Hunting for External Drive

[masterdrago]

Not too long ago I improved the performance of my W764Pro desktop by switching to a Samsung EVO 1Tb SSD and increasing RAM to 16Gb. It made a huge difference for little $$. I also invested in a kick butt laptop to edit H-265 video. My dilemma now is the huge kluge of HDDs I'm using for backup and external storage - several used (think old) 500Gb spinners, a 250Gb Toshiba pocket spinner and a 2Tb WD My Passport Pro Wireless which can be taken in the field to backup photos from cards. A wiring nightmare. I would like to use a single external drive but having looked at the plethora of available solutions have become confused. 1st, I want not only space but reliability. Is it absurd to consider a WD Gold spinner? Not even sure they make external flavors. Or just as large an SSD as I can afford? Best ideas....

[billandsue]

You might want to check out the SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD External Hard Drive.  Compact, inexpensive, and excellent reviews . . .

 

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?Ntt=Sandisk%20Extreme%20Portable%20Ssd&N=0&InitialSearch=yes&ap=Y&gclid=Cj0KCQiAhs79BRD0ARIsAC6XpaW7XnD0PiOJCa6PGtIFI3LnAw577T4Z3uvzKHhYMC3VzNxxpirTnQ4aAjCaEALw_wcB 

Edited November 17, 2020 by billandsue
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[Hezu]

If you want to carry the storage around, forget the traditional HDDs and pick a SSD since these are smaller, faster and much harder to break physically since there is no moving components inside.

The only reason to pick HDD these days would be if you need an affordable large capacity disk, say 4+ TB size. Granted, if need larger than 5 TB drive, those come only in the larger 3.5" devices, which in case of external drives means also that there will be an external power supply.

[Crew News]

I am not a techie but managed to connect all of my computers to a home network.  Four years ago, I experimented with a cheap network server to hold all of my cruise photos.  Last year, I upgraded to a larger capacity server to hold lots more stuff.

 

If you want to splurge and get both reliability (one of the four disks can fail with no data loss) and size 16 TB) with remote access, opt for a Synology Diskstation 418 ($369) and four Seagate 4TB disks ($105 ea).  Add this 16 TB NAS device to your home network and anything you have connected to that network can access your files (can assign passwords to limit access) both at home and remotely.  The software-led setup is quick and simple after you plug it into your home network via ethernet cable.  A free antivirus program is available.

 

I use this to backup three computers, store videos, photos (both mine and a friends), training courses, and for remote access while traveling.

 

You can stop with this simple setup or get really network creative by taking advanage of the many free network software packages available. I keep promising myself that I will be trying out some of the more intriguing ones.  Synology has a large community to obitain answers to questions.

[masterdrago]

Thanks for the input. Some interesting thoughts. A couple of my externals are now inside their own cases with separate power supplies. All these are being fed from an Anker USB 3 hub. It's just a big cable mess on the desk. I also did not mention an old 320Gb that runs hot (50C) so I usually keep it and the 2Tb WD Wireless Pro unplugged. Found a WD Easystore that might fill the bill.

[Crew News]

2 hours ago, masterdrago said:

Thanks for the input. Some interesting thoughts. A couple of my externals are now inside their own cases with separate power supplies. All these are being fed from an Anker USB 3 hub. It's just a big cable mess on the desk. I also did not mention an old 320Gb that runs hot (50C) so I usually keep it and the 2Tb WD Wireless Pro unplugged. Found a WD Easystore that might fill the bill.

Your setup sounds like what both my wife and I had four years ago with a mixture of both powered and unpowered external drives.  Backing up became a nightmare.  A NAS reduced the number of cruise photos/videos stored on our PCs except for those currently in use, made the smaller number of files to be backed up fit on a portable HD, allowed for a central backup location, and the possibility of sharing files.

 

I now have a shelf dedicated to 11 various-capacity, dust-covered, powered and unpowered drives for future use.

[masterdrago]

I'm working on a giant photo project now and to make things faster I'm using the 2nd partition of the internal SSD since we are doing a lot of moving, editing and copying. My slowest external drive is the Toshiba 500Mb portable.

 

Anyone have any input on those WD Easystore external packages? Mostly good reviews.

 

I use Macrium Reflect Free as my tool for backups but it can be daunting to choose which drive to make the image to. But I've never had to restore so not sure how good it really is. Sometimes it's hard to know when copy/paste is not simpler.

