Thread: Portable external hardrives

Sounds like your computer just needs a good clean out to bring it back to normal

I always put my photos onto a DVD much safer if files are large shrink them first that way you can get thousands of photos on to one dvd disk

Originally Posted by isuzurover

I have 8x Seagate Expansion Desktop 3TB HDDs that I use for work. Paid <$120 ea. No failures yet...

The only HDD failures I've had have been seagates.

Probably all manufacturers have bad patches from time to time. I remember IBM drives having a bad name around 15 years ago.


Martyn

Originally Posted by Bob Harding

Sounds like your computer just needs a good clean out to bring it back to normal

I always put my photos onto a DVD much safer if files are large shrink them first that way you can get thousands of photos on to one dvd disk

Not a cost effective way Bob for me to be able to back up my raw files, I would be looking at about 130ish photos per disc with my currently camera as the files are around 30mb each...I currently have over 4000 photographs

the more I think about it the more the mybook fits the bill I think

And if you have the bandwidth there are al those online backup options ,as a backup backup

we have the upload/download data..unfortunately we have seriously slow internet and as soon as you upload something nothing else can use the internet it kind of grinds to a hault....so not really an option either

I use a Western Digital MyPassport Ultra external drive & NAS for backups. Like Inc said, if you're just looking at external HDDs then get two.

I cheaper way is to get a usb hdd dock and use good quality hdds. These docks are only $20-$30 for basic ones, but you can get ones with card readers and ones that can handle multiples of hdds.


The dock can stay on the desk and the hdd can go away for safe keeping. We make sure that we have at least 2 physical copies of all photos and data (separate devices) at all times.
In the event of forced evacuation (fire, flood, disaster, etc.) these hdds are part of our evac kit and can be relocated quickly.

woody

I run three Toshiba 1TB portable HDD's.

One of them (a Toshiba Canvio) is my "daily driver" that I take with me everywhere and plug into either my work computer or my own Windows 8 Tablet thingy - or plug into other people's computers when I go to site and can't be bothered carrying a computer with me.

I regularly back up everything to the other two via a docking station at work - one of these is kept in the office, the other is kept at home.

I save all of my work to these drives - I generally don't use the in-built HDD's on computers for much (though the solid state HDD in the Windows 8 tablet is pretty impressive and I have started using this a bit more, purely because of the speed it offers). I even have my e-mail pst files stored on the HDD's rather than on any of the computers, so that all of my e-mails are available to me anywhere on any computer.

Have been using the Toshibas for years with never a problem. Have had problems with Seagate in the past (though that was years ago) and the WDD units clash with our IT / security / firewall systems at work, so don't use them for this purpose - my music and movies etc at home are stored on a WDD unit though with no problems.

RAVE is on all of my drives, as are Hema maps and the Natmap Raster maps - so I've always got enough with me to hopefully get me out of trouble.

The new Toshiba Canvio HDD is a very compact little unit and solidly built.