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Archive 2013 · Which external hard drive

  
 
k clayton
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Which external hard drive


I need a couple new hard drives for photo storage. I buy 2 and double store photos in case 1 crashes (hoping they both don't) Is there one brand more reliable that the other? Thanks


Jul 09, 2013 at 09:48 AM
15Bit
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Which external hard drive


Bear in mind that no matter who you buy the external box from it will almost certainly contain a drive from either Seagate or Western Digital. Ask around and you will find people who laud each manufacturer and those who have nightmare stories from each also. What this tells you is that it doesn't matter which manufacturer you buy from.

The design of the box itself is important though. In an external box i primarily look for a design that has good cooling, as overheating is what will kill your drive the fastest. Consequently i never buy "external drives" as i rarely see one that i feel is well designed in this respect. I instead buy separate drives and drive enclosures for portable drives, and for archive purposes i just use bare drives with a hotplug dock.



Jul 09, 2013 at 11:42 AM
k clayton
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Which external hard drive


Thank you 15 bit. I don't leave them plugged in long just enough time to dump some files. Good to know about the drives though


Jul 09, 2013 at 12:11 PM
Bernie
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Which external hard drive


I've had both WD and Seagate with no problems. I buy Seagate now for consistency of technology.

My photos are on a thunderbolt attached 3TB. Backup is via 4 TB Time Machine and a 2nd 3 TB Time Machine drive.So in the end, 3 copies...



Jul 09, 2013 at 12:45 PM
Ho1972
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Which external hard drive


Cooling is important but so is the bridge chipset that the drive enclosure employs. Oxford is or was among the best, jmicron and another vendor or two I can't recall are among those to be avoided. Enclosure manufacturers don't always make it easy to identify the chipsets, unfortunately.

FWIW, I recieved a WD MyBook Essentials 2TB drive as a gift and it's a POS. Even with the latest firmware it rarely will connect and be recognized on the first try when using USB 3.0. Of course my computer's chipset could be at fault as well. Maybe others have had better luck...



Jul 09, 2013 at 04:53 PM
jrscls
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Which external hard drive


I'm using this dual dock with WD Green drives with USB 3, works great.

http://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-SuperSpeed-3-5in-Docking-Station/dp/B005JFU16E/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1373407541&sr=8-5&keywords=Startech+usb+3+dock



Jul 09, 2013 at 05:06 PM
Gravitytoy
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Which external hard drive


I just picked up a WD Thunderbolt Duo 3Tb drive. It's striped, and pretty fast. I moved all my images from my local HDD to the new drive and haven't noticed any hit on performance. My LR catalog has about 40k photos. I should also mention that the drive is very quiet... I can barely hear it running, and it's 15" from my keyboard!

Good luck w/ your choice.

-Rich



Jul 09, 2013 at 10:53 PM
sjms
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Which external hard drive


5 years with a Drobo . currently running a first gen S thru an eSATA port. thunderbolt sounded sorta nice in the beginning but just wasn't worth the effort. TB2 just around the corner.


Jul 10, 2013 at 08:38 AM
leethecam
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Which external hard drive


Drobo 4-bay for RAWs
Drobo 4-bay for finalised images
LaCie 5-Bay RAID for video material
LaCie drives for individual back-ups of each.

I'm reliably informed that metal-housed (or the small Rugged) LaCie drives contain Seagate. I've had several WD's go down on me and just one Seagate. With over 30T of storage I've found Seagate to be more reliable than others - although I don't trust anything enough to not need a back-up.



Jul 11, 2013 at 01:47 PM
uscmatt99
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Which external hard drive


I don't know what your storage needs are, but here's what I did. I got an OWC Mercury Elite Pro enclosure with two 3TB drives, and set it up in RAID-1. I was doing the double storage thing on my own, but I prefer the RAID-1 as there is an immediate indication of a non-functional drive, so I can swap out the bad one for a good one which is then repopulated.

In my case I got the enclosure with eSATA ports and a Lacie 2x eSATA to ThunderBolt adapter, so that I can use just one TB port on my MBP and keep the USB3 ports for other peripherals. It's recognized as one volume, and is a software RAID-1 that was easy to set up.

I've also got a USB3 On The Go Pro from OWC with 1TB 7200rpm drive. I use this for backup while traveling, keeping my photos on the cards and backed up to the drive.

