Internal HDD vs USB External HDD

[LiLAsN]

Hi. If what they say about the 260MBps speeds for the internal HDD is true, you are about thoroughly disappointed by a portable HDD.

I have tonnes of portable HDDs meant for archiving. videos, pictures, backups and so on. I can tell you now, you will never get any speeds above 130MB/s. At most, when it is new, it will be about 125MB/s tops. And then after a few more runs with the drive, the speed drops to 110MB/s and for some of my older drives, below 100MB/s.

I personally wouldn't go for WD portable drives though with the number of failure I had with nearly all my WD drives which by then, Samsung/Maxtor drive lasting even till now. So I only buy their drives after they were bought over by Seagate though I now have switched to Seagate One Touch models.
I went from 2TB drives of the past to the 4TB drives and now, 5TB drives. All of them with USB 3.x connectors.

 

[chan1026]

It's better for you to buy external if you are going to carry them around or the files were large because you gonna used up your cloud storage fast as well as internal storage and when you wanted to install new software, you might need to clear video to free up some space which would be a hassle.

Also.... it's better for you to change hdd if your disk is really failing because one day when the disk really spoil, data gone and might not able to recover it anymore.

 

[Ctrl_Alt_Del]

Hi. If what they say about the 260MBps speeds for the internal HDD is true, you are about thoroughly disappointed by a portable HDD.

I have tonnes of portable HDDs meant for archiving. videos, pictures, backups and so on. I can tell you now, you will never get any speeds above 130MB/s. At most, when it is new, it will be about 125MB/s tops. And then after a few more runs with the drive, the speed drops to 110MB/s and for some of my older drives, below 100MB/s.

I personally wouldn't go for WD portable drives though with the number of failure I had with nearly all my WD drives which by then, Samsung/Maxtor drive lasting even till now. So I only buy their drives after they were bought over by Seagate though I now have switched to Seagate One Touch models.
I went from 2TB drives of the past to the 4TB drives and now, 5TB drives. All of them with USB 3.x connectors.

Watched this 2TB 2.5" portage hdd comparison review while doing my research to buy external backup storage.
At 6:13 timing, 100GB of files transfer speed when the hdd are empty and filled with 1.5TB. Only seagate one touch transfer speed did not dropped significantly.

 

[TanKianW]

If need fast and portable backup solution, just get a NVMe drive and slap it on an Orico /Ugreen enclosure.

Personally I run 2x NVMe on mirror when backing up images/snapshots from production servers on-the-go.​

 

[Yongkit]

Portable is good if come with security feature since it is inevitable the portable device easily reachable by 3rd party.

 

[ragnarok95]

If need fast and portable backup solution, just get a NVMe drive and slap it on an Orico /Ugreen enclosure.

Personally I run 2x NVMe on mirror when backing up images/snapshots from production servers on-the-go.​

Same. Bought a 1TB NVMe and a ugreen enclosure. Less than S$140.

 

[Daty41]

Can check if ur NVMe drives fragile? i just upgrade to 2gig one and want to use the 500gig drive as external..when removing the heatsink, maybe bend the drive a very slight at the other end (as need to force a bit) and the drive now stopped working (in external drive enclosure). The enclosure confirm is working cause i use it to clone the drive. Too lazy to plug back into PC to test for now.

Old hard drives as long as never drop from height can take a lot of abuse....still got 5-6 year old hard disk, anyhow throw is storage, still working. My old 4 gig Hitachi drive still holding a lot of photos and movies (now redundant since can easily download )..still working (now put inside external case)

 

[LiLAsN]

After seeing how catastrophic an NVMe drive can fail not once but twice both with the old and new one, I will try my best not to store anything on it as long term storage. Thus why I'll transfer any data for archival purposes and long term storage over to External HDD drives. At least even if the HDD drive is failing, at most, the transfer speeds will slow down while giving me enough time to buy a new drive and transfer all the data over. In the case of my NVMe, once the controller or the entire NVMe drive starts failing, the data inside is almost instantly lost leaving you with your mouth agape with all your important memories lost just like that.

This is also why I am against NAS and Raid configurations. Sometimes the data is unreadable in anything but the original NAS as seen by the high amount of failure rate with certain NAS brands and models. Yes, there may be solutions to this NAS and RAID issues but it will take up a LOT of your time finding the solution, troubleshooting and so on. Wasting days on end followed by wasting hundreds of dollars on seeking professional help. It is just not worth the added cost and headache to fix.

So my simplest and safest solution is still External Portable HDD drives where you will be given signs that your drive is failing giving you ample time to transfer any and all important archived data out before it truly dies and even if it dies, it won't affect your other individual drives unlike RAID or NAS.

So my older NVMe drives do use UGreen and Asus Arion USB NVMe enclosures but I treat them like USB drives for quick transfer of files to load onto a router to act as a NAS network that can be found by any and all devices at home or other simple and safe use cases.

 

[Koenig168]

...

So my simplest and safest solution is still External Portable HDD drives where you will be given signs that your drive is failing giving you ample time to transfer any and all important archived data out before it truly dies and even if it dies, it won't affect your other individual drives unlike RAID or NAS.

...

That assumes that you are given a chance to transfer data out.

Suggest you consider 3-2-1, tried tested and proven.

 

[86technie]

Can check if ur NVMe drives fragile? i just upgrade to 2gig one and want to use the 500gig drive as external..when removing the heatsink, maybe bend the drive a very slight at the other end (as need to force a bit) and the drive now stopped working (in external drive enclosure). The enclosure confirm is working cause i use it to clone the drive. Too lazy to plug back into PC to test for now.

