External Hard Drives, HD vs SSD, Brands

boojum

boojum

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I am thinking of getting a small external HD. I would use it for editing while using my laptop which has only 1TB SSD and has Windows and Linux on it. I'd like something that can be used with a photo editor, of course, and a spare as a backup. So are SSD's robust enough for photo editing? Are they worth the extra bucks over an HD? Self powered by USB would be nice for an HD.

As for brands, I have been bitten pretty badly by Seagate in the past and would like to avoid them. WD has always been a stalwart. So other than Seagate what is out there? I am currently using a WD 4TB Passport as a backup drive for my photo files. Are they robust enough for editing?

Thanks for whatever experience and knowledge you have.
 
"which has only 1TB SSD". That's a lot. What makes you think you'll need more storage space? If you do, get a 1 TB portable SSD drive from Sandisk. Costco has them. Cheers, OtL
 
Out to Lunch said:
"which has only 1TB SSD". That's a lot. What makes you think you'll need more storage space? If you do, get a 1 TB portable SSD drive from Sandisk. Costco has them. Cheers, OtL
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Parkinson's Fourth Law, Drives: Data expands to fill available space.

1TB when divided between two operating systems and their clinging software add-ons gets crowded quickly. Drives are cheap enough. I do not like to go much past 50% used. Things start slowing down and fragmentation can get to be a problem for everything.
 
HDDs are still better for long-term archival storage in the large 3.5" size. They are generally less likely to fail over time, and when they do, they are often partially recoverable. And if you use a multi-disk array for RAID, you'll notice these systems are almost always built around 3.5" HDDs.

Always, always, always back data up in at least two places.

For portable/travel storage, the 2.5" HDDs don't make much sense. They are just painfully slow in modern computing. Get a SSD. I can recommend both the Samsung T5 and T7 series, as well as the Sandisk Extreme series linked above, both of which I've used for years now without fail. If you can wait, there is ALWAYS a big black friday sale on these things. I recommend buying two 1TB drives, and backing up at least once a month.
 
keytarjunkie said:
HDDs are still better for long-term archival storage in the large 3.5" size. They are generally less likely to fail over time, and when they do, they are often partially recoverable. And if you use a multi-disk array for RAID, you'll notice these systems are almost always built around 3.5" HDDs.

Always, always, always back data up in at least two places.

For portable/travel storage, the 2.5" HDDs don't make much sense. They are just painfully slow in modern computing. Get a SSD. I can recommend both the Samsung T5 and T7 series, as well as the Sandisk Extreme series linked above, both of which I've used for years now without fail. If you can wait, there is ALWAYS a big black friday sale on these things. I recommend buying two 1TB drives, and backing up at least once a month.
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OK, it sounds like a couple of 1TB Sandisks or Samsungs will do the deal and also keep the 4TB WD Passport for backups. Data on the two 1TB drives and, probably, on the laptop, too. Like this will be Pulitzer Prize stuff. OK, maybe not, but important to me. ;o) Thanks for the input. There had to be a store of info here on this subject.
 
keytarjunkie said:
HDDs are still better for long-term archival storage in the large 3.5" size. They are generally less likely to fail over time, and when they do, they are often partially recoverable. And if you use a multi-disk array for RAID, you'll notice these systems are almost always built around 3.5" HDDs.
.
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What is the basis for the statement HDDs are more likely to fail than an SSD drive (if that's what you're saying or are you comparing it to larger drive). Not disagreeing just want to know. On my desktop the main drive is an SSD and then I have HDDs with Raid. Also back up continuously with Windows 10. Mostly want to know if I'm doing the right think. Having used every type of computer since the late '80's I find HD failures today are extremely rare. Or maybe I'm just lucky.
 
I like the LaCie brand, have dealt with them for years, and it's reasonably local to you in Beaverton. http://www.lacie.com/ They package various brands of innards. I use one of their 4Tb SSD drives as one of my backups, like not getting crowded! It's surprisingly small at about 3x4.5 x maybe3/4" and no external power brick.
My recently former computer had a hybrid "fusion" HDD with a small SSD booster ... it suffered a bad block on the HDD that made it frustratingly unreliable. Glad to have chosen the solid state for the new rig... so far!
 
