External Hard Drive Recommendations Needed

[raybal5]

If you truly want to protect your data, an external hard drive is not really the best solution.

Ask yourself what you are protecting against? external hard drives are only good protection against the failure of your PC/Laptops equipment failure. What about other nasties like fire or theft? In these 2 cases the external drive is going to be taken or destroyed along with your original.

And are you really going to be vigilant and make backups ALL the time? Or will you start out strong then get lazy?

The only safe way is an automated cloud backup. I used Carbonite for years and was very happy. (www.carbonite.com) but there are many more to choose from.

Once you set it up, the first upload can take a day (or more) because it uploads everything but from then on it is fast as it only updates changes.

You schedule the backup during times that you are away from the machine or at low priority so that it doesn't slow you down while using your computer to do stuff.

The best part is that recovery is very easy. (Make sure testing the recovery is done before you really need it).

So if someone steals your computer or your house is destroyed - you still have your data and you can be as lazy as you want to be.

[Andre0720]

Depends on your budget.

Warranty doesn't mean much. If the drive dies, they'll replace it, but you'll lose all your data. Which is something you would not like, given the original post.

In general, WD drives are more stable than Hitachi, Samsung and especially Seagate. If you see other brands, they likely use one of the before mentioned drives inside.

So personally I'd go for WD, if budget was very low, and keep 2 copies, then check SMART data regularly to see if drives are getting close to failure.

If your budget is a little higher, you may want to consider a NAS. Network Attached Storage looks just like a big external hard disk, but has a network plug at the back. They also normally have a computer in it (normally some sort of Linux-based) which handles the data storage.

As said, they are normally connected via gigabit LAN.

Now why NAS - Usually NAS has 2 hard disk bays or more. When you set up the hard drives, you can use RAID mirroring, which basically makes the 2 drives mirror each other, and allow you to replace one hard disk with a blank new one without losing data, should a hard disk failure occur.

Should you go NAS way, make sure that you put it on UPS, as power failure can cause issues to both drives during write.

I believe there are dual bay RAID USB drives out there as well, which might be a not much cheaper option, but connectable locally, not only over network cable.

If you go for NAS, stick with NetGear ReadyNAS and Buffalo, and if you can, WD Caviar Red drives. Western Digital also makes NAS boxes, but they are pricy.

Just my 2 cents...

Agree.

But I found that the small USB ones, 500 gigs or one Tera are better, compared to the bigger discs that require external power, the same as the internal ones, and that are connected with the same wiring as a printer for example.

Western Digital, Buffalo should give no problems.

[Thakkar]

Apple's TimeMachine is a good high quality backup choice, though expensive. They use server quality drives that are very reliable.

For cloud backup, I've just signed on to DollyDrive—it looks like a pretty good solution for the lazy and less computer literate, like me, among us.

T

[avander]

Regarding the cloud solutions,

I have always had a problem with data sitting on a server god knows where or how physically secure or otherwise it may be and I have absolutely no control over it.

Of course, they can never get hacked or have other problems, can they??....

Possibly I am just overcautious but at least I control my own destiny with access and control of my own important data.

[XINLOI]

Just putting in my 2 cents worth. I would use a time machine from Apple, 3 flops (terabytes) and work well with Mac and PC's. I've had a 2 flop for 3 years now, no problems yet and will continue to use it. The next will be fusion drive, 3 flop and 768Gb flash storage.

[notmyself]

Edit. I use cloud storage.

Edited April 9, 2013 by notmyself

[iamariva1957]

I have had a WD 500gig Passport external drive for the past 3 years and it has traveled with me thoughout that time. I back up every two weeks through Norton 360 (manually) and I have never had a problem once (of course now after saying this... the thing will self destruct... natch). WD now offers larger stoarge drives. But again, I have never had a problem.