Can You Recommend a Good External Hard Drive?

[@askleonotenboom]

Watch next ▶ Can an External Drive Fail? ▶ kzbin.info/www/bejne/in7PaoyAhZ5mfJo

[@AlexanderKnibbe]

I only bought an ext drive one time and it's a WD Element and it's working for years using it about 10 times per month for system images. The other external drives used for data backup are repurposed internal 2.5" drives. These are small and don't require a separate power supply. And by the way all these ext drives are unplugged and off during normal PC use. That prevents potential malware from infecting backups.

[@craiglowen1470]

Excellent video Leo. I would like to add a few things: 1. If you're infected with ransomware it will probably encrypt any attached storage (such as your backup drive). You should therefore probably rotate backup drives and not use them for anything other than backup (i.e. don't have them mounted unless you're running a backup). 2. The shelf life of an SSD is much shorter than that of a hard drive. If there is any risk that your backup will be stored for a year or more, a hard drive is a better choice. 3. Two of my backup drives rotate between a fireproof safe in my basement and a security deposit box in my bank. The SD box is too small to hold a 3.5" drive, so that set has to be 2.5"

[@4Nanook]

If you're traveling get ssd not hd, no heads to crash, no bearings to hurt, and available in capacities that exceed anything you can get in 2-1/2 inch.

[@richardhamilton9936]

I have about a dozen Western Digital Passports (4Tb & 5Tb) and they have never failed me.

[@jamesedwards3923]

All drives eventually fail. Normally you get warning.

[@richardhamilton9936]

@@jamesedwards3923 I run Crystal Disk Info on a regular basis.

[@mojocat7675]

I just plugged mine in for the first time in about 6 years. Loaded without a hitch. I have had this for about 10 years as well.

[@smi51040]

Mine just failed after a year

[@jamesedwards3923]

​@@mojocat7675 You need to start keeping a list of your drives. After five years. I buy a new drive on principle. I have salvaged drives that have lasted longer than five years. I have had retail drives that failed in less than two years. I have a that has failed after about twelve years of use. Fortunately I have many drives with the same data. Also, the data will decay on the drive. If you do not plug in the drive. The fact that you were able to read it. Consider it good fortune and nothing more.

[@Soupie62]

For travel pictures, I use a USB hub that has an SD card reader slot - and a built in SSD. Saves space, more rugged, and by keeping data on both SD card and SSD I have more cnfidence in backups. I have also been known to copy SSD data to a USB stick, and mail it home on holidays. Just In Case.

[@vanwrinkle-01]

My first computer had a 40 mg hard drive and the drive still works. It's just a drive that sits on a shelf to remind me where I first started with these computers. I actually started with a VIC 20. LOL That's a long way back. Your advice is right on the money. Things are changing to fast to recommend a particular drive.. Excellent informative video. Thanks Leo.

[@Robert-sl7jo]

I find that Toshiba tend to be very good. Seagate tends to have problems with the connections where it connects then disconnects. I had to transfer all the data onto another drive before it failed completely.

[@tekatetikitiki]

I have never dropped my Toshiba Canvio...however, after 3 years it miserably failed me, and will have to pay to recover all my data.

[@stevenvanhulle7242]

I installed a couple dozen WD drives (on my own PC, and others'); internal, external, NAS. In all for over 500 000 drive-hours (POHs). Not one failed so far*. OTOH, got 2 Seagates which BOTH failed within three years. Never again. YMMV. *) At one time one of them (a 2.5" Elements) started to make a ticking sound, often the preamble of an imminent failure. That was 2 years ago, the ticking stopped, and the drive still works.

[@robertbugglin5504]

Perhaps my setup is a bit complicated, but here it is. I have a NAS (Network Attached Storage) and I store most of my user data there on drive 1. I have an automated backup which copies changed working files files from NAS drive 1 to drive 2. I also collect lots of downloaded stuff on NAS drive 1, which is not automatically backed up. I occasionally do full drive backups of my computers to NAS drive 2. I periodically copy everything from the NAS to my portable drives. These are mostly refurbished name brand enterprise drives. Two are in drive enclosures, but I've found a SATA dock to be convenient for others.

