Question Best setup for backup drive with a $100 budget?

[jtp86]

Hey guys, I have an old build with a 1TB WD Black HDD that's getting old now. I haven't had any problems with the drive, but it's nearing 7 years and I only have a partial 500GB external back up. Basically I want to set up a real backup drive where I can easily back up the entire system and I need some questions answered as to what the best choice and setup would be.

I was originally looking at either the WD Blue 1TB or 2TB drive as they're both pretty cheap on Amazon. I don't need a lot of extra disk space, but I figured with the 2TB drive, I could use my old 500 drive internally and back up the entire 1.5TB easily on the new drive. However, if this old WD Black drive should fail in the next year, this Blue drive will also become my default main drive, at least temporarily, so now I am also thinking of the RPM (the 2TB Blue only seems to come in 5400RPM, at least on Amazon) and not sure if this makes a big difference.

Another thing that worries me is failure. WD Black has been excellent so far, fast and reliable, though a bit noisy. I honestly don't know how reliable WD Blues are since I haven't used one daily for years, and since I will likely only be using the new Blue drive as a periodic backup, I won't know if it's going to fail in one month of daily use.

So my questions are:

1. If I am using this mainly as a backup and potentially a main drive if my current one should fail, should I get the 1TB Blue, 2TB Blue or 1TB Black? And will RPM make that big of a difference?

2. Is there a place where I can get a WD drive with an actual 2 year warranty? Amazon apparently is selling OEM drives which voids the warranty after 30 days...everything seems very dicey and unclear, not sure if New Egg or somewhere else is better in this department.

3. What is the best setup for what I want? Should I use my new drive in an external housing to backup everything once a week or should I use it as an internal backup so I can set up an automatic backup?


Sorry if these questions are redundant, I figured since I had a few and my situation is specific someone could give me some advice. I am ultimately leaning towards the 2TB WD Blue drive and using it in the external housing, I am just kind of paranoid about how reliable they are, especially if getting them from Amazon.

 

[geofelt]

First of all, your backup should be EXTERNAL.
If you should contract a virus, ransomware, or a fire you do not want your backup to be compromised.
That is easiest with a usb connected backup enclosure.
Connect it when you do a backup and disconnect it after.

As to the merits of different colors of WD drives, here is a nice article.

Understanding the WD Rainbow

WD has a very diverse hard drive product line that can be difficult to decipher at times. In this article we go over the various 3.5inch hard drive lines from WD to help you decide which is right for your system.

www.pugetsystems.com

How much data is actually used on your windows "C" drive?
Consider using a Samsung evo ssd and move your C drive to the ssd.
Samsung has a nice move utility to do this.
Not only will you have vastly improved your performance, but your current WD black can now be used for backup.
Buy an external usb enclosure for it.
I use one with an on/off switch that I only turn on when I do a backup.
Or, you can plug/unplug a usb connected enclosure and put it in a safer place.
If you are nervous about the possibility of a failure of the black, just set it aside. You could boot to your current status any time you want.

 

[jtp86]

Unfortunately I can't afford to get both an SSD and a backup right now and I need a proper backup first. Like I said, the Black drive is still completely fine but it's nearing 7 years old and as we all know, anything can happen suddenly, especially at that age. I want a complete backup.

MY C drive is nearly full, though there are several large files on it I need to get rid of. But in truth, I'd say probably 600-700GB of that is data I want backed up, the rest (programs, settings etc) I want backed up for pure convenience should anything happen. Then I plan on using my old 500GB drive for extra space and backing it up too.

But thanks for the article and the suggestion. I will continue using the external housing for backup. When I have some more money, I will consider getting an SSD. I wanted to grab one for my build originally but I already spent too much on the other components.