Best portable hard drive?

[max22]

Size 2 TB to 4 TB

 

$100 to $200 looking to spend

 

Should I get a 3.5 or 2.5 external hard drive ?

[Hum]

I trust Western Digital:

 

example:

 

http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Portable-Hard-Drive-WDBU6Y0020BBK-NESN/dp/B00DULWSXI/ref=sr_1_sc_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1419255104&sr=8-2-spell&keywords=western+digital+external+hatd+drive

 

Maybe buy two 2 TB drives to avoid losing so much data at once.

[max22]

I trust Western Digital:

 

example:

 

http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Portable-Hard-Drive-WDBU6Y0020BBK-NESN/dp/B00DULWSXI/ref=sr_1_sc_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1419255104&sr=8-2-spell&keywords=western+digital+external+hatd+drive

 

Maybe buy two 2 TB drives to avoid losing so much data at once.

 

How long is the warranty ?

[Hum]

1 year or you can buy a 2-year for $5.60 more.

[max22]

Is there a 4 TB  version or ever will be ? I kinda need at least 4 TB for backup.

[Luc2k]

You can buy a 4TB drive with a 3.5" enclosure.

[+BudMan MVC]

4TB for backup.. Curious what your backing up.. If home movies/picture/created content then I am with you. Why does it have to be portable? If backing up movies/music that you ripped or purchased online, something that can be gotten again, etc. I don't really agree with backing up such content to be honest.

Content that can not be replaced like Movie of your kids first steps/bday, pictures of your trip to paris, you signing anthem at little league opener, etc. This stuff needs to be backed up - should have a full DR plan. Portable because your going to store it in geographically separated location is good for example. Do you really need 4TB disk? Smaller multiple disks that you use to swap out the old with the new DR copy works better I would think. Say for example disk A that is at remote location, disk B that is copy at your location that you swap out with remote location every so often as newer data is added sort of thing.

I find online is great for archive DR copy as well. Amazon Glacier is 10 cents a GB per month which is great for homevideo/pictures imho. But no I wouldn't store

My home movies, pictures is currently under 100GB for example. 4TB seems like a lot of space to be honest for backups - are you taking bare metal images of multiple systems?

Curiosity is one of my flaws - sorry

[LaP]

4TB for backup.. Curious what your backing up..

 

With HD videos a pron collection can get big very quickly these days

[+Warwagon MVC]

 If backing up movies/music that you ripped or purchased online, something that can be gotten again, etc. I don't really agree with backing up such content to be honest.

 

I disagree. Backing up is so easy why not back it up. Sure you can redownload it again but why not just back it up. I back EVERYTHING up. Regardless of what it is.

 

Everything important gets backed up to 2 3TB drives, (1-2 and 2-2). Then I have another 2 drives per catagory for different things.

 

Movies

Pictures

 

and such.

[LittleNeutrino Veteran]

I always buy Western Digital and have had excellent experience with them.

[+BudMan MVC]

"Backing up is so easy "

While I agree it can be easy, its sure an the hell not cheap.. 4TB of storage while not a crazy amount of money prob $150 or so 2x2TB.. That is $150 for backing up something that I may or may not watch again?? I have a music/video lib myself - to be honest it is very rare that watch anything old out of it, its always the new stuff being added that we watch.. Now I admit watched xmas vacation and dumb and dumber last night. But sorry i could of just popped in the dvd of them as well vs pushing the button on my player. Not sure having 2 copies of the same movie that I may or may not ever watch again is worth $150 in added cost is my point..

My point is you have a copy, either that original you burned it from. Or its in the store you downloaded it from, or yes even the place/swarm you shared it from Its not like there are not 1000's of other "backups" of such media. Why you should fork over the cash to have an extra one next to you in case a disk fails is money I would rather not spend to be honest.. I would either spend the money on more space to have a bigger library or beer Or some other tech toy to make my life complete.. Not a extra copy of dumb and dumber in case the first one fails

Thats just my opinion.. If what you want to do is spend your money on extra copies that is up to you..

Dumb and Dumber doesn't need to be backed up.. Quite sure it is safe for generations to enjoy.. What does need to be backed up is that video of little billys first steps.. Not many back ups of those sitting on the shelf in a warehouse or on amazon/netflix to stream to your home in a push of a button. Those need a full fledged DR plan with as many copies you can make in all kinds of places.. So when little billy has his own little billy you can show him the vido's of when dad was first walking, etc..

[farmeunit]

These stats are for desktop drives, but interesting, nonetheless.

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-reliability-update-september-2014/

I stopped buying both Western Digital and Seagate because of failures and try to buy HGST. They have risen pretty steeply, though. I also get Toshiba or Samsung drives and have had good luch with both.

For portable drives I buy drives that don't need separate power, but they don't make those as big as you need.

[max22]

4TB for backup.. Curious what your backing up.. If home movies/picture/created content then I am with you. Why does it have to be portable? If backing up movies/music that you ripped or purchased online, something that can be gotten again, etc. I don't really agree with backing up such content to be honest.

