External Hard Drives, HD vs SSD, Brands

[boojum]

Yes, they do all fail. What to know is the MTBF, Mean Time Between Failures (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_time_between_failures).

I like SSD because it is FAST. I have it in a laptop. Boots in seconds. HD in the desktop, way slower boot. I can run disk maintenance software (Gibson's Spinrite) to keep my HD up to snuff. I do not believe I can do that with an SSD. It is a different technology that looks the same to the Dunning-Krugers like me. For backups on a weekly basis I would wager that the 4TB WD Passport will work just fine. Minimal disk access as it does an incremental backup not the whole camera file folder other than the first backup. But for an external drive to store files on while working from a laptop is what I would be interested in. If I am off on a ramble for a few days or weeks I would like to be able to view and edit the crap I have captured. Now and again I will get a good one, not great, but good. I might want to tweak it. This is doable, it is not terra incognita, people have been there before. Some may have left traces. ;o)

 

[Pál_K]

Ask the boffins with that huge CCD telescope camera thingy what they’re going to use for storage - they’re going to be saving 15TB per day for 10 years.

DECtape - I used that on a PDP-12 (combination of PDP-8 and LINC-8) in the early 1970’s.

 

[willie_901]

SSD or HDD isn't the issue. However you prefer expand your working physical data storage, have a proper backup strategy in place. Backups an be automated.

Backup strategies provide different levels of risk mitigation. Decide what level of risk is acceptable then implement and use the plan.

 

[Monz]

I have four Seagate external USB powered drive (HD), the largest is 4TB and also a couple of old WD separately powered external drives. All have served me well although I use them primarily for storage of photos and video files. Occasionally I edit video and photos directly from the HD.

 

[shawn]

I store current photos on my laptop and then move them to a Synology NAS for long term. That has (2) 6 TB drives in it in a Synology Hybrid raid layout. That can expand up to 9 drives if needed. Computers also back up to the NAS. The NAS has a 6tb external USB drive that backs up the array for additional redundancy.

Shawn

 

[boojum]

I think my main use would be for reviewing the trash of the day when out for a ramble of a few days. I would be working from a 1TB laptop. As it has W11 and Linux on it there is not a lot of space for image storing. I could xfer the files to the desktop when I get home again. At least that is how I currently envision it. I have a 4TB WD MyBook for regular use and a 4TB WD Passport for image backups.

 

[Bill Clark]

Didn’t get into using SSD externals.

Had a previous client from an event send me an email and asked if I could supply him with the files. Found the external hard drive where they are located, fired it up and made a couple of dvd’s for him. It was from an event in 2008.


Works for me.

 

[john_s]

............ I think it backs up. I should try a restore. ;o)

Yes. Every backup procedure needs to be checked that a restore will be complete. Not difficult with direct file copies, but if a backup program is storing data in a proprietary format a check restore is absolutely mandatory. I now know this!

 

[boojum]

Didn’t get into using SSD externals.

Had a previous client from an event send me an email and asked if I could supply him with the files. Found the external hard drive where they are located, fired it up and made a couple of dvd’s for him. It was from an event in 2008.


Works for me.

What is great about today is options. Sending a bunch of large files which would fill a couple of DVD's can also be done with WeTransfer and it is done in moments, seamlessly, quickly, and securely. If the client has a computer to read DVD's he has a computer which can also D/L files. I still have a lot of CD and DVD blanks. I suspect that will not change much. Thumb drives are also great. Options.

But my use of the SSD would not be for long term storage even though I bet it is fine for that. I would just need it as a playground for short term editing.

 

[Halftrack]

Here's a good recent article from EE Journal (Electronic Engineering Journal) about SSDs versus HDDs:

https://www.eejournal.com/article/ssds-have-a-heart-of-darkness-and-youd-better-not-ignore-it/

The CrystalDiskInfo utility described in this article looks interesting. I intend to try it on my Windows computers -- one old, one new.

My personal experience is that flash memory is unreliable for long-term archival storage. I've had three USB thumb drives fail. All three failures were total -- no files were recoverable, and Windows wouldn't even mount or reformat one of the drives. I did succeed in reformatting that one on a Linux machine, which made it readable again in Windows, but of course all the files were gone, and I distrust it now.

USB thumb drives and SSDs use flash memory, which retains data by trapping electrons in a transistor, effectively like a capacitor. Over time, the electrons gradually leak out. When enough of them are gone, the transistor no longer retains the data. Also, frequent write cycles reduce a transistor's ability to trap electrons.

Ironically, older flash memory is more reliable because the older fabrication technology makes larger transistors, which hold more electrons. I have a couple of 20-year-old thumb drives that are still going strong, and one is used frequently. The trade-off is that flash drives using larger transistors have less total capacity.

 

[boojum]

Here's a good recent article from EE Journal (Electronic Engineering Journal) about SSDs versus HDDs:

https://www.eejournal.com/article/ssds-have-a-heart-of-darkness-and-youd-better-not-ignore-it/

The CrystalDiskInfo utility described in this article looks interesting. I intend to try it on my Windows computers -- one old, one new.

My personal experience is that flash memory is unreliable for long-term archival storage. I've had three USB thumb drives fail. All three failures were total -- no files were recoverable, and Windows wouldn't even mount or reformat one of the drives. I did succeed in reformatting that one on a Linux machine, which made it readable again in Windows, but of course all the files were gone, and I distrust it now.