I'm able to work off of either drive setup in Lightroom 5, and this is on a 13" rMBP with 256GB SSD and 8GB ram, i5 processor. I do this for fun, and my setup is probably insufficient for professional workflows, especially where there is video involved, but it works for me.

Edit:
The dual drive enclosure makes a fair amount of fan noise, but I guess that cooler drives are less likely to fail. The portable drive is essentially noiseless, and has a nice exposed heat sink on the bottom with tiny rubber feet to keep it off the surface, and acrylic casing elsewhere.



Jul 11, 2013 at 05:50 PM
Bijltje
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · Which external hard drive


I used to have WD mybook drives, now replaced them with (bigger) LaCie D2 Quadra drives.

Have 2 of them in RAID 1 so there is always a backup.

With USB 3 they run pretty fast, no complaints.



Jul 11, 2013 at 07:13 PM
jimmy462
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · Which external hard drive


Hi k clayton,

After my own personal research, years ago, I decided on going with LaCie. When it came time to upgrade my computer my research again pointed to LaCie, And with my current desktop setup I just went a bought LaCie and stopped all the worrying. Zero failures, zero headaches, I love the aluminum housings, over-heating has never been a concern, they always do what I ask them...and they look purty. I'll be investing in my first RAID next year, I'll be choosing one of their offerings.

That's what's worked for me!
Jimmy G



Jul 11, 2013 at 09:06 PM
sjms
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · Which external hard drive


I do have some smaller drives which I use on trips. all housings are OWC. throw my own drives with good warranties in them which is longer then any integrator like LaCie. generally 3 years.
I usually don't need to pay a premium to install a HD in a housing that takes under 5 minutes.



Jul 11, 2013 at 10:46 PM
Bearmann
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · Which external hard drive


If you decide to go with internal drives, these WD 2 TB are on sale an Newegg currently:

Western Digital WD Green WD20EZRX 2TB
ntelliPower 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive

with coupon: EMCXNWV22 $84.99
EXPIRES 7/14/2014

I do what 15bit does with a hot dock. I never had good luck with external drives. The software that comes with them invariably conflicts with something, and they become unrecognizable.



Jul 12, 2013 at 02:58 PM
peter_n
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · Which external hard drive


I also use simple OWC enclosures connected with Firewire 800 to the PC, plenty fast enough for me. No RAID. I format all my hard drives as basic and not dynamic. This enables me to take any drive from anywhere in my systems and plug it in anywhere else and I can read and write to it. If connection electronics/firmware fails somewhere I can just unhook the drive and connect it somewhere else.

WRT drives for storage, Western Digital Red are very good at the value end of the spectrum, Hitachi enterprise drives will give you the best MTBF specs over the long term. Hitachi Ultrastar and Deskstar are also the most expensive but you can get new 2TB Hitachi Deskstar drives very cheaply these days and the 3TB drives are beginning to drop in price too.




Jul 13, 2013 at 09:57 AM
BigTam
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p.1 #16 · p.1 #16 · Which external hard drive


One point that hasn't been made: Sometimes, a particular batch of drives has a problem that QA didn't catch. So if you buy two drives, either buy two different manufacturers, or two different models, whatever, just make sure that the drives are from different batches. Doesn't happen often, but if you do get a bad batch, the likelihood of BOTH drives failing - which is normally extremely low - is very much higher.


Jul 15, 2013 at 11:02 AM
hobbit
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p.1 #17 · p.1 #17 · Which external hard drive


Sorry if I missed this, but can you daisy chain the OWC Newer Tech Voyager Q so that you can mirror the drives?


Aug 31, 2013 at 07:07 AM
sjms
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p.1 #18 · p.1 #18 · Which external hard drive


OWC enclosures with you favorite flavor of HD. warranty will vary per drive chosen. this way you control your own product.


Aug 31, 2013 at 04:05 PM
shutterbug guy
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p.1 #19 · p.1 #19 · Which external hard drive


Western Digital Passports, have a collection of 1tb's and now have progressed to 2tb's. They're cheap and I buy them in pairs. Very handy as I always travel with one and keep the other in a different location.

Roger



Aug 31, 2013 at 07:51 PM
tjambga
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p.1 #20 · p.1 #20 · Which external hard drive


Just saw this link and for my two cents worth - I had a Western Digital Passport crash on me and lost everything. Would not recommend.


Sep 03, 2013 at 10:30 AM
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