On 1/25/19, Peter Ehlert <pe...@sdi-baja.com> wrote: > On 1/25/19 9:24 AM, James H. H. Lampert wrote: >> Fellow List members: >> >> Would anybody care to voice an opinion on USB external hard drives in >> the 2 terabyte size range, for automated backup purposes? >> >> We've been looking at the Seagate "Expansion" and the WD "Elements"; >> I've noticed that on Amazon, both have a fair number of negative >> reviews citing reliability issues. (We recently discovered that our >> current Seagate had apparently failed on us.) >> >> Any opinions? Seagate? WD? Toshiba? Something else? > > > I avoid USB drives, in preference to internal drives... speed and security. > When I use them I am extremely careful, because they all seem to have a > spinning disk inside, not shock resistant, and subject to early failure > due to heat. > I do have several, but they are not what I really Trust to keep precious > data. > > a separate box that is out of harm is best, even a separate low end > computer to act as a storage device. > syncthing is my tool of choice to sync from my laptop to a desktop > then LuckyBackup on a schedule to Copy the sync folder into a second > Storage drive.
I've gone the (open, not enclosed) external hard drive route. It's what I'm using right now. It's a ~4-year-old single bay dock that handles one 3TB WD fine but mounts and unmounts ENDLESSLY when another of the exact same make/model is inserted. The other hard drive feels like it's "swaying" this dock so the hard drive must keep unseating itself or something. It was my Life-on-the-fly ah-ha moment about why some of these things are rated for no more than 2TB. Must be all about the physics of the (totally cool) momentum going on inside those hard drive cases.... Docks and similar are "hinky" at best. They have unreliable stability regardless of the brand k/t one's environment's effect on that external USB connection. In my case, it's a mix of my klutziness and my dogs always clamoring around right next to me here as I type. Brand-wise, I've used 3 hard drives mentioned here: HGST, Seagate, and WD. All three have worked AMAZINGLY under the ongoing duress of _extreme_ temperature _extremes_. KNOCK ON WOOD, not one has ever had a hardware failure that was not Human inflicted. ALL have been bottom dollar refurbished products. Thanks to being a poverty level techie, my backup picks to date have been about using a mix of docks and those $10 to $15 wired contraptions that offer you the ability to dip back into your old PATA hard drives. On a whim last year, I purchased one of those contraptions for no reason. It became a $4.52 Lifesaver a few weeks later. I was able to use that contraption to yank a *PATA* hard drive from an approximate 2002 Hewlett Packard laptop, install some Puppy Linux friendly files, and get back to accessing the Net via (GACK!) hsfmodem. Until that moment, "that other operating system" had been my modem provider for years, but it finally met the match of someone able to crack/hack into it and bring it to its knees. All Linux now, baby, specifically thanks to that $4.52 spent on one of the flakiest backup options possibly available BUT on the flipside, I have a heartbreaking, Life changing data loss story related to that same kind of contraption six years ago. Moral of the story for the archives: ONLY FOR EMERGENCIES, not daily use, but it doesn't hurt to have one or two laying around just because they're that cheap. Oh, and they DO actually work. :) Turns out the contraption I bought is deemed a/an "HDD cable converter". I call it girl's best friend forever: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIABR04YT8223 That was bought while researching going the server route. I don't fully understand RAID (yet?), but I do keep hearing about problems with users losing data when something inevitably crashes. Those same data losses occur regularly with USB connections. I mitigate by consciously, regularly unmounting then remounting partitions like my massive photography backups after new data has been included. May be a false sense of security, but I haven't noticed any important data loss ever since pursuing that route toward data protection. A server type setup could be better (less flakily) hardwired than USB. That's my interest in it. Prices are *almost* attainable at literally abject poverty level so surely they're accessible to anyone anywhere outside that demographic. Even if a final server choice's hardwire connector is something not available on a favored laptop or "pad" whoosie-what's-it, there seems to be no end to the type of 99 cent adapters available to work around that setback. That CHOICE can open up its own can of worms with respect to flaky connections that inevitably lead to data loss, but anyway..... :) PS I was just looking at that converter listing one more time before sending this off. $4.52 a while back, and there they claim "No limit on hard drive capacity". That's going to at least in part be about that sway that I mentioned above. With those contraptions, my own hard drives were always laying flat down on some kind of flat surface. That takes a big byte out of a hard drive's ability/lack of ability to "sway". PPS That suddenly reminded me that one feature I find irreplaceable is when whatever product is chosen uses the computer to provide the power source instead of the item having to be yet another plug in a surge protector somewhere. Occasionally that means having to have two open USB ports instead of one. I'm all game for that, but... then... that... means... having to come up with an additional USB hub to cover that... and... have mercy. *makes my head hurt right about now* Cindy :) -- Cindy-Sue Causey Talking Rock, Pickens County, Georgia, USA * runs with birdseed *
