Favorite brand for portable external hard drive?

Discussion in 'Storage' started by CasualGoofy, Mar 27, 2016.

  1. CasualGoofy

    CasualGoofy

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    I'm aware there's cloud. I only put in things I mean to share with friends and nothing sensitive. I don't put weird selfies on cloud. If anything, it's my gaming data from apps.

    I like a physical storage drive than cloud. I have WD, HP, Toshiba, and Lacie brand ones.

    Depending on quality check, or my luck, I don't think it's a given there's a 100% reliable portable HDD. Despite that, there must be a favorite. I've had worst luck with WD drives. HP and Toshiba were fine.

    Do you have a recommended brand for portable external hard drive?
     
    CasualGoofy, Mar 27, 2016
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  2. CasualGoofy

    Corzhens

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    I agree that you should not store sensitive files onto the cloud because you really don't know about the privacy that in the future your files may be accessed without your permission. And with the external HDD, it is always Seagate that my husband buys because he said that is the most reliable brand (I have no comment on this). Now he is doing an in-depth research on the SSD because he thinks it is the storage of the future.
     
    Corzhens, Mar 27, 2016
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  3. CasualGoofy

    c3300

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    Most of my offline backups are on USB sticks or Toshiba SSD storage. I do have longer term storage, but that's normally enough to keep 12 months worth of backups which is what I'm comfortable with for home use.

    The only reason I can see to keep online backups would be for offsite redundancy in the case of a fire or something similar, but the cloud really isn't secure and Dropbox or other sources can have issues (e.g. the company where I was called in to recover data, only to find their automatic backup had overwritten their dropbox files with the corrupted data they were trying to recover from. They wound up losing several months of work.) If you are really worried, a secure locker or storage box offsite with a couple of drives in it is possibly more secure.
     
    c3300, Mar 27, 2016
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    Lun likes this.
  4. CasualGoofy

    Lun

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    WD drives are actually the most reliable afaik. I've never had a WD drive fail on me (my desktop uses one, and been using it for 5 years and it's still perfectly fine), but I'm not sure about their external ones. Toshiba by far have been my worst experiences. My laptop came with a toshiba harddrive and started failing within three months. The weird thing is I'm able to use it now externally for storage (with decent read/write speeds), but it's dead as a primary forever. I can't even boot from it anymore, it takes 10 minutes or more to boot into Windows. Not only that but there are so many threads online complaining about Toshiba drives failing too quickly and too randomly (Lenovo-branded ones use Toshiba drives too btw, don't buy those either). You're better off without that risk. I don't know about Seagate. I recently bought a Seagate external drive for extra storage but it's too early to tell how well it fares compared to the others. It's only been a little less than a month since I've been using it, but reviews certainly favor it more compared to Toshiba.
     
    Lun, Mar 27, 2016
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  5. CasualGoofy

    Sefie

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    Seagate :) I bought one recently, I had been needing one for a while, and I finally decided to go for it because of my move to the Netherlands. I need to protect my data! We will see how it goes, I hope it survives the trip. As far as I know the x-rays don't affect the EHD, but we will see. God, I hate traveling by plane.
     
    Sefie, Mar 28, 2016
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  6. CasualGoofy

    vinaya

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    I agree with your view on WD Drive. I have WD drive with 1 TB storage and I have been using this disk for months without any problem. My only concern with the disk I am using is it not from the US but manufactured in China under US collaboration. I don't trust Chinese made products.
     
    vinaya, Mar 28, 2016
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  7. CasualGoofy

    IcyBC

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    I have Seagate as an external portable HD for Window and for Mac! I take lots of pictures and I need something that I can carry around with. I don't want to pay monthly storage fee.
     
    IcyBC, Mar 29, 2016
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  8. CasualGoofy

    CasualGoofy

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    @Lun Like I said, I think I have bad luck with them. I've seen reviews of how bad Toshiba ones are. But the one I have is actually a redeemed item with flight points. So I didn't buy one. I have WD mybook that gave a clicking sound within few months. And the passport ones also do same thing but it took nearly a year for that to happen. I bought most of these drives at the mainstream stores.

    @vinaya It can't helped that a lot of things are Chinese made :D I rarely find any device/accessory that is made from Thailand or Korea.

    @IcyBC I never bought a Seagate one. Maybe I would try because I hoard so many files. Especially vacation photos. One friend swears by WD. Another insists on Seagate o_O
     
    CasualGoofy, Mar 29, 2016
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  9. CasualGoofy

    fcuco

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    Just take into account that those portable drives are not entirely portable unless they are solid state drives, I have had great experiences with the WD brand but it all comes to understanding that you can't go too rough on them because some of the mechanical parts will eventually fail. I mean, they are built to last and probably over engineered to withstand a lot of movement and vibration but it is a hard drive with moving parts after all so if you go crazy with it you will eventually break it, expect the usual ticking sounds before the thing dies on you, so regardless of brand be careful with those.
     