[@raylopez99]

You need to backup to cloud too. I have a Synology NAS that mirrors and it's slow but reliable.

[@gjoseph1628]

External hard drive at 500 GB, usb-connectable for about $40, found & bought about a decade ago. Other specification I not remember; but although seem a bit slow, is workable.

[@curtw8827]

The bigger the storage, the more data to lose. I wouldn't travel with a mechanical spinning drive. Remember the early days when you had to "park" the drive head before moving a computer?

[@Supermanohman]

I have no choice but to bring my 5 TB Mypassport with me when I travel, and it has about 4 TB of data on it. I make many backups at home before I leave but I'm always concerned about that

[@monza8844]

> "The bigger the storage, the more data to lose." You're not going to lose anything if you have a reliable backup, the size of the storage is totally irrelevant. In the eighties people also made that comment "The bigger the storage, the more data to lose" when 10MB hard drives were introduced. Now we laugh about 10MB, while walking around with a single SSD that can store 1TB, which is the equivalent of 100,000(!) of these old 10MB drives, but again.... you're not going to lose anything if you have a reliable backup for that 1 TB drive.

[@bikeny]

@@monza8844 Boy was I glad when I got a job in the computer lab back in my college days. The other students had to use the key punch machine to, well, punch holes in the cards. My job was to take their stack of cards (don't drop it, though) and run it through the Univac 1106 Card Reader (amazing the amount stuff I can remember from back then) and then call out their ID for them to pick up the output. By having the job, I got do my FORTRAN and COBOL programs on the system. No card jams for me. (And, I got to play D&D on the system; the game was all text, though.).

[@curtw8827]

@@monza8844 You made my point, better have backup, and perhaps backup to your backup. If all your data is on one device, you are at risk at losing everything in one shot.

[@Wize817]

Silly comment, btw the more junk food you eat the fatter you get 😅

[@kersi-sandiego6036]

Just a reminder. Many HDs come with backup software, which I consider as bloatware. Therefore, I reformat the drive before using it. I have used WD and Seagate brands for years without any problems. problems

[@askleonotenboom]

I've written/video'd about the backup software before: askleo.com/external-drive-backup-software/

[@shadowminister4090]

Hi, yes I had a real problem with a Seagate drive that had backup software installed. My son, who as it turns out is a software engineer, bought me the drive and in hindsight said he made a big mistake. At the time our computer ran on Windows 7 but when Microsoft stopped supporting 7, he moved me over onto Ubuntu. We couldn't use the Seagate because of compatibility issues. Fast foward many years and the internal drive starts to fail. My son clones the drive onto an old drive and all is good until that drive starts to die. By this stage, I've got the data stored in the cloud. We get a Windows computer. I fired up the Seagate only to find that the Windows based backup was no longer supported not was it operational. My son had to disconnect the drive from its base unit and half rebuild it, in the meantime he'd managed to transfer my files across our network to my other son's computer and eventually we got all of my historical photos back. I probably didn't explain the technical processes well; it a bit over my head, but Yes, backup software on an external drive can be problematic. A simple blank drive is a better option.

[@twistedmister1]

G Technology is WD while LaCie is Seagate. Neither uses any other drives. Also, from an IT professional, any device your computer’s OS can see is not a backup. If you can see it in File Explorer or Finder, ransomware can also see it. Backups need to either be stored on a NAS, with unique credentials stored in the backup software, or cloud backup. I’ve seen the results of an external drive as backup. Not pretty.

[@kennethmcooke]

Macrium Reflect today includes Macrium Image Guardian, a feature that prevents backup files from being encrypted by ransomware.

[@Maltojo]

I use two 8TB hard drives for backup. I store them in a fireproof small safe box. I can keep four full monthly backups with weekly increments between them. I keep the drives in a cheap keep case inside the safe box and use a hot swap drive bay in my computer to back up. Been doing it for years. Sure beats those old tapes.

