external storage

[powersmo]

Hello all. Looking to back up a large amount of family pics, home video, work docs etc. I have been going thru the past posts here and there seems to be a number of options that have been popular over the last couple years. I noticed that the walmart locally had a WD My Passport 1TB for 79$ and Staples had a toshiba 1TB Cavino for the same price. Also was wondering if it would be just as good to get a laptop internal hhd and put it in a Rosewill type enclosure. Thanks for the help.

 

[Charlie98]

I've been running 2 Seagate 500GB externals as backups for a while, so far they have been good to go. If you have USB 3.0, make sure you get an external that supports this... it makes a difference when you are backing up larger files.

I'm sure the WD and Toshiba are fine as well.

 

[jkauff]

If you have USB 3.0, the newest version of the WD My Passport is a no-brainer. It's USB powered, so no power brick. You can just stick it in a drawer and dig it out when you have some new stuff to back up. Bought one for my wife's new MacBook and it works great.

 

[smitbret]

I picked up a 2TB Toshiba Canvio Desktop USB 3.0 and it would be great for what you are explaining. However, it has a tendency to go to sleep too easily and is difficult to bring out of sleep mode. Lightning fast for an external, though. I get about 120MB/s with it. I also have put one of the newer 2TB Seagate Barracudas with the 1TB platters in a Rosewill USB 3.0 enclosure and it runs about 88MB/s but seems to have similar sleep issues.

 

[powersmo]

Thanks for the information. Is the problem with going to sleep an occasional event or chronic?

 

[Charlie98]

Neither of my Seagates go to sleep...

 

[smitbret]

Yeah the Seagate sleeping thing is the External Enclosure, not the drive.

With the Toshiba, unfortunately it's chronic. If you want an always on, Ext HDD then you'll need to look elsewhere or else Google 'HDDCaffeine'. It's a small program that writes to the drive every few minutes to keep it from entering sleep mode. It's really not a hassle after that but could be an annoyance to some people.

 

[powersmo]

Appreciate the heads up on the sleeping issue. I would mainly being using the hhd for backing up and possible transfer of the family stuff that would be an archive. I had thought about a homebrew NAS but that seems way too much.

 

[RossMAN]

Do you know someone who lives near a Fry's Electronics?

Seagate 2TB external for $79

http://slickdeals.net/f/5990550-Sea...p-2TB-USB3-Hard-drive-80-frys-b-m-starts-4-26

 

[powersmo]

Wow! A great deal but unfortunately, I don't nor do I live near one. Have to keep an eye on the sales online and see what happens. Thanks all!