External Hard Disk Purchase Inquiry

[zenify.me]

My existing 750GB WD My Passport is running out of space so I am thinking of getting a new one.

I mainly use my external hard disk for backup purposes and would mainly categorize my content into music, videos and ISOs.

My first question is if it is worth the wait to make my purchase during the coming September COMEX. From what I know, I can get a 1TB My Passport from TradePac in SLS at similar price to the June PC Show without the pouch.

My second question is if I should purchase separate hard disk (3 x 1TB) instead of a single one ( 1 x 3TB) to reduce the impact of data loss if my "backup" hard disk should stop working.

I have also lost touch with which manufacturer to lookout for when making a purchase. While WD is recommended by my friends, what about Seagate, Hitachi and Toshiba which I believe is a new player in the hard disk market. Any thoughts about these manufacturers?

I would appreciate the help.

TIA,
Zen

 

[davidktw]

My existing 750GB WD My Passport is running out of space so I am thinking of getting a new one.

I mainly use my external hard disk for backup purposes and would mainly categorize my content into music, videos and ISOs.

My first question is if it is worth the wait to make my purchase during the coming September COMEX. From what I know, I can get a 1TB My Passport from TradePac in SLS at similar price to the June PC Show without the pouch.

My second question is if I should purchase separate hard disk (3 x 1TB) instead of a single one ( 1 x 3TB) to reduce the impact of data loss if my "backup" hard disk should stop working.

I have also lost touch with which manufacturer to lookout for when making a purchase. While WD is recommended by my friends, what about Seagate, Hitachi and Toshiba which I believe is a new player in the hard disk market. Any thoughts about these manufacturers?

I would appreciate the help.

TIA,
Zen

When you mentioned backup, for those data in the external harddisk, would you also have another copy found in another harddisk ? If that is not the case, it's not called backup, it's called offload.

Go for a redundant solution, may it be DLink, Synology, QNAP, Asustor, etc if you are really looking for backup.

 

[zenify.me]

When you mentioned backup, for those data in the external harddisk, would you also have another copy found in another harddisk ? If that is not the case, it's not called backup, it's called offload.

Go for a redundant solution, may it be DLink, Synology, QNAP, Asustor, etc if you are really looking for backup.

Thank you for your prompt reply.

I guess for my case it's partial backup/offload. Certain media files that I might still frequently access can still be found in my desktop hard disk whereas ISOs are offloaded into my external hard disk.

Will look into what you suggested. From what I know those are NAS, will check out the price and features.

 

[xkiller213]

If you don't need a NAS, can try to find an external raid enclosure instead...

 

[yattan]

My first question is if it is worth the wait to make my purchase during the coming September COMEX. From what I know, I can get a 1TB My Passport from TradePac in SLS at similar price to the June PC Show without the pouch.

My second question is if I should purchase separate hard disk (3 x 1TB) instead of a single one ( 1 x 3TB) to reduce the impact of data loss if my "backup" hard disk should stop working.

there's no guarantee what'll be the promotion for the next trade show but the best outcome will be slightly lower price + the pouch so it is in my opinion that a 2 month wait is not worth it if the pouch is not important to you.

Data loss is a **** happens thing... but my take is that a desktop ext drive should last longer than a portable drive, less moving around. Personally, i went for a NAS solution (2x2tb in raid 1 configuration), and should i need portable storage, a 32gb usb drive is good enough most of the time.

 

[jtjt00]

TS, if you need now, head down to SLS and hoot.

 

[zenify.me]

I have done some research and it seems that network storage is the way to go these days since file transfer via network is faster than USB. Looking at WD My Book Live and D-Link DNS320L now, still deciding if I need RAID 1........

 

[xkiller213]

I have done some research and it seems that network storage is the way to go these days since file transfer via network is faster than USB. Looking at WD My Book Live and D-Link DNS320L now, still deciding if I need RAID 1........

USB 3 is way faster than GBE, so if your computer does not come with USB 3, then a (mid-high end) NAS would be faster...

The DNS320L is a pretty weak NAS, it is definitely faster than 100Mbps LAN, but nowhere near the limit of GBE, not too sure about the WD mybook. I believe that USB 2 is faster than the DNS320L.

RAID1 is good to prevent against hard disk failure. even if one drive dies, your data is still intact. It is highly recommended to use RAID1 in an NAS.

 

[zenify.me]

USB 3 is way faster than GBE, so if your computer does not come with USB 3, then a (mid-high end) NAS would be faster...

The DNS320L is a pretty weak NAS, it is definitely faster than 100Mbps LAN, but nowhere near the limit of GBE, not too sure about the WD mybook. I believe that USB 2 is faster than the DNS320L.

RAID1 is good to prevent against hard disk failure. even if one drive dies, your data is still intact. It is highly recommended to use RAID1 in an NAS.

Since that's the case then I shall stick to external USB 3.0 storage device, transfer speed of files through USB 3.0 device on my desktop average to ~80Mbps. No point for me to pay more to get a NAS with similar performance and storage space for the additional features that are not essential to me.

Are there any plus point for 3.5" external hard disk compared to 2.5" other than better price:storage space ratio?