[masterdrago]

I might consider setting up a case/enclosure like the Yottamaster Aluminum Alloy 5 Bay USB3.0 model with several of the Samsung - 860 EVO 1TB Internal SATA SSD. That would give me the option to run 2-5Tb of space using drives that are 3-4x faster than even the fastest BarraCuda Pro model spinners. Cost would be under $600.

[pierces]

Long ago I used to work for a auto repair shop that did a lot of racing modifications. We had a sign behind the counter that said, "Speed costs money. How fast can you afford to go?"

 

My favorite bit of ad-speak was from a supplier whose motto was "Buy the best and cry once."

 

It seems that cars, computers and cameras have a lot in common.... 😉

 

Dave

Edited November 19, 2020 by pierces

[pierces]

Dupe...

Edited November 19, 2020 by pierces

[masterdrago]

I got an interesting reply from SK hynix yesterday pertaining using 4 of their SK hynix Gold S31 1TB 3D NAND 2.5 inch SATA III Internal SSD drives in an enclosure external to the pc connected via USB 3.0. Similar to:   Yottamaster Aluminum Alloy 5 Bay USB3.0 3.5" Hard Drive Enclosure for 3.5 Inch SATA HDD Support 5 x 16TB & UASP,Mac Style Designed for Personal Storage at Home&Office- [PS500U3]. They gave no reason. If I do this, I'll most likely use the Samsung SSD 860 EVO 1TB 2.5 Inch SATA III Internal SSD (MZ-76E1T0B/AM). They seem to get cheaper every week.

 

"We would like to inform you that we don't usually recommend customers to use our product as an external drive purpose. While we recommend you to use it for an internal drive. In addition, we are truly sorry to say but, as we are not a manufacturer of an adapter, we don't have any specific recommendations for the adapter.  

[Lesanne]

I have a QNAP nas set up which works great I have a 2TB hard drive I take with me on holiday and transfer pictures from my cards to this drive periodically while away and then back up to my NAS when return

[masterdrago]

Spent a good bit of time looking at various reviews of hardware. Can anyone see any reason to not use those WD Gold Enterprise 2GB drives?

Sorting thru various reviews and tests, I've come to the conclusion that the YottaMaster does not get good reviews. So might stick with something like the Sabrent 4 bay that has very good reviews https://www.sabrent.com/product/DS-SC4B/usb-3-2-4-bay-3-5-sata-hard-drive-tray-less-docking-station/

Also seeing that sustained high speed transfers with the SSD style slows when big files are transferred. Plus the large sizes are still up there in price.

Any comments on the Gold WD? It looks to have a slight edge over their Black version which a lot of gamers swear by.

[pierces]

4 hours ago, masterdrago said:

Spent a good bit of time looking at various reviews of hardware. Can anyone see any reason to not use those WD Gold Enterprise 2GB drives?

Sorting thru various reviews and tests, I've come to the conclusion that the YottaMaster does not get good reviews. So might stick with something like the Sabrent 4 bay that has very good reviews https://www.sabrent.com/product/DS-SC4B/usb-3-2-4-bay-3-5-sata-hard-drive-tray-less-docking-station/

Also seeing that sustained high speed transfers with the SSD style slows when big files are transferred. Plus the large sizes are still up there in price.

Any comments on the Gold WD? It looks to have a slight edge over their Black version which a lot of gamers swear by.

 

After an embarrassing amount of research, I settled on the Barracuda drive from Seagate. I have a single 6GB one as the archive/storage drive in my system to compliment the two NVME SSDs but they are available in many other sizes. No complaints so far. Fast. Barring the SSDs, the fastest drive I've owned to date. 

 

Dave

 

Edited November 24, 2020 by pierces

[masterdrago]

Well I grabbed the Sabrent 4bay on sale @ AMZN for $179 and two WD Gold 2Tb drives for $109/per. So for under 400 clams, I've build a more reliable and neater backup equipment deck. And can add more if needed. I also discovered the Sabrent has a much bigger power supply than the YottaMaster (78watts vs 36). 36watts did not feel right running 4 drives. One of my 320Gb spinners was beginning to run hot but not yet showing ill effects and I should get all this new gear set up after Christmas. Thanks for the input.