What's the best backup drive?

[isaac956]

It all Depends on you on how you want to backup you can go for Cloud storage and or physical Hard Drive , external hard drive . if could storage use dropbox and if physical hard drive gwt western digital Blue 1tb 7200rpm thats what i got

 

[Guest]

Did anyone try the Seagate Backup Plus Slim? How is it?

 

[facultyrowreview]

RAID 5 Array is the best for use. You can increase capacity, speed, or data protection by buying an external RAID array

 

[jordandevin]

The Western Digital My Passport Ultra (2TB) is a reliable external hard drive with some premium features that make it more attractive than just buying a basic model. The color choices and optional Grip Packs allow you to customize the device to your personal aesthetic, and the 256-bit hardware encryption helps keep your files secure. The included three-year warranty is triple that offered with other basic models, and matches that of the Seagate Backup Plus Fast. The Seagate model remains our Editors' Choice for portable hard drives, because it's simply a better drive for getting projects done, since it's a faster performer and has double the capacity for only $0.06 per gigabyte.


https://www.tape4backup.com/hard-drives.php

 

[jdlech]

I have a 4 SSD raid 0 as my boot/OS/installed software (940GB total).
I have a 1TB mech drive for my libraries/archives.
But then, I have a 2TB drive just for backups, and my comp. does an incremental backup every other week.
But I also have a USB3/SATA converter, and another 2TB drive. Every other month, I backup everything via USB and store the drive in a closet.
For recovery, I have a USB stick with W10 installation, and my backup/restore software. I can restore everything from it using either my internal backup drive, or my USB.
I have a spare SSD in my closet just waiting for an SSD failure.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153112

 

[Cole_9]

I currently have a WD my passport drive. I only make full system backups to it, and I do this weekly. I have had the drive for at least a year now and so far no problems. I am looking at getting one of Samsung's new external solid state drives, can anyone tell me if those are worth the price?

 

[jacobwilliam1985]

Top 10 best external desktop and portable hard disk drives

1- Maxtor D3 Station

If you want to buy an external hard disk drive but don't want to break the bank, check out the D3 from Maxtor, which is now owned by Seagate.

Compatible with Mac and Windows devices, it is powered by a mains adaptor and offers a number of applications like AutoBackup, Secure Drive and SecretZone, all preloaded on the device.

2- Seagate 5TB Expansion

Like its sibling, the Seagate 5TB Expansion has 64MB of cache and demands an external power supply unit to get it going.

3- Seagate STEB4000200 4TB Expansion

It has a 4TB capacity, a 5900RPM rotational speed, 64MB of cache and, because it is a 3.5-inch model, will also need to be connected to the mains to work.

4- WD My Book 8TB

Note that the drive is cheaper than an equivalent 8TB internal hard drive which means that if you need a bunch of high capacity drives for your NAS, you might save yourself hundreds of pounds by buying those and taking the hard disk drive out.

5- Seagate Innov8 8TB

The Seagate 8TB Innov8 range is worth a mention. It is a normal-size 3.5-inch desktop hard disk drive but doesn't need an external power supply to run.

6- WD My Book Duo 16TB

This item can only be ordered on request but is worth the wait. It has two 3.5-inch 8TB WD Red HDD at its heart and although this is a NAS (network attached storage), it can still be used as a DAS.

7- Maxtor M3 4TB hard disk drive

Maxtor, a hard drive brand purchased by Seagate a few years ago, has quietly been revived and is our overall best buy when it comes to portable hard disk drive, models that can be powered using the USB port only.

8- WD My Passport 2TB

It can actually stream content to more than one device, acting like a small network attached storage. WD says that up to four HD videos can be streamed simultaneously thanks to the Wireless-N MIMO-enabled connectivity.

There's a SD card slot to backup all your content (albeit slowly) and its battery is big enough to power it for up to six hours (after that, you can always use a portable battery to charge it).

9- Seagate Wireless Plus 2TB

A special mention for this drive. If you're partial to Seagate for whatever reason, their Wireless Plus drive matches the WD drive above when it comes to capacity and connectivity.

It doesn't have a card reader and can connect only to three devices, but the Seagate Wireless Plus 2TB drive makes up for it by being much thinner and lighter. It also has a much longer battery life (up to 10 hours).

As for the WD model, there's a 5400RPM hard disk drive at its heart. It has a two-year warranty and you can use it as a Wi-Fi hub to share a single internet connection with up to seven devices.

10- iStorage diskAshur 2TB

iStorage hard disks are the choice of governments and multinational organisations around the world, with good reason – they're designed to make life very difficult for anybody who tries to access unauthorised data.

The PIN-protected drive can be set to self-destruct if tampered with, the data is encrypted (256-bit AES) and there are multiple forms of protection to ensure the bad guys don't get in no matter how persistent. When you consider all that extra security, the prices aren't too frightening, either.

Sure, it is expensive (costing around four times the price of an equivalent 2TB drive) and unlikely to be the fastest around but you do get something that's essentially uncrackable. Bear in mind, though, that you won't get any help if you happen to lose the password.

 

[Mowgli2909]

For storage on my system I have 2 x Samsung SM950 Pro NVME M.2 in RAID 0 and for backup I decided to stick with Samsung and have the Samsung M3 Slimline 2 TB USB 3.0; I've never had a problem with the brand nor do I expect any with this HDD. However, I am toying with the idea of an external SSD and the Samsung T3 USB 3.1 1 TB looks a good bet.