[@monza8844]

Sounds good, but how often do you make a backup of your system? If you're not backing up at least once a day (more is better), then you're not doing enough to protect your data.

[@Maltojo]

@@monza8844 Excellent point!!! For me... I could live losing a weeks worth of stuff. If it was a business, I'd have it on a daily backup, and always leave that back up drive connected to the network.

[@bobrobert8566]

As I found out to late make sure to test your backed up data is readable and performs as expected.

[@johnhpalmer6098]

At present, I have 3 externals. One is a Simpletech 3.5" I bought in 2008 that is still going strong. Thought it used a WD drive, but it appears it actually has a Hitachi drive in it. I don't access it much as it's all storage, divided into video, photos and music (or audio) partitions. It's full for the most part, though photos and video partitions are not. Then I have 2 WD passports (2.5") mechanical external drives, one 500GB that WAS to be for backups, but the software from WD, I could not figure out if it actually saved, or backed up anything, or not, so abandoned things all together, however, did a clone of my HD using the then free Macrium Reflect and it did great in 2019, until I tried to restore my boot drive a couple of years later after a cleaning, not realizing initially I may have swapped SATA cables and the image got horked. That went that. Now, I have 2, 3.5" mechanical drives at 500GB each, both used, and from 2013/14, but to start off, it'll do. I will get cases for them eventually, but have an adapter that has a power supply, good for IDE/SATA drives for now, and I have a dock that can accept 2 drives that is connected to the desktop, and can do an internal clone of one to the other. I also have two Dell computers, one a laptop, the other a desktop (both business workstations, bought used. So one drive for each. Software will be EaseUS for backups and cloning. in 2008, I did tons of research on my first external, looking for defects, poor design etc, and one, a Hitachi had major issues on the 1TB and higher capacity due to poor ventilation cooling so the drives overheated, some had defective controllers, others bad USB cables (a bad batch at that time), and how frequently they were found defective, and if they had the capacity I was looking for (500GB), LaCie didn't go beyond 350GB being one example. In the end, the Simpletech (now owned by Hitachi) won out as it while not perfect, had the fewest issues overall than just about everyone else, and came in a 500GB capacity. As I said, it's been holding up, though in recent years, it stays powered up and connected, but I rarely access it unless I'm looking for something in particular going back several years that is on it.

[@OlettaLiano]

The external drives I use most are 2TB NVMe M.2 in an external caddy. Small, light, fast.

[@monza8844]

> "Small, light, fast." All these caddies are unreliable, sensitive to heat and static electricity, can easily be lost or stolen, and the backup speed is not as fast as you think, since the transfer speed between these drives and your system is your bottleneck when it comes to performance. There are far better solutions.

[@OlettaLiano]

@@monza8844 It's worked great for the past three and a half years. All I really backup on it is my writing. I have two 4TB HHD in RAID 1 on my PC, and I also backup to a private internet server. So, my backups are safe enough.

[@PORRFNK]

@@monza8844 Not to mention, they SSDs are not good for long time storage

[@randyriegel8553]

I still have a Seagate drive (1 TB) that is about 12 years old that I use for backups (total image). It's a spinning platter. Every once in a while I'll back it to one of dozen SSD's laying around. Just in case. I'm worried about the life of the seagate being that old.

[@colt5189]

I do backups. But I plan to also start doing an additional backup on Blu-Ray, once a year. i.e. my most important data like files and photos.

[@songsan807]

Lots of great advice. Truthfully I wish I consistently use a hard drive to back up my main PC. Actually might get another 8TB or 14TB external Seagate to do the backups. But have not seen them at Costco for a while. Usually they have discounts there and Seagate supposedly offer a 3 year warranty on the device and data recovery. I DO NOT get sponsor by them or affiliate with them. I do image my main pc a few times a year. And just got a sturdy 10 hard drive container case so I can put a hard drive on an external enclosure, make the backups, remove the case and put the drive away for safety.

