Need to Purchase a New External Drive

[hobot]

I'm in need of a new external drive. I collect quite a few pictures for both work and the Random PicThread. The drive I have now is pretty much maxed out with work pictures, saved Word docs and saved Excell docs. 

Am looking on Amazon and quite frankly, I have no idea of how much storage I need. Any good help will be greatly appreciated.

T.I.A. hobot

 

[DRIFTW00D]

asked a it tech she said" size doe sent matter, most people are just using the cloud for photos"

 

[Mid]

storage is cheap as chips , seagate 4TB for 120 OZ currently

buy 2 and set one as a back-up.

 

[DA-WOODY]

Sew you donut have a CostCo card anymore than a camera  :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

** OPP's-ATW  

** Other Peoples Pix  -  All The Way

 

[Caca Cabeza]

Given this hostile environment, s'prised no one mentioned this "external drive":

 

[hobot]

Her's two examples from Amazon, other than TB what the heck is the difference and how do I tell what'll fit my needs best?

https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Expansion-Desktop-External-STEB4000100/dp/B00TKFEE8K/ref=lp_595048_1_24/147-0283391-5096504?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1597897746&sr=1-24

https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Portable-External-Drive-WDBU6Y0050BBK-WESN/dp/B07X41PWTY?ref_=Oct_s9_apbd_obs_hd_bw_b2UnY&pf_rd_r=CSZP0GFZ425DK26VGNHV&pf_rd_p=90bea99e-e85d-5b08-92f8-07eb2b42ce57&pf_rd_s=merchandised-search-10&pf_rd_t=BROWSE&pf_rd_i=595048

 

[Grande Mastere Dreade]

Her's two examples from Amazon, other than TB what the heck is the difference and how do I tell what'll fit my needs best?

https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Expansion-Desktop-External-STEB4000100/dp/B00TKFEE8K/ref=lp_595048_1_24/147-0283391-5096504?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1597897746&sr=1-24

https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Portable-External-Drive-WDBU6Y0050BBK-WESN/dp/B07X41PWTY?ref_=Oct_s9_apbd_obs_hd_bw_b2UnY&pf_rd_r=CSZP0GFZ425DK26VGNHV&pf_rd_p=90bea99e-e85d-5b08-92f8-07eb2b42ce57&pf_rd_s=merchandised-search-10&pf_rd_t=BROWSE&pf_rd_i=595048

why bother with 5tb's when you can get 8 for $30 more

https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Desktop-Hard-Drive-WDBWLG0080HBK-NESN/dp/B07D5V2ZXD/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=wd+8tb+elements&qid=1597899241&s=electronics&sr=1-1

i've never had a problem with western digital harddrives...  hopefully your puter will have a usb 3.0 port to take advantage of fast transfers..

 

[sledracr]

storage is cheap as chips , seagate 4TB for 120 OZ currently

buy 2 and set one as a back-up.

***this.

I have 4x 4Tb drives on my desk.  One for media, one for work data, and a full/mirrored backup for each. 

 

[hobot]

I work off of a laptop, how do you wire something like that up? one drive at a time depending on what you're working on?

 

[Mid]

a laptop

so only 1 or 2 usb ports and the mouse already has one ?

you're foked .

you can use a usb hub but it'll be at snail pace

 

[vibroman]

why bother with 5tb's when you can get 8 for $30 more

https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Desktop-Hard-Drive-WDBWLG0080HBK-NESN/dp/B07D5V2ZXD/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=wd+8tb+elements&qid=1597899241&s=electronics&sr=1-1

i've never had a problem with western digital harddrives...  hopefully your puter will have a usb 3.0 port to take advantage of fast transfers..

Macbook pro so ymmv but +1 on the WD. I have an 8 that i edit video on and various  4 TB s for other stuff. USB 3 is a must. You can get usb3 hubs that are pretty quick.

 

[billy backstay]

My external HD that I used to back up Quicken and Quickbooks files had a melt down.  I now use a 32 GB flash-thumb drive now, as it holds enough data for my purposes.