Content that can not be replaced like Movie of your kids first steps/bday, pictures of your trip to paris, you signing anthem at little league opener, etc. This stuff needs to be backed up - should have a full DR plan. Portable because your going to store it in geographically separated location is good for example. Do you really need 4TB disk? Smaller multiple disks that you use to swap out the old with the new DR copy works better I would think. Say for example disk A that is at remote location, disk B that is copy at your location that you swap out with remote location every so often as newer data is added sort of thing.

I find online is great for archive DR copy as well. Amazon Glacier is 10 cents a GB per month which is great for homevideo/pictures imho. But no I wouldn't store

My home movies, pictures is currently under 100GB for example. 4TB seems like a lot of space to be honest for backups - are you taking bare metal images of multiple systems?

Curiosity is one of my flaws - sorry

 

Movies, tv shows,  VMs, and backup images.

[Tomoko]

Steam backups are eating a huge chunk of my external drive, over 800GB now. I know I could download them again any time from Steam but on my pitiful 3Mb connection that would be a nightmare. I've also bought a few TV series off iTunes and I've ripped all of my DVDs and CDs so I can easily watch them on any device without fooling with discs, so that's another 1TB so far. I still remember when the 2GB hard drive in my old Pentium II PC seemed impossibly huge.

[goretsky Supervisor]

Hello,

 

This is the portable external 2.5" HDD I am currently using:  Seagate 4TB Backup Plus Fast Portable Drive.

 

It consists of a pair of 2 TB notebook-sized HDDs in an enclosure, which is why it's about 0.8" high, or about twice the height of other 2.5" exteranal drive enclosures.  On the other hand, it's also 4TB in size, which is a capacity not commonly available in that general form factor.

 

So far, no problems noted after use for several months.

 

Regards,

 

Aryeh Goretsky

[max22]

Thanks everyone for all the help!

[Odom Member]

I have a "portable" backup that I keep at work, in addition to my NAS. It is a 2TB WD MyPassport USB3.0.

It is small enough to not require an external power source as it gets everything via USB3. It is small and portable easy to pack away.

The software it comes with is also very nice, as I configure what I want backed up and then only need to attach the drive once in a while, it then automatically backs up the changed files since the last time you connected it.

Being USB 3 it is also very quick.

If you want more than 2TB then you either need to look at external drives in 3.5" in size (which require external power supplies) or enclosures that have 2x 2.5" drives in RAID.

[MorganX]

As Odom said, WD Passports are excellent up to 2TB w/USB 3.0. If you have a Mac (or PC with thunderbolt) the Passport Pro Raid 0 is Awesome in 2TB and 4TB versions though not cheap. If you have an eSata port I'd consider that interface as well if performance is an issue.

 

If you build your own, WD has been quite reliable for me. I have not had luck (longevity) with 2TB 2.5" laptop drives. Was cheaper, more reliable, and better looking to go with MyPassport.

[Tidosho]

As Odom said, WD Passports are excellent up to 2TB w/USB 3.0.

Maybe to end users, while they are working they're great. It's when they fail they turn out to be horrible. A lot of desktop WD externals like the Elements series tend to have encryption between the drive and the computer in the USB bridge control board, and in the case of the laptop sized Passports, non standard control boards with a direct USB interface rather than SATA to USB bridge, they're not easy to recover from.

 

If you want my advice, get an external case, and standard HDD and build the external yourself, DON'T go the WD route. WD externals are horrid, and I do data recovery from them a lot. The encryption bridge exists not to protect data as the data is accessible from any computer, but to ensure future profit from data recovery if the USB bridge board fails, which they do, as only WD can decrypt it.

[MorganX]

Maybe to end users, while they are working they're great. It's when they fail they turn out to be horrible. A lot of desktop WD externals like the Elements series tend to have encryption between the drive and the computer in the USB bridge control board, and in the case of the laptop sized Passports, non standard control boards with a direct USB interface rather than SATA to USB bridge, they're not easy to recover from.

 

If you want my advice, get an external case, and standard HDD and build the external yourself, DON'T go the WD route. WD externals are horrid, and I do data recovery from them a lot. The encryption bridge exists not to protect data as the data is accessible from any computer, but to ensure future profit from data recovery if the USB bridge board fails, which they do, as only WD can decrypt it.

 

I can only speak from my experience with the current MyPassports. Have not had or heard of the issues you have experienced. Nothing wrong with building your own external either.

[redfish]

Seagate has a good data recovery program. I had an accident with my drive and it crashed, sent it in. They quoted me a pretty low price if they were to be able to recover the data, but weren't able to get anything worthwhile, so they sent me a new drive for free. Have had no problems other than that, which was my fault. I've had FreeAgent and BlackArmor external drives from them. They also look pretty good.

[Tidosho]

I can only speak from my experience with the current MyPassports. Have not had or heard of the issues you have experienced. Nothing wrong with building your own external either.

Don't get me wrong, Western Digital's standard hard drives are really good, but I have noticed a drop in quality over recent years, especially with their Green drives. I hated Seagate with a passion years ago as I had many sudden out of warranty failures, but now they seem to be reliable again.