Primal Decals 621 Posted July 2, 2017 Im looking to buy another portable hard drive for my laptop that will run off USB 3.0 ,No A/C power..Im getting worried that my other HD will fail even tho its new... What do you guys suggest for a brand to go with? And im looking at least 3tb storage as well..I have been looking everywhere and there is so much out there now ,i cant decide ,My last one i had was a WD and it failed while doing a 2nd-ary backup of it and i lost over 10,000 photos of my photography work.Luckily i had another Hd that had my Design stuff on it ,But lost my original Hi Res files of everything else,? thanks for your help.. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dcbevins 340 Posted July 2, 2017 I personally would be leary of USB only power. Too much drain on the motherboard's usb ports can cause electrical glitches. If its is plugged into a powered hub, its less of a concern drawing power from the pc. My computer has 4 back usb ports, all full, two front, one full, a 10 port powered usb hub, with 2-4 ports free depending on whats plugged up, another 5 port powered hub, with 2 ports free, and two 30 foot usb cables with a repeater built in. In my situation, I want as many things under their own power not pulling from the main usb ports. I have two WD external 4TB drives. One drive has backup of my art work from the computers main drive, (via file hamster.) It also has personal photos, dl'ed videos, clip art, fonts, music and archived documents. The second drive backs up the first drive and the main computer drive. I have redundancy on my artwork, (on the main drive, on the 1st external and on the 2nd external.) Personal photo's are in the cloud also. Some stuff I archive to optical disks. I also have an external 1tb drive, that I mostly use as a buffer when moving stuff around. WD is a good brand. You had one fail. It happens no matter the brand. None of them can last for ever. Mechanical drives tend to outlast solid state drives. Redundancy is one of the best options. Multiple copies so that no single link is critical. Going two, three or ever four levels deep can get you close to fail safe. RAID storage can do pretty much the same, if you pick the right option. The right RAID configuration can allow one or more of the drives in the array to die, while the data lives. Cloud storage is also good, as most providers have multiple levels of redundancy and are pretty robust. It sounds like you were using the external not as backup, but as storage. When it died, you lost all your storage and had no backup. Get two or three drives this time, one for storage and the others for backup. Just having one drive for storage is just a time bomb. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Primal Decals 621 Posted July 3, 2017 I assumed that there is a better brand then the next like seagate or toshiba etc... So any WD external model will be ok, Or is there a better one than just a basic model of it ? Money really isnt an issue when it comes to important files lol.... The one that failed was A/C powered and was only used for when i did a backup like once a week or every other week depending on if i added anything or not to my existing files..It was never used for anything else but backing up.Never as a daily or weekly connection.........But i think about looking into getting a larger USB Port hub.Right now I'm running a 4 port hub, It runs my cutter ,my one portable hard drive and my Wacom Drawing tablet. Do you have a recommendation for a powered hub? I have seen a few and have my eye on one like my buddy cardudenc had bought we found online ..I like your idea of things running under their own power. So i will more than likely get 1-2 A/C powered units and a usb powered to take with me .. Thank you. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dcbevins 340 Posted July 3, 2017 So many USB port brands out there I can't say. I'm using a HooToo now and its done the job. My external USB Hard drives could be called "portable." But they sit in one place and are rarely moved. It is my belief, (don't have lots of facts to support it,) that portable drives that are truly portable and moved around often are going to fail more often. I am also of the school that thinks it is best to leave drives spinning. That is I don't shut down my hard drives. Computer is always on, sleep management on the drives is disabled. I feel this improves their lifespan as they are not heating up and cooling down. It's an open debate on that. The one exception is one I only connect when doing back up, to keep it hopefully out of the range of maleware or ransomware should it ever hit. But it is still on and spinning, just a usb on off switch keeps it disconnected except when needed. But I work from a desktop and not a laptop. A laptop that is shuffled around alot is a different ballgame. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Primal Decals 621 Posted July 3, 2017 Thank you very much for the info bud.. I really appreciate it . I will follow your ideas etc.. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Primal Decals 621 Posted July 4, 2017 So until i get my new hard drive etc .I found a cloud based site that i will store everything i need.. Right now im getting a 2tb storage for pc and mobile for 7.99 a month with no restrictions. I hope it was a good deal.I searched and read all the reviews on many sites and Pcloud has the best rating out of all of them... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
darcshadow 1,626 Posted July 5, 2017 Are you moving the drive around a lot, or just wanting a backup that is not installed in the computer? If moving around a lot you might want to really look at a SDD. No moving parts so the drive can take a pretty good beating with no worry of failure. They get pretty expensive though when you get into the terabyte range. You might also consider an external enclosure that you can then put what ever hard drive you want in it. Or even a multi drive enclosure that you can setup as a raid drive. That way if one drive fails you can still recover most, if not all of your data. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Primal Decals 621 Posted July 5, 2017 @darcshadow I do have one portable that goes with me everywhere, but the one that failed sat in one place always and never was moved.And what do you mean external enclosure? I thought is was a portable Hd is that ? lol. unless your talking about like a box enclosure with a couple hard drives in it Never heard of a raid drive setup. I have built a few computers etc but never to that extent of things. Just basic with crazy ram etc and a few hd's in it... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
darcshadow 1,626 Posted July 5, 2017 You can get external hard drives, or you can get an external hard drive enclosure and put what ever drive you like in it. The enclosures only can be found pretty cheaply, and if you're just using it for backup only I'd suggest a NAS (Network Attached storage). A NAS drive you could put in your closet next to your router and never think about it. Here's an example of an enclosure only, https://www.ebay.com/i/281757636091?chn=ps&dispItem=1 You simply take it apart put what ever drive you want in it and you're good to go. Here's an example of a NAS enclosure, https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/AOTECH-USB3-0-WiFi-NAS-to_1622623109.html Put what ever hard drive you want in it, connect it to your network and access it from any computer on your network And here's a RAID tower, https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816111455&ignorebbr=1&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-PC&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-PC-_-pla-_-Server+-+RAID+Sub-Systems-_-N82E16816111455&gclid=Cj0KEQjwnPLKBRC-j7nt1b7OlZwBEiQAv8lMLNpwPDo575sgGdISQnD7fIPwA4DVtOlzQcASGp7JUCAaAss58P8HAQ&gclsrc=aw.ds RAIDs have basically two types, they can mirror drives, so anything you write to the raid is written to multiple drives so in this case you'd have a back up of your back, although it requires 2 drives of equal size. The other setting is striping, where a single file is written to multiple drives. So you could have say four 1TB drives but it would appear as a single 4TB or approximately 4TB, drive to your computer. There are multiple striping settings which I don't fully understand, but part of the idea of striping is, if one drive goes bad, you may still be able to recover most of your data. Another advantage of RAIDs is depending on how the files are being accessed a RAID setup can be quite a bit faster than a single drive. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Primal Decals 621 Posted July 5, 2017 I understand. My router has a usb setup for network drives, just never used it ..thanks for the info bud..I will check the links out etc. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