 

[Sailor R Thomas]

I personally use toys from Kingwin like those on this page: http://www.kingwin.com/satastorage/ . Lots of firms make things like these. Fit in a 5.25 inch drive bay, hold 3.5 inch drives. Has a latch to hold the 3.5 inch drive in place.

The power and sata cables attach to the bay device. When you put a drive in it, the drive is connected to the power and sata.

EDIT, @BG-52 below

Please also post your hardware, controller settings, an operating system version. The ability to recognize a hot-plugged drive depends on all three of these things as well as the electrical connection of the drive bay itself. I have found that, even with my best setup, if I remove a drive and put another in the same bay, it's not recognized until I force a disk rescan.

The bay is only one of the many ingredients.

This "hot-plugged" system with drive enclosures sounds like a great idea, and I'm seriously considering building one myself instead of buying another WD My Book. I like the fact that I could then use my own choice of reliable drives, too.

 

[Sailor R Thomas]

Top 10 best external desktop and portable hard disk drives

6- WD My Book Duo 16TB

Any variant of My Book *Duo* has serious potential flaws involving WD's poor drive encryption scheme that could result in complete data loss.

Read about it here: https://community.wd.com/t/prevent-data-loss-data-is-lost-forever-if-wd-drive-enclosure-fails-even-if-hard-drives-work-fine/67337

 

[Bluex]

LaCie makes a very nice backup drive. They use either WD or Seagate drives. They do use a somewhat proprietary power supply, which is a bad thing.

I always got mine second hand so I don't know where to buy them. I also like my iOmegas (which use Seagate drives). I also got them second hand. It just gives me peace of mind.

 

[waltercarroll]

A word about multiple drives: You can increase capacity, speed, or data protection by buying an external RAID array, but multiple drives add expense and (some) complexity. Once you connect a single-volume external RAID array to your PC or Mac, it will show up and act as any other external drive. After that, it can become more complex. You should consider a drive with support for RAID levels 1, 5, or 10 if you're storing really important data that you can't afford to lose. There are other RAID levels for speed and capacity, and both software and hardware RAID implementations.

 

[popatim]

well SSHD might be better option and if you can shell out more go for SSD.
then buy Hard Drive Enclosure Support.
Lacie and G-Drive are good too.
Latest RAID system HDD is also an option and if you want professional one go for Synology I guess.

But i think the best one would be extra internal/external HDD plus cloud storage!

SSHD is useless in a backup drive. The SSD portion of the drive only accelerates Frequently Read Data and since you will mostly write to the drive and hopefully never have to read from it the extra monies are better spend elsewhere or on a larger or better rated drive.

 

[popatim]

I personally don't care what you use as long as you have a backup.
Important data, IMO, needs multiple copies on more then one device and irreplaceable data (family pics & videos for example) hopefully will even have another copy stored offsite, like in a bank vault or you siblings basement, in case something terrible happens to your place (think bad fire).

I personally backup my irreplaceables 5 times. My pc (dedicated drive), Server (that makes another backup), external hdd, and two copies to DVD (still a cheap way to go) which 1 copy goes into my basement and the other into my sisters. The DVD's are a full backup yearly followed by incremental updates as needed. (~$50/yr)

 

[WyomingKnott]

For those of you who think five times is excessive, what popatim does may be unusual, but it is not unreasonable. How many copies of backed up media you have depends on how much you want to keep that material around, and how much work you are willing to put into it. There were businesses in the World Trade Center that kept backups in a closet near their computer room. There were businesses with main and backup datacenters on the East Coast, that lost both during the most recent great power outage. I've pulled back tapes from offsite storage and found that they were not readable; another copy might have saved our bacon. "Me hat's off to the Duke;" you are doing a serious job of data preservation there.

Myself, I am lazy, and my backups are in my basement. If, G*d forbid, my house were to burn down, backups would be way down on my list. Still, I'd want my photos, and not to have to pay for all my software over again, so if I were not lazy I'd drop off a copy at my father's house when I visit.

I'll pick on popatim a little, though, since we're on the same team. You dropped an apostrophe. Put the other DVD copy into your sister's basement, not into your "sisters." That was once suggested for the nuclear "football" - that it be implanted in an aide, and the President would have to use an axe to access (hah!) it. To give him a visceral image that he was about to kill a lot of people.

 

[Gopi_9]

Seagate or Wd passport are good back up drives cheers

 

[Bookmarkmywords]

My favorite back up drive is the Seagate 4TB Backup Plus Portable (2.5" USB3.0). Granted, it's slow as molasses but does not require a external power supply, has tons of space and you can buy one for ~$100 when it's on sale. You could put dozens of them in a small box and easily carry it out of your house if you need to leave in a hurry and cheap to mail to a backup destination.

 

[travistee]

I don't trust image backups. I make them to recover my system.
I just copy my c drive folders so I can see them without having to Rely on backup recovery working. That way I know I can get to what I really wanted to protect.

 

[jdlech]

I don't trust image backups. I make them to recover my system.
I just copy my c drive folders so I can see them without having to Rely on backup recovery working. That way I know I can get to what I really wanted to protect.

I would have thought your boot sector and partition information would be worth protecting.

 

[travistee]

Like I said I make image backups to recover my system. I copy my folders so I can get them even if I have image restore problems

 

[popatim]

So if your system goes down, does your backup become your 'only copy' or do you have a backup of the backup (stored on another device of course)?