[@johnhpalmer6098]

Not a bad idea, though I'd get (and have) a dock for the drives. They are hot swappable as it's likely you are using SATA drives. IDE drives were not, but SATA is. That way, you can put a drive in the caddy, do your image backup, pull it out and store it. Mine is a 2 drive caddy that also has the ability to clone one drive to another internally. They are designed to only accept SATA drives, both 2.5 or 3.5" drives, mechanical or SSD. Works a treat, and makes it easier to pull files from drives and consolidate them onto one, larger drive. Currently, I have a 2TB HDD and I'm slowly pulling files to it so data is not scatted over several drives. Exceptions are SD cards and thumb drives as I often will pull the images onto the drives for storage/project use, then when full, I wipe (format) the cards and reuse them again as needed. This way, I don't have to buy new all the time.

[@ionu4535]

Decade plus experience and cannot recall one time Costco having good hardware/software prices, but not unique in this genre. Best Buy most often here.

[@songsan807]

@@ionu4535 I got 2 8TB Seagate external drives from Costco about $119 each before tax about 3 years ago. I was mainly going for their 3 year data recovery. Plus based on previous experience if there were any issue Costco is usually good to help resolve. I know last Dec during the holidays Costco did have a 18TB external Seagate for about $200 which I was about to buy but decided to use the money for Christmas gifts instead.

[@songsan807]

@@johnhpalmer6098 Thanks for the great suggestions. I got a 2 drive caddy from Amazon about 3 months ago and it works great and have extra slots for SD and USB devices. These are amazing tools.

[@monza8844]

Don't use a external drives, unless you have no other choice, like for example a laptop that doesn't allow room for more internal drives.

[@danalynch8889]

I use 3 external hard drives for my AOMEI backups. 1 usb flash drive, 1 TB 2 1/2" usb powered and 1 TB 3 1/2" powered.

[@markallen8226]

WD. Concur with previous comments, they just keep working. Thanks Leo.

[@D.von.N]

My take home message from this is that the rotating discs still can be good as a backup. I bought one recently, not realising it was a rotating disc. I paid just over a £100 for 4TB WD drive. Then I searched for SSDs of this capacity and they were at least twice the price for this capacity. I went with one, also because the mentioned portability and size. My next one may be a HDD again, if it really doesn't matter as much. A fun fact: I bought a Sandisk USB, what I thought was 64 gb capacity, went to create a bootable usb for my computer that needed anything larger than 32 GB and it failed... that little bastard was just 32 GB. But on the package, the item itself and description of the website (Currys), it was 64 GB. Got a refund for that, but it puzzles me how this company (Sandisk) and their distributor (Currys) could get it so wrong. Was it just one off or was there a whole batch that was faulty?

[@danhitchner]

From 2021, G-Technology is rebranded by Western Digital into SanDisk Professional. Western Digital is a solid choice, but like any brand, they have bad years.

[@ferntom6092]

Hi leo, I want to back up my video which I recorded in the year 1990 in Pal and then I used digital video recorder until 2010 on mini digital cassette Pal format. What is the file format I should record this tape and which will be the best hard disc you would recommend

[@verdedoodleduck]

Hi Leo - thank you for your videos! I have my files backed up on a nas and almost all of my work is stored under Onedrive with pictures being replicated in Google and/or Amazon. None of this is an incremental backup though. I would like to combine the backup of my computer with the onedrive contents if not as one entity (the whole system at once as presented by file explorer) then at least as one job (and incremental for the pc and an incremental for the onedrive)? I was thinking of a schedule a little more aggressive than yours like keeping a few dailies, a few weeklies, a couple of monthlies and all the yearly (is this overkill?) Do you have a video where you show how to set that up (probably :))?

[@leocatz]

Great guidance as always. Any thought about backing up multiple partitions and/or multiple internal disks onto one external HD, assuming it has the capacity? Is there a back up software that would be easier to use with this approach? I'm assuming it would mean a separate disk image being created for each internal Disk and/or partition.