USB thumb drives and SSDs use flash memory, which retains data by trapping electrons in a transistor, effectively like a capacitor. Over time, the electrons gradually leak out. When enough of them are gone, the transistor no longer retains the data. Also, frequent write cycles reduce a transistor's ability to trap electrons.

Ironically, older flash memory is more reliable because the older fabrication technology makes larger transistors, which hold more electrons. I have a couple of 20-year-old thumb drives that are still going strong, and one is used frequently. The trade-off is that flash drives using larger transistors have less total capacity.

Interesting info. I am wary of SSD's for long-term storage just because of old prejudice. This is an instance where it has been correct. My plan with an SSD attached to a laptop is to use it as an interim media and offload what is on it when I get back to the desktop with its rotating memory. Your new info has reinforced that path. Thanks.

 

[JeffS7444]

Mechanical hard drives are still relevant in 2022 when very high storage capacities and economical pricing is a priority. But as an individual seeking a single portable USB drive in the < 2TB range, stick with SSD. Consider ones offered by chip makers such as Crucial (Micron), Samsung, or Sandisk, maybe Transcend. USB-C interface would be a plus.

 

[boojum]

Mechanical hard drives are still relevant in 2022 when very high storage capacities and economical pricing is a priority. But as an individual seeking a single portable USB drive in the < 2TB range, stick with SSD. Consider ones offered by chip makers such as Crucial (Micron), Samsung, or Sandisk, maybe Transcend. USB-C interface would be a plus.

Yes, I would be using USB-C and most likely Sandisk on the basis of biggest bang for buck.

 

[Out to Lunch]

Besides, an SDD hard drive in the tropics -high humidity, high temperatures, and fine dust pollution in the big cities, will outlast a mechanical hard drive. Cheers, OtL

 

[JeffS7444]

As far as archiving data goes, think of it as an ongoing process, rather than copying to some media, then forgetting it for decades. But I suppose if you really want to try that approach, you might burn files to M Disk optical media. When the time comes to retrieve data, you'll need to find a functional optical drive, but fortunately, any Bluray drive ought to suffice - you only need specific drives in order to burn M Disk media.

My own approach is to use a networked 2-drive QNAP RAID for primary data storage, which gives me redundancy in the event of individual drive failure. And QNAP allows for automated backup of RAID to a USB external drive, giving me yet another level of redundancy, should the RAID hardware itself fail. Hardware is compact, not too expensive, and backup drive is a repurposed mechanical portable HD which would otherwise go to waste. I used a pair of 3.5" Western Digital Red hard drives, because $/TB was heavily in favor of HD at the time, but my next RAID will almost certainly be built around SSD.

 

[boojum]

I am currently doing weekly backups to a WD 4TB Passport HD. The backup is all the use the drive gets, so far. I backup from the desktop. The laptop is a temp stop and would carry the same as the camera, but out on the 1TB SSD. This seems a workable, simple and sensible approach.

 

[jsrockit]

4TB is overkill? I have filled multiple 5-6tb drives. I guess I photograph too much.

 

[keytarjunkie]

4TB is overkill if you only use 64GB a year, I guess. I shoot 4K video at a high bitrate and go through 4TB pretty quickly. Everyone's different.

Jumping back in here...the WD passport drives are fine for backups, just make sure you have files backed up on more than one drive. I have tons of these drives laying around from the last 15 years and use them with the expectation that they could fail at any time. Same goes for Lacie/Seagate, which tend to fail more a little more often in my limited experience.

When I'm working on a specific video project, I mentioned that I edit off of a Sandisk SSD or Samsung T7 SSD. These have fast read/write speeds (typically via USB 3.1 Gen 2, running as high as 1050mb/s compared to about 115mb/s for a traditional USB-powered HDD) so I can cut 4K video at high bitrates in real time and transfer data nearly ten times as fast, which is really useful when you're moving 200GB files around. Blackmagic Disk Speed Test is a great free program for Mac and PC to test the speed of any drive, and shows how it does with different video file types.

I use a Lacie 1big dock as a hub, it provides power to my macbook, SD and CF card reader, displayport output, and has a 8TB 3.5" 7200RPM Ironwolf Pro drive, a drive with very good long term reliability. The drive can be swapped out, and I can even put in a SSD into this enclosure and get really fast transfer speeds through the Thunderbolt 3 interface.

You can then use software to mirror the drive onto another, or just manually copy things over. So when I need more storage space, I retire the old drive + backups and buy new ones.

 

[boojum]

I do not suspect that I am harboring Pulitzer quality pics. I can afford to lose some of them, and have using Seagate, My Passport backups are incremental so they take little additional space when I run the weekly, it just adds what I have added during the week, LZH compressed and duplicates noted but not copied.

Whatever is captured to the laptop/Sandisk SSD will be copied to the Passport and then copied to the desktop. Awaiting my Pulitzer, of course. ;o) I'll autograph my photo book desktop series for you guys when it comes out. ROTFLMAO

 

[Out to Lunch]

Scrolling through this thread, I was thinking about the apparent tremendous backup needs. I wonder why since it is also apparent that upon our demise, 99% of our digitally stored photographic endeavors will end up in digital heaven -or hell. Cheers, OtL