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External HDD

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Flogger23m

Fully [H]
Joined
Jun 19, 2009
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Been looking for a new backup HDD and I did not see any excellent deals this past Black Friday for internal HDDs. I am thinking of getting an external HDD instead, as I can use it with my laptop which would be a plus. I only intend on using it every few months for data back ups, so an internal drive would just be sitting unplugged mostly anyways so the idea of an external that I use can when needed for both computers seems like a decent idea. Though I don't know what brands are good for external HDDs. I see a lot of models for WD/Seagate. I have USB 3 which I believe is the current standard for external drives.

Reliability is a concern. Are the Seagate external drives solid? Performance wise, are externals roughly on par with lower end internal drives like the WD Green/Blue? Performance doesn't have to be superb as it will be used infrequently, but I don't want an exceptionally slow drive either.
 
I'd say get the drive that's on sale and has the best warranty.

I've have a 5TB Seagate external drive going strong but recently a WD external (5TB) died in less than a year. Everyone's experience is different with different brands, but they all fail. Many point to the Backblaze reports for HD reliability, but I'm not sure how accurate that is for the larger 5TB-8TB drives. Seagate seems have a bad rap because of the Backblaze data, but I think the bad numbers were just for the 3TB drives.

All of the externals use lower RPM drives like the WD Green and Blue series. I believe Seagate uses 5900 RPM drives in its externals but not sure. As long as you've got USB 3.0, you'll see transfers speeds of 100-125 MBps. For infrequent backups, that's plenty fast in my opinion.

My suggestion is to buy a drive that doesn't use encryption between the USB connection and the internal SATA drive. In other words, if the PCB board dies, you can't recover the data by simply removing the HD and putting it into your computer or USB dock. Only issue is you probably voided your warranty by opening the enclosure....but I'd much rather have the actual data instead of a refurbished drive. :)
 
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Alternatively, get an internal drive and put it in an external USB dock; no need to crack open enclosure and voiding warranty.

I usually by WD My Passport Ultra, but believe the drive uses encryption between the USB and internal SATA drive?
 
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