 

[bplipschitz]

Her's two examples from Amazon, other than TB what the heck is the difference and how do I tell what'll fit my needs best?

https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Expansion-Desktop-External-STEB4000100/dp/B00TKFEE8K/ref=lp_595048_1_24/147-0283391-5096504?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1597897746&sr=1-24

https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Portable-External-Drive-WDBU6Y0050BBK-WESN/dp/B07X41PWTY?ref_=Oct_s9_apbd_obs_hd_bw_b2UnY&pf_rd_r=CSZP0GFZ425DK26VGNHV&pf_rd_p=90bea99e-e85d-5b08-92f8-07eb2b42ce57&pf_rd_s=merchandised-search-10&pf_rd_t=BROWSE&pf_rd_i=595048

Solid state will be faster access, but perhaps shorter life.  They are all pretty much plug-n-play.  If there is a Microcenter near you, you might check them out for better prices and decent advice.

 

[Ventucky Red]

I work off of a laptop, how do you wire something like that up? one drive at a time depending on what you're working on?

I use to have two external hard drives running..  once you plug into the USB you computer should assign it a new drive such as local disk E:, local disk F:, etc.... 

If you are short on USB ports, this is what I recently got to solve the problem..... 10T for me

https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-External-Desktop-Photography-STEL4000100/dp/B01HD6ZLIY

You can even partition this to keep folders and files segregated..

https://www.easeus.com/partition-master/free-partition-external-hard-drive-windows-10.html

Hope this helps

 

[d'ranger]

Didn't see this answered - portable units get powered by the USB while desktop use AC power.  If not SS a portable will usually be slower than a desktop which if using as a backup is not that big a deal.  I have not ventured into the Cloud although it seems to be the thing now. Newfangled stuff. All HDs are more reliable now in my experience, WD is still the best although I have a Seagate portable for over a year with no issues. Note to self: when ordering late at night review carefully your order.

 

[Meat Wad]

asked a it tech she said" size doe sent matter, most people are just using the cloud for photos"

and they are allowed to keep copies of anything you post. I feel bad for the youngsters today who put all sorts of shit up. One day some douche bag will search and find their shit to bag on them with. Many college kids will never make it to politics later in life.

Having said that, I am looking at a new home router and personal  Cloud/NAS. not sure if I should buy a pre-made or get the bare bones, then get some really good drives. Going with the proper RAID can make recovery pretty easy. They got some pretty cool stuff out there but it can get pricey. I'm thinking of 4 Gb but want to be able to scale up if needed.

 

[Que]

I have had reasonable success with 8TB USB3 Seagate desktop expansion drives (8tb version of the 4tb you posted).  As they are "desktop" expansion drives, they do require external power.  A usb3 hub is pretty cheap and, as the drive will be used for archive purposes, speed isn't as critical. I run them on linux desktop and laptops as file servers, including remote backup servers of production data.  I did have one fail once, so make sure you have a backup solution for your backup solution!

You could likely run one off your router if it supports network storage options.  Basically, plug the external drive into the USB port on the router and then configure the router to serve samba shared storage to ONLY the lan side of the network.  That avoids loss of portability of your laptop and permanent use of a laptop USB port.

Again, speed of access of archived photo information doesn't sound like a critical aspect of your solution.  Storage capacity is like a more significant factor.  We used to say that buying more MIPS and gigs was always the right answer.

 

[Grande Mastere Dreade]

You could likely run one off your router if it supports network storage options.  Basically, plug the external drive into the USB port on the router and then configure the router to serve samba shared storage to ONLY the lan side of the network.  That avoids loss of portability of your laptop and permanent use of a laptop USB port.

some of the routers provided by your internet service may disable those usb ports, so check before you decide on that route

 

[Point Break]

I bought this one a while ago for my auto backups and its performing great. 2TB and got good reviews.....well, as good as anyone. Also the USB 3.0 for transfer speed. Transfer speed may be especially important to you since photos are memory intensive. The final reason for me was it comes formatted for the Mac already but its easy to reformat if you're a windows machine. I don't really recommend it because I think its awesome, but its what I picked after some research and it seems as good as any others and it's doing the job fine.

https://www.amazon.com/BUFFALO-MiniStation-Portable-Drive-HD-PCF2-0U3BD/dp/B01NAOQN79/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&fst=as%3Aoff&keywords=buffalo+ministation+thunderbolt+external+hard+drive&qid=1597954671&refinements=p_89%3ABUFFALO&rnid=2528832011&s=electronics&sr=1-2