[@askleonotenboom]

Most backup tools, like Macrium Reflect or EaseUS Todo, allow you to create a single backup image of all partitions on a single hard disk. I recommend doing so. I believe it'll also let you back up multiple disks into a single image, but for reasons I can't express, that makes me uncomfortable. I'd back up each physical disk separately. Storing it all on the same external drive is fine.

[@mapp4751]

Thanks Leo excellent info on external drives for this senior! Cheers

[@IsabelleIsabelle01]

I will be RV full time and I thing hard drives don't like it and the only way I know is to put my files on DVD, yes it will be long to save my files but at least it won't break. Do you have another suggestion ? I love your videos

[@askleonotenboom]

If things are really bouncing around a lot, perhaps you have a case for using SSD-based external drives.

[@IsabelleIsabelle01]

@@askleonotenboom thank you I will do that xxx

[@franciscohorna5542]

wd elements 4tb 5400prm drive using here

[@monza8844]

You should be using more than 1 backup drive, with at least one in a fire/waterproof safe or off-location. NEVER rely on only one backup drive.

[@franciscohorna5542]

@@monza8844 i got more than 1 external hdd

[@ballybunion9]

I have five WesternDigital external hard drives and have never had a problem with any of them.

[@monza8844]

All drives will fail eventually, yours are no exception.

[@ballybunion9]

@@monza8844 True. But I use mine for backup only. They're plugged into my computer for about 30 minutes once a week so it could be _long_ time before they fail.

[@johngronkowski5132]

Thanks for making this video. I was curious if your opinion changed since the last time you talked about this years ago. I was thinking of sending in this question myself.

[@bbbb6066]

Is this odd. I never delete anything. Over the 20 years digital I now have over 50 external. hard drives. My older hard drives are 500 mb. Note that my older hard drive cost far more per bit than the new ones. This also may be odd. I always keep my SD cards. I have a number of compact flash drives. Now not to forget about my thumb drives. I use them for backing specific groups of pics. Even with all the backups that I have I can find pics. The age of the hard drive helps. Not finished. I keep my old computers and have many pics on them. Why. My wife and I travel a lot and I am always taking pics of kinds of things. This year my wife and I will be visiting Iceland for are 8th time. Many cruses and trips to Europe. Russia twice. Most National and State parks. No job. Retired 20 years ago and love to take pics. My wife thinks I have OCD. What do you think? Want a pic of something different I am you guy.

[@bloqk16]

I applaud your candor and obsessiveness. My philosophy is that _when it doubt, keep it_ when it comes to digital files. With the bargain prices to be found with hard drives per TB, not deleting files is the way to go. When a 'one-of-a-kind- digital file is deleted, it is gone; whereupon years later some regrets may set in. What is considered a trivial digital item today may be valued as a historical artifact a decade or so from now. I can relate to the quantity of hard drives you have, as I have loads of them for audio and video projects and airchecks of local TV newscasts. I have a local reputation for having newscasts video files dating back many years, where there are times when the local TV news operations will call upon me for video for an aircheck dating back years earlier, as that TV station had their video aircheck copy deleted. The notion of TV stations being video archivists is not true, as TV stations will retain airchecks as per FCC regulations for a set amount of days; whereupon after that time span has elapsed, most of those digital video files will be deleted.

[@bbbb6066]

I Just added two 12 tb hard drives to my computer. There is a need to not to have too little space on a hard drive. They wook better when they are less than 30 % full . Thank you Ben@@bloqk16

[@jcst83]

I do plan to store the "Back up" on the internal drive instead of external. As I just want it to be easy access, instead of taking the external HDD out and plugged in when needed. But I do notice a problem where is, that "internal 3.5" HDD that I using seems to be degrading faster? As some of the file in that drive start to corrupted. My guess here maybe it "on and off" in my desktop PC too often causing my internal HDD to degrade faster? Maybe I need the a better HDD for it? like the HDD for the cloud or server base? Another question will be, for the large capacity Backup HDD example 5TB or 8TB, is the partition recommended? Or just do the folder to separate it? i know maybe it sound risky as I store all my data in 1 HDD only. But I just don't like to manage that multiple 4 2GB HDD or even 2 4GB HDD.

[@askleonotenboom]

If it's on an internal drive, I don't really consider it a proper backup. Many things can happen that could take out all harddrives within a machine. (Power spike's the most damaging example. And yes, it could happen to any of us.) No idea on the faster depredation. I don't really see a great reason to partition, especially backup drives. Folders are great for organizing.

[@laughingvampire7555]

SSDs are better back up precisely because they have no moving parts. but you need to keep powering them up every 6 months for the data to be refreshed and it doesn't get lost. you might be able to do it once/year and they will last for 10 years. but here is a mistake, that you fall into, a backup in external drives, is ALWAYS a short/mid term back up, It is NEVER A LONG TERM. For long term back up you need the king which is LTO (Linear Tape-Open) with LTO-9 standard of 2021 you can store up to 18TB in one cartridge or cassette, however you wanna call it. It is used by IBM, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, made by Fuji, Sony. This is what is called Archival Format. The drive is expensive, around 5,000 USD, but each tape is super cheap. The second best archival format, but is second by a long distance is Blu Ray M-Disc, the drive is cheap, around 50, 60 USD but the media is not as cheap as LTO in cost per TB.So this might be a great medium for archiving stuff like emails, photos and thats it. To archive video, I think the best is to use LTO.

[@Avatar-h8o]

I have bought a Seagate recently, and my data disappeared when transferring. I am desperate. Any way to restore it, please????

[@askleonotenboom]

Not without knowing the steps you went through to transfer.

[@monza8844]

You make no sense. If you copy data, you won't delete the source, in the worst case the copy would fail, but not the original data.

[@Avatar-h8o]

@@askleonotenboom Simply like you transfer from a PC to a USB. I have been doing it for years, using all sorts of USBs and also a WD drive. This is the first time when some folders have not been transferred, and the data was gone

[@bikeny]

Good stuff, again.

[@roncaruso931]

Another great video from Leo "backup " Notenboom.

[@er...]

Computer=machine

[@stevencooper2464]

As a computer operator, decades ago, I learned the value of redundant backups; I make three full backups of my machine every month; that way, if one backup fails during a restore operation, I've got two more attempts to succeed.

[@jonathanomoluabi7389]

I knew I would love this video

[@branchau]

Leo, you have not addressed the performance reliability and dependability factors between hard drives and SSDs. Are SSD's not clearly way ahead on those considerations?

[@jsizemo]

From the thumbnail, I thought you might be recommending good 8-track players!

[@oldwizzy]

Way too complicated, the FIRST thing that counts is the type of interface in terms of speed, there are things like eSATA (6Gbit/sec), USB 3.0 (5Gbit/sec), USB-C 3.2 10 GBit/Sec. SECOND the type of HD such as M.2-SSD, mSATA-SSD, SATA-SSD or just the regular hard disks. THIRDLY, one can opt for the standard single external hard drive or a docking station (multiple use). In short, everyone has their own personal choice.

[@tekatetikitiki]

I wasted my time watching this post .... although this guy mentioned that brand name quality is CYCLICAL, and mentioned waht he was using, HE NEVER MENTION AN ACTUAL BRAND THAT HE WOULD RECCOMENT TODAY!

[@askleonotenboom]

Absolutely correct, for all the reasons mentioned in the video.

[@danhitchner]

He does, he mentions G Technology, which is Western Digital.

[@forlandos]

Before i start watching this video i am very sure that the first answer is: Wel, both yes and no or .. no i cant 😂

[@Nonyabizznaz]

well given how easily HDD drives fail, ill stick with a external ssd

[@raihanridoy3539]

Watch this if you want to listen some bullshit

[@askleonotenboom]

I try to provide variety.

[@wrathofchaos2931]

Can you please help me I got locked out my Xbox account

[@awais105794]

What a waste of time hearing this useless discussion.

[@askleonotenboom]

What a waste of time reading this useless comment.

[@JimE6243]

@@askleonotenboom 👍👍 LOL!!!