Doug said:
I like the LaCie brand, have dealt with them for years, and it's reasonably local to you in Beaverton. http://www.lacie.com/ They package various brands of innards. I use one of their 4Tb SSD drives as one of my backups, like not getting crowded! It's surprisingly small at about 3x4.5 x maybe3/4" and no external power brick.
My recently former computer had a hybrid "fusion" HDD with a small SSD booster ... it suffered a bad block on the HDD that made it frustratingly unreliable. Glad to have chosen the solid state for the new rig... so far!
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I know of La Cie. They are here and in France. Don't worry, I can't drive up top Beaverton and buy one. I'd go through an on-line retailer like everyone else. And $1K is a bit more than I want to spend on a 4TB drive. Their stuff is very nice.
 
HDDs are extremely reliable, haven't had or heard about a HDD failure in the last 30 years. If an SSD fails everything is lost, I've experienced it. Never use SSDs for backup, it's the same technology as memory sticks.
 
Always remember rule number 1: everything will fail. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. Hence: backups. At least two. If you can afford it (and care enough) go for cloud storage (Dropbox, Google Drive, etc) as your second option.

That said, assuming they're treated well (i.e. not banged around, not physically removed from a computer during a read/write sequence), good HDDs tend to be pretty stable. A defective HDD will fail quickly (within the first six months). Once you get past that, it should be good.

More importantly, barring the mistreatment mentioned above, HDDs tend to fail gradually (in other words, they'll show symptoms before they're unusable) and as keytarjunkie pointed out, some data is often recoverable to some degree after they die.

SSDs, on the other hand, fail suddenly and completely. They'll run and run... until they don't. There'll be no warning: you just won't be able to access a single thing on them one day.

My laptop uses SSD storage. It's compact and fast... and the knowledge that it'll die randomly at some point stresses me out, so backups are distributed amongst 3 different 1TB HDDs. I just hope I never need them.
 
I back up my back up drives. Paranoid after losing everything...twice. Slow learner.

All my back ups drives are portable and 1TB size. Two G-Drive SSD drives and 4 spinners by G-Drive, WD Touro and Tanscend.

Surely I'm gonna be safe this time:eek:.
 
Sonnar Brian said:
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-hard-drive-stats-q1-2021/

The Seagate 6TByte drive shows high reliability. This disk spins at the slower 5400RPM rate, which most likely contributes to relaibaility.

These drives are cheap. Pick up two or three externals, leave one unplugged from the machine when not in use.
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Interesting that this outfit has found SSD's as reliable as they have, and they would know. I am still wary of Seagate after two or three external HD failures. I know my experience is a very small sampling, but my brain is pretty small, too. The WD Passport gets used once a week for incremental backups using Linux Vorta. https://vorta.borgbase.com/ I think it backs up. I should try a restore. ;o)
 
Kai-san said:
HDDs are extremely reliable, haven't had or heard about a HDD failure in the last 30 years. If an SSD fails everything is lost, I've experienced it. Never use SSDs for backup, it's the same technology as memory sticks.
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This is a joke right? HDDs are extremely reliable? Why do you think raid and cloud storage exsist? You don't work for WD or seagate do you?
 
Whatever you buy, buy 2 identical drives and backup your backup. everything fails HDD or SSD. There is no data to support that SSD is worse than HDD, especially in a backup scenario. SSD's fail if they pass a certain amount of read writecycles (in the millions) its highly unlikly you will hit even 10% of that max with casual editing and storage UNLESS you actually have a defective drive. My advice is to buy 2 x1TB SSD drives. Once they fill up buy 2 more and so on
 
It is the nature of the failure that’s different between SSD and HD. SSD is theoretically more volatile due to the way information is stored. With SSD, it’s write cycles or perhaps some electronic failure which renders the entire drive inaccessible. With HD, there is a physical (magnetic) charge that is less susceptible to disruption and can last for a very long time. Actual mechanical failure is where they may fail, although the actual information on the disk is intact and could be recovered.
 
Heat, Humidity, and Caustic environment are never good things for electronics- especially hard drives.
Yes- I've had them fail. And had things backed up.
I've used all types of computer media over the last 45 years, except Kodak Film based computer Storage. Dectape was fun to watch.
 
boojum said:
Interesting that this outfit has found SSD's as reliable as they have, and they would know.
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Be wary of basing your view from the article Brian posted; the data isn't particularly fair or representative, which Backblaze themselves flag up. The issue is SSDs are a lot newer, so the SSDs in that dataset haven't been used for very long, while the HDDs have clocked a lot more hours. There's another article they posted with a modified dataset to attempt to normalise the differences: https://www.backblaze.com/blog/are-ssds-really-more-reliable-than-hard-drives/

In short: old drives fail. SSDs and HDDs seem to have roughly the same sort of reliability and longevity. As Pai said, the issue is more about how they fail.
 
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