External hard drives?

[KmH]

In my experience, the speed problem was at the cloud storage providers end, and I mean slower than a snails pace. It was ludicrous.

 

[IByte]

SSD are more durable but also more expensive for less gbs .

 

[DanPower]

That's a shame, it must suck not having decent upload speeds.

I don't care how fast your 'speed' is........uploading all my images would take a looooooooooooong time, even at your speed.

Sure, you've got a lot of photos and they must be huge..... but it helps when you're literally sitting next to the server

Simple version.... my core unit syncs with one of my externals which then syncs with the server, which then cloud syncs. When I go travelling (which is 9 months of the year) it gets a little trickier, but it can be done and at the end of the day I have my photos backed up in 5 different locations so I'm pretty happy with that.

 

[Skaperen]

All but 2 of my 12 external hard drives have died. And the mode of failure suggests that if I bust them open and get the real hard drive out, I could make that work as an internal drive. Just haven't done that because I never actually lost any data due to keeping multiple copies. I'm now using 6 internal 2TB drives in drive swap bays for my backups.

These things are cheap and the circuits driving them even cheaper.

 

[stingx]

The prices of HDDs are cheap - I bought 2x2tb drives for $150. Decent NAS enclosures are also cheap. Synology makes great stuff. You can have a great RAID solution for under $500. You'll have redundant disks and network access to your media. It's also not a bad idea to offload important data to 3rd party site. Many options exist for a low monthly fee to remotely sync and store your media. Very handy in the event of fire or theft.

 

[sorinana]

I use WD external hard drive. i always think it is reliable. you should always remember to backup your file.

 

[BlueMeanieTSi]

I back up to tape too. I'm still stuck in the 90s

 

[tommy517]

I think you should recover images from external hard drives as soon as possible. if you have not recopy other photos in it.

 

[Tee]

480-

Thanks for the video tute. Clever and informative.

I am horrible with backing up my stuff. I have Dropbox and iCloud which is hardly "backing up" and I only keep a fraction of images on those platforms. This thread has given me pause and thought for being more proactive in backing up my files.

 

[JohnTrav]

I have and the same WD external drive for 5 years now and it's still working fine. I also never move it so that probly helps. I have knocked it over a few times though. Still seems to work great. I gave all my pictures on it too. If it dies I am screwed. I think WD is reliable enough. But like everyone says. None of them are perfect.

This is why all files should be backed up in multiple locations. I plan on buying another external to backup all my pictures. Seems like having two is worth the money.

 

[Garbz]

To add to the anecdotes I have had a mixture of Seagate and wd harddisks for many years now. Probably killed about 3 of each brand. They are about as reliable as each other both internal and external. The common failure modes for external hdds are overheating and death of the horrendously cheap usb controllers, the latter is fixable for all drives except one **** seagate i had which had a case assembled with pentalobe screws and was subsequently disassembled with an anglegrinder killing the drive.

 

[Psytrox]

.................

I'm looking to invest in another one that I can place in a fireproof safe, a bank box or a storage unit. Incase of a fire or something crazy that destroys my computer and raid backup at home.

A fireproof safe is just that.......... FIREproof.

If your house burns to the ground, your hard drives won't burn. They'll just melt into a puddle of goo with miscellaneous electronic parts imbedded in it.

"Fireproof' means it prevents combustion, not the transfer of heat to the interior.

Fireproof safes are designed to keep out the high temperature from the fire for a certain amount of time.
Sentry OA3817 Data Safe : Fire resistant digital media safe
As you can see, this safe is supposed to be able to store media safley for up to 120mins in a normal house fire. The safe itself will physically withstand a lot more. But after 120 mins, the internal temperature of the safe will be so high that the electronics will start to get damaged.

I'm not a fireman, but i think it takes about 20-30 mins from when the fire first starts in a room, until the fire has completely burned your house to the ground. So 120 mins should be plenty.

 

[digital flower]

Even though I have several externals ( couple have failed over the years) I still back up on DVD

 

[ghache]

if its running without any clicking sound but your pc is not detecting in, its most likely the USB controller of the external casing failed. break it in half, get the drive out and plug it directly into your PC. the drive inside is nothing else than a regular drive.

 

[jwbryson1]

I use this in the 2T version which is no longer made. But, same manufacturer. A bit of an initial investment, but when you consider losing your photographs, the initial cost seems trivial....

Hot swappable array drive. Great so far....

G-Technology 4TB G-SPEED Q External Hard Drive Array 0G01792 B&H