Best External Hard Drive?

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DartGTDan

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I'm in need of an external hard drive. Had a Seagate, that contained all of our family photos, that crapped out (they want $700 to recover my lost photos) and looking for opinions for something reliable and portable. What you got?
 
I’ve been using Western Digital drives for years now. I’ve never had one quit, I think I’ve had 4 so far. Typically I only have to upgrade them if I outgrow them or get a new computer with different plugs. Damn apple always changing their connectors!
 
WD pretty much makes ALL the drives. No matter what name is on them.

My girl worked at WD for 10 years and just left a few months ago.

Are you apple or android?

I've got a new apple drive that I've been thinking about throwing in the bin
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It's yours if it helps ya?
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That's dependent on how much data you need to store, and how fast you want it to be. The basic choice is between the old style spinning disk, or the newer SSD drives. Go SSD if you're not storing more than 500 GB of data, and get two.. a duplicate copy in a safe deposit box that you update once in a while.
Did you get your data recovered from the failed drive? I did this kind of stuff for the better part of 20 years, before I took a cushy network admin job.
 
The problem with the external enclosures is heat. They aren't usually vented well, and kills the drive over time. For spinning disks, you're better off with a USB dock.

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Seagate are probably the most common which lends to them having the most problems. Avoid the high RPM..15k 10k, Like 72BluNblu said Western Digital are very dependable. I build my own external drives usually from the drives that have crapped out. Buy an external case from Rockfish or other brand name. Can be had for under $10 2.5" form
 
I hauled in a recycle bin full of failed WD drives last spring, so they do fail. I do keep all of the electronics off them though, in case I need a certain model to swap out to recover data from a drive. Spinning disks fail, all brands. It's more how they are housed than anything else that leads to failure, heat being the biggest problem. 15k drives will be SCSI or SAS enterprise level drives.. you won't find those on a home PC. The only 10k SATA drive I know of is the WD Velociraptor.. the average home PC has a 5400k or 7200k 3.5 spinning disk drive, but that's changing to SSD which creates a lot less heat as there are no spinning disks.
This stuff has been my life for the last 20 years or so. The drive array I'm getting ready to put in at work cost almost $100k.
I still do recovery on the side for friends/family etc. If you haven't recovered your stuff and you don't want to spend that much to do so, I'm willing to take a crack at it.
 
I use a triple back up system for all my files since I have so many image files I never want to lose.

1T SS external hard drive that I back up to annually. I copy onto my iPad and burn CDs as I go over the year. I have over 25k images in my files that I have created and want to make sure I have multiple ways to recover them if stuff fails.

I also copy into email on 2 different servers as an additional redundancy.
 
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Funny, I've been looking for a while now for someone to repair/recover my Seagate. Last quote I got from a chain store that deals with Seagate directly was approx $2000! Mostly full of pics/resumes car stuff.
My own fault, it was beside me on couch and I put my hand down with pressure(not much) and I "heard" it. A couple business have tried with no luck...
Oh yes as mentioned above get another one for backing up the backup.
 
I use a triple back up system for all my files since I have so many image files I never want to lose.

1T SS external hard drive that I back up to annually. I copy onto my iPad and burn CDs as I go over the year. I have over 25k images in my files athat I have created and want to make sure I have multiple ways to recover them if stuff fails.

I also copy into email on 2 different servers as an additional redundancy.
I have hundreds of old 500 GB drives I use as backup.. take a few to work and leave them there as off site. Change them out for fresh when I think about it, usually ever couple of months. While it sounds like you have a good backup plan, that 'annually' thing bothers me, lol.
 
Funny, I've been looking for a while now for someone to repair/recover my Seagate. Last quote I got from a chain store that deals with Seagate directly was approx $2000! Mostly full of pics/resumes car stuff.
My own fault, it was beside me on couch and I put my hand down with pressure(not much) and I "heard" it. A couple business have tried with no luck...
Oh yes as mentioned above get another one for backing up the backup.
If ya got nothing to lose anyway, send it to me and I'll have a crack at it. I've recovered stuff that others have failed at. I will ask you to sign a short agreement that you won't come back on me for losing your stuff, though... CYA and all that. Recovery is always a crap shoot.
 
I have hundreds of old 500 GB drives I use as backup.. take a few to work and leave them there as off site. Change them out for fresh when I think about it, usually ever couple of months. While it sounds like you have a good backup plan, that 'annually' thing bothers me, lol.
Annually is just one of the 4 back up systems. Each are staged in time so that there is redundancy in every time interval. By not over using the 1T SS Drive, there is a reduced risk of failure of it.
 
Thanks! Pm coming
If ya got nothing to lose anyway, send it to me and I'll have a crack at it. I've recovered stuff that others have failed at. I will ask you to sign a short agreement that you won't come back on me for losing your stuff, though... CYA and all that. Recovery is always a crap shoot.
 
Just to be clear, I'm not looking to make a buck here. I'm glad to do it for free. I've learned so much from this site, I'm glad to give back in any way I can. I know this stuff like you guys know a-bodies :)
 
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