    fcuco, Apr 7, 2016
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  10. CasualGoofy

    spence88

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    I have both a Seagate and Western Digital portable. They both work fine, I am very satisfied with their performance, and their transfer - read/write speeds are doesn't differ that much. I actually dropped my Seagate a good 4-5 feet before. I thought I killed it and lost all my data, because it was definitely a huge drop. Surprisingly, it still turned on after I connected it to my laptop, and after giving it an error scan and benchmark test, no bad sectors are found, all my data are still intact and the speeds remain the same. I still can't believe it, because that huge of a drop normally kills a hard drive. Although I've read somewhere that Hitachi is the most reliable hard drive but I can't find the link again. Will post it here if I find it again.
     
    spence88, Apr 11, 2016
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  11. CasualGoofy

    FenWoFon

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    I have had the chance to try several brands such as Toshiba, Samsung and Seagate, I personally consider that the best ones are the Samsung one and Seagate one, I do not really know why but they have worked way better than the others I have had the chance to use before, that is my opinion though.
     
    FenWoFon, Apr 15, 2016
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  12. CasualGoofy

    b1gal

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    I recently picked up a Western Digital Passport 3.0 for my Mac to run backups in case my machine fails. So far I have no complaints. It does what it is supposed to and the USB 3.0 is a plus since it makes files transfer a lot faster.
     
    b1gal, May 11, 2016
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  13. CasualGoofy

    Vash

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    I used to be a Western Digital customer. All my internal hard drives of my desktop PCs were using Western Digital HDD. So naturally I bought all my external HDD from Western Digital as well. Currently I have two Western Digital external HDD with me. A 2TB and a 1TB Passport Essential. Not that I really have that many files, but rather I am paranoid about losing my files. So I stored two copies. The fact one of the earlier external HD died on me did not help either.

    However, since my 7-year-old Dell Vostro died on me last fall, I took out its 512GB SSD ( From Lite-on) and use it as an external hard drive. It is a lot faster, and small/light too as bonus. :)

    Unless you have tons of files to store and not enough money to buy a high capacity SSD, I would also highly recommend everyone to try a SSD based external hard drive. You can easily buy a SSD and an enclosure for it. It is so much easier to carry it around since it is a lot smaller than even Western Digital's Passport line.
     
    Vash, May 16, 2016
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  14. CasualGoofy

    vinaya

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    I am using WD My Passport Ultra. I have been using this portable external hard drive since many years and I never have had any issues. My hard drive is 1 TB. Since most of the space on the disk is already occupied, I am thinking to get another external hard drive. My next hard drive will also be WD My Passport Ultra.
     
    vinaya, Aug 22, 2016
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  15. CasualGoofy

    Aree Wongwanlee

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    Do you really need an external hard drive? I am asking because I used to think that I did. Then, at that time, I looked at the prices and they made me think again. Did I really need an external hard drive? Did I really have that much data which I wanted to put away in an external hard drive? In the end, I concluded that I didn't. Maybe you should ask yourself some of the questions I asked myself.
     
    Aree Wongwanlee, Aug 22, 2016
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  16. CasualGoofy

    Vash

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    Everyone has some files for storage. For example: photos, music, movies, documents. These files are not safe to be stored (only) on a single device if they are of some value to you. That is when a secondary storage device coming in handy. A USB flash drive would do if the amount of files are not that great. Larger storage devices like external hard drives are abosutely necessary when you have hundreds GB of files which needed the backup.

    Sometimes it is not just about how much files you have, but you simply just need to have multiple copies of the files for file security reasons (what if one device die on you? You might lose all of it... all of the photos you took in years would hurt, wouldn't it?)
     
    Vash, Aug 22, 2016
    #16
  17. CasualGoofy

    Aree Wongwanlee

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    I see. In my case, I get around this problem by using a few cloud storage devices. All my photos and videos are uploaded instantly to Google Drive, OneDrive and Dropbox. Then once in a while I would do some housekeeping on my cloud storage. It's surprising how much garbage there is sometimes. Things which seemed to be very important at one time becomes rubbish to be thrown away after some time.
     
    Aree Wongwanlee, Aug 30, 2016
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  18. CasualGoofy

    acerme2

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    I am currently using a generic brand of 1TB external storage that I bought more than 2 years ago from an officemate. It is supposed to be China-made and so I had to be very careful about storing and handling it. It was cheap at the time so I didn't have second thoughts about it. I'm glad that it had lasted to this day but I am not that confident about it. I need to buy a branded one now for my back up as I don't really feel secure about cloud storage. Thanks for all the inputs here.
     
    acerme2, Sep 8, 2016
    #18
  19. CasualGoofy

    Aree Wongwanlee

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    Why don't you feel secure about cloud storage? I am talking about the cloud storage services offered by reputable companies like Google and Microsoft. If you feel that you cannot depend on any one of them, then back up to at least two of them. That's what I do. I have set my laptop and my smartphone to automatically backup to Google Drive, OneDrive and Dropbox. That's 300% security.
     
    Aree Wongwanlee, Sep 10, 2016
    #19
  20. CasualGoofy

    SirJoe

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    I must admit that I am a bit partial to WD I have used Toshiba and Segate drives in the past but my experience with Seagate wasn't that positive. I think that when in it comes to hard drives it's still a question of luck. Some will last a life time while others just don't seem to last that long.
     
    SirJoe, Sep 13, 2016
    #20
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