being cleared out for pennies on a 1GB card. I used a bunch of them to back up some DVD backups I have. I still keep some critical information stored on writeable disk media as well.

 

[fzabkar]

Picked myself up a WD Red Plus the other day. Seemed to be the safest choice. CMR drive rather than SMR. And I don't really care that it is 5400 RPM, ...

Many of WD's "5400 RPM class" drives actually spin at 7200 RPM. To see if yours is one of these, try Victoria for Windows. Alternatively, upload a HD Tune read benchmark graph and I'll show you how to determine the real RPM.

 

[Eximo]

Many of WD's "5400 RPM class" drives actually spin at 7200 RPM. To see if yours is one of these, try Victoria for Windows. Alternatively, upload a HD Tune read benchmark graph and I'll show you how to determine the real RPM.

It just isn't something I care about. It is purely for bulk storage of old video files, backups of systems and files. Performance is not a huge factor with a backup drive.

If the rumors of a sharp drop in NAND flash pricing turns out to be correct, I may pick up a 4TB SSD. It is something I have been meaning to do, then I could significantly downsize my HTPC in volume.