What portable hard drive?

roundthebend

I'm looking to backup files from my aging PC so I can wipe it and reinstall everything. It's got a 500GB disc currently which isn't full. The files I want to save are mostly photos and videos, but there's also some Word documents and saved games that my son wants to keep. I intend to be using it to backup all my photos from all devices, and would like to be able to plug it into the TV or Xbox to show family our holiday snaps.

I think a 1TB disc would be a good value approach for future proofing. What is the recommended brand and model these days?

As an additional thought, I hear people using NAS setups. I'd be interested in that approach if it meant my files would be safer from disc failure (RAID) and it gives me remote access.

JAYJO

i got a 1t wd passport for £54 or so last year currys/pc world.

frankus

I've a WD drive but frankly why not throw it on the cloud, I did and I ended up with nekid pics of Jennifer Lawrence and Ted Nugent ... win!!

roundthebend

frankus said:

I've a WD drive but frankly why not throw it on the cloud, I did and I ended up with nekid pics of Jennifer Lawrence and Ted Nugent ... win!!

Where can I get 1TB of cloud storage for sensible money?

Phil_aka_Pip

I got a Transcend 1TB USB external shockproof hard drive from Amazon. No complaints with it so far.

frankus

what do you need a terrabyte for?!

RaymondLin

roundthebend said:

frankus said:

I've a WD drive but frankly why not throw it on the cloud, I did and I ended up with nekid pics of Jennifer Lawrence and Ted Nugent ... win!!

Where can I get 1TB of cloud storage for sensible money?

CrashPlan, blackblaze and I think amazon prime starting rolling out unlimited photo storage to prime users.

Fretwired

I have a number of 2TB Seagate drives - they cost £70 .. there are 1TB drives that cost less. They've been very reliable, have fast transfer speeds and come with decent software.

Remember that Could-based services can go bust so I'd always recommend a physical backup to an external hard drive.

RaymondLin

No single source is perfect for back up, so putting all your eggs in an external is just as unsafe, especially if you keep them in the same place as your computer. Fire, theft, flood etc. compare to the odds of Google or Apple going bust...there are more chance of us going bust and having to sell the said hard drive before they do. It's best to split them up, you can never rely just on one.

roundthebend

RaymondLin said:

roundthebend said:

frankus said:

I've a WD drive but frankly why not throw it on the cloud, I did and I ended up with nekid pics of Jennifer Lawrence and Ted Nugent ... win!!

Where can I get 1TB of cloud storage for sensible money?

I think you get more than that free from Dropbox, google drive! apple cloud and Amazon cloud (free with Prime).

Dropbox is 2GB for free.
Google Drive is 15GB.
Amazon Cloud is 5GB.

RaymondLin

roundthebend said:

RaymondLin said:

roundthebend said:

frankus said:

I've a WD drive but frankly why not throw it on the cloud, I did and I ended up with nekid pics of Jennifer Lawrence and Ted Nugent ... win!!

Where can I get 1TB of cloud storage for sensible money?

I think you get more than that free from Dropbox, google drive! apple cloud and Amazon cloud (free with Prime).

Dropbox is 2GB for free.
Google Drive is 15GB.
Amazon Cloud is 5GB.

lol, sorry, I misread, you said TB, not GB. I've edited.

roundthebend

frankus said:

what do you need a terrabyte for?!

It does seem a lot. But a 500GB drive is likely to be about 75% the cost of a 1TB drive. I think it's worth having that extra capacity - I've found it handy in the past when needing to backup my laptop before a rebuild, and because I intend to put all my CDs on there (only in medium rate MP3) and might also put my DVD collection on there. In future I intend to be doing photography with a large sensor camera in raw mode, so the storage could be useful for a small outlay.

spaceman_inorbit

I went down the NAS route and got a Zyxel NSA 325 v2, set up for RAID 1. It has all my photos, films etc. on it, protected against hard drive failure. Now my files are available to other PCs, tablets or Smart TV's on the network.

It supposedly has a remote access option, but I've not tried it yet.

RaymondLin

A Tb is easily filled with photos, I have a Drobo at home, it has 9.5TB of storage (from 16TB of HDD), running RAID. On top of that I have another NAS with 12TB of HDD giving 8TB running RAID, that's for my media. I back up the drobo to CrashPlan.

frankus

My problem with this enormous amount of space is this: "how much evidence of your existenced do you need?"

I like digital cameras for being able to take a picture and know if it's any good... the idea of having thousands of photos I worry about storing and cataloging but never looking at seems daft, but that seems to be what's happened to most digital camera users.

RaymondLin

A RAW file is like 40mb so it doesn't take many to fill up a TB.

not_the_dj

RaymondLin said:

A RAW file is like 40mb so it doesn't take many to fill up a TB.

Ooo sir, sir...I know this one.....25000

(I think)

RaymondLin

Lol, I do that in 6 months i shoot weddings, 2 cameras over the shoulder, 14 hour days, 3 shots per moment (people blink), they rack up pretty fast.

frankus

Business is different from personal use

Fretwired

frankus said:

Business is different from personal use

You're right. Over 80 per cent of my storage is business related. I have a fire proof safe and keep backups off site.

mike_l

frankus said:

I've a WD drive but frankly why not throw it on the cloud, I did and I ended up with nekid pics of Jennifer Lawrence and Ted Nugent ... win!!

Nekkid pics of Ted Nugent is not a win.