I badly need to back up my pictures on another hard drive (and I need another as I have filled my current one) and have no idea which are good, but not too expensive. Are there any around £50-£60, or are the majority more expensive?
I have 3 500gig PC formatted Seagate externals fitted to an NAS for our PC storage, draw their power from the USB and have never let me down... On the Mac I have two 1tb externals attached, on import the RAW files are copied to the internal hd and one of the externals, they are then further backed up by time machine onto the other external...
The 500gig Seagates are around £50... If you are serious you need a minimum two backups so if you can, try to afford two externals...
For backup you do not need the fastest around so 5400 is fine, respected names are Seagate, Western Digital and Iomega, if you are going to be working from them, then a faster 7200 drive would be good but not essential...
HTH
Phil
Posted by John Robinson on November 8, 2011 at 3:23 PM
Oscar
I have several externals two ide's in caddies and sata's in a docking staion. All hot swapping so no swithching on and off all the time. At times I run 4 drives in the pc and two externals. I think the sata's are cheaper than ideas now. All the well known makes Phil mentions are ok.
JR
Posted by Paul Whippey on November 8, 2011 at 5:01 PM
Oscar,
You can pick up external 1TB Western Digital drives in Asda for around £60. At least I did before the flooding in Singapore happened..... not sure what effect this will have on hard disk prices yet. I use one as my time machine backup disk for my RAID1 volume on my mac, works a treat.
Thanks for your advice. I also need one for a main external hard drive. Paul would the 1TB Western Digital drive be sufficient?
Thanks
Oscar
Posted by Paul Whippey on November 9, 2011 at 2:43 AM
Hi Oscar,
I'd try and get two drives if you can afford it. I'd rather have a dedicated backup drive than share it with other data. I take my second external drive when I travel, so then I use that as a backup device on the road and I don't touch my dedicated backup drive at all. But if your budget only stretches to one drive and as long as your backing up your photos, it will be sufficient.
Thanks,
Paul.
Posted by Oscar Dewhurst on November 9, 2011 at 11:42 AM
Hi Paul,
They are quite expensive and so I will probably just have 2, one for the photos when I first put them on and edit them, and another with them backed up. To get (I need a new main one as well) would probably be too expensive for me.
Oscar
Posted by Mike Smith on November 9, 2011 at 12:19 PM
I'm with teh majority of views here, you need at least two backup drives, - over the years I've had two backup drive failures, without the mirroring system I would have lost major junks of my photo collections.
As long as there is a mechanical hard disck/bearing/reader involved expect the worst. Hopefully "solid state" backup will become more bomb proof as and when prices start to drop.
I have a WD 1TB drive like Paul. It works wonders for me, although I am a little blase, having never lost any images due to drive failure (now that's tempting fate!)
Discussion
8 repliesThanks
Oscar
I have 3 500gig PC formatted Seagate externals fitted to an NAS for our PC storage, draw their power from the USB and have never let me down... On the Mac I have two 1tb externals attached, on import the RAW files are copied to the internal hd and one of the externals, they are then further backed up by time machine onto the other external...
The 500gig Seagates are around £50... If you are serious you need a minimum two backups so if you can, try to afford two externals...
For backup you do not need the fastest around so 5400 is fine, respected names are Seagate, Western Digital and Iomega, if you are going to be working from them, then a faster 7200 drive would be good but not essential...
HTH
Phil
I have several externals two ide's in caddies and sata's in a docking staion. All hot swapping so no swithching on and off all the time. At times I run 4 drives in the pc and two externals. I think the sata's are cheaper than ideas now. All the well known makes Phil mentions are ok.
JR
You can pick up external 1TB Western Digital drives in Asda for around £60. At least I did before the flooding in Singapore happened..... not sure what effect this will have on hard disk prices yet. I use one as my time machine backup disk for my RAID1 volume on my mac, works a treat.
Thanks,
Paul.
Thanks
Oscar
I'd try and get two drives if you can afford it. I'd rather have a dedicated backup drive than share it with other data. I take my second external drive when I travel, so then I use that as a backup device on the road and I don't touch my dedicated backup drive at all. But if your budget only stretches to one drive and as long as your backing up your photos, it will be sufficient.
Thanks,
Paul.
They are quite expensive and so I will probably just have 2, one for the photos when I first put them on and edit them, and another with them backed up. To get (I need a new main one as well) would probably be too expensive for me.
Oscar
As long as there is a mechanical hard disck/bearing/reader involved expect the worst. Hopefully "solid state" backup will become more bomb proof as and when prices start to drop.
I have a WD 1TB drive like Paul. It works wonders for me, although I am a little blase, having never lost any images due to drive failure (now that's tempting fate!)