Old hard drives as long as never drop from height can take a lot of abuse....still got 5-6 year old hard disk, anyhow throw is storage, still working. My old 4 gig Hitachi drive still holding a lot of photos and movies (now redundant since can easily download )..still working (now put inside external case)

Don't think it is you bend the drive but rather ESD (Static discharge)

If still under warranty get it replaced.
Than after sell it get a proper external SSD drive.

 

[Daty41]

After seeing how catastrophic an NVMe drive can fail not once but twice both with the old and new one, I will try my best not to store anything on it as long term storage. Thus why I'll transfer any data for archival purposes and long term storage over to External HDD drives. At least even if the HDD drive is failing, at most, the transfer speeds will slow down while giving me enough time to buy a new drive and transfer all the data over. In the case of my NVMe, once the controller or the entire NVMe drive starts failing, the data inside is almost instantly lost leaving you with your mouth agape with all your important memories lost just like that.

This is also why I am against NAS and Raid configurations. Sometimes the data is unreadable in anything but the original NAS as seen by the high amount of failure rate with certain NAS brands and models. Yes, there may be solutions to this NAS and RAID issues but it will take up a LOT of your time finding the solution, troubleshooting and so on. Wasting days on end followed by wasting hundreds of dollars on seeking professional help. It is just not worth the added cost and headache to fix.

So my simplest and safest solution is still External Portable HDD drives where you will be given signs that your drive is failing giving you ample time to transfer any and all important archived data out before it truly dies and even if it dies, it won't affect your other individual drives unlike RAID or NAS.

So my older NVMe drives do use UGreen and Asus Arion USB NVMe enclosures but I treat them like USB drives for quick transfer of files to load onto a router to act as a NAS network that can be found by any and all devices at home or other simple and safe use cases.

true...think about it, last time at most lose a bit due to a few bad sectors but can still retrieve most of the files....... i guess maybe blessing in disguise my NVMe drive just died with useless data inside.

 

[TanKianW]

After seeing how catastrophic an NVMe drive can fail not once but twice both with the old and new one, I will try my best not to store anything on it as long term storage. Thus why I'll transfer any data for archival purposes and long term storage over to External HDD drives. At least even if the HDD drive is failing, at most, the transfer speeds will slow down while giving me enough time to buy a new drive and transfer all the data over. In the case of my NVMe, once the controller or the entire NVMe drive starts failing, the data inside is almost instantly lost leaving you with your mouth agape with all your important memories lost just like that.

This is also why I am against NAS and Raid configurations. Sometimes the data is unreadable in anything but the original NAS as seen by the high amount of failure rate with certain NAS brands and models. Yes, there may be solutions to this NAS and RAID issues but it will take up a LOT of your time finding the solution, troubleshooting and so on. Wasting days on end followed by wasting hundreds of dollars on seeking professional help. It is just not worth the added cost and headache to fix.

So my simplest and safest solution is still External Portable HDD drives where you will be given signs that your drive is failing giving you ample time to transfer any and all important archived data out before it truly dies and even if it dies, it won't affect your other individual drives unlike RAID or NAS.

So my older NVMe drives do use UGreen and Asus Arion USB NVMe enclosures but I treat them like USB drives for quick transfer of files to load onto a router to act as a NAS network that can be found by any and all devices at home or other simple and safe use cases.

Thinking external storage/HDD can protect your data (regardless of SSD or HDD) actually puts you in a much higher risk for data loss, where RAID could provide protection in resiliency and redundancy. If your particular external drive (1-drive) bitrot, corrupted, fails, all backup gone, and it will not be spared either. From my experience on the field, an external drive backup cannot be relied upon…..at all. Wait for its transfer to slow down then you know its failing? That is one of the most “amateur” way of gauging a drive health before its failure. Trust me, the drive will die before you even start transferring the data out!

I will think the simplest and safest option for common folks are to use a commercial cloud service, not an “external HDD”. Though commercial cloud cost you, but most likely will not cost you your precious data. (Eg icloud, google cloud?)

Failures in (home) NAS backup deployment are mainly caused by users themselves. Not knowing how the NAS/storage system works, not knowing how to interpret pre-failure signs/diagnostic, failure to implement proper power management, failure to implement data resiliency at file system level (C.O.W, snapshots), failure to implement proper security (physical & network), implement incorrect drive replacement sequence/procedures, locked into proprietary storage system (SW and HW), etc. Making matter worse, thinking that with a NAS, they can ignore the 3-2-1 backup strategy and over rely/trust the NAS as the ONLY backup. Fact is, all enterprise storage uses (some form of) RAID on storage servers which consumer call it a “NAS”. If such storage system “had not worked”, the bank data you just access from your banks online would have been long gone. The only reason it does not work for someone is because that “someone” do not know what he/she is doing, which i agree that setting up a competent storage system is not for everyone. That is why I advised using commercial cloud services for your important/precious data of common folks.​

 

[LiLAsN]

Thinking external storage/HDD can protect your data (regardless of SSD or HDD) actually puts you in a much higher risk for data loss, where RAID could provide protection in resiliency and redundancy. If your particular external drive (1-drive) bitrot, corrupted, fails, all backup gone, and it will not be spared either. From my experience on the field, an external drive backup cannot be relied upon…..at all. Wait for its transfer to slow down then you know its failing? That is one of the most “amateur” way of gauging a drive health before its failure. Trust me, the drive will die before you even start transferring the data out!

I will think the simplest and safest option for common folks are to use a commercial cloud service, not an “external HDD”. Though commercial cloud cost you, but most likely will not cost you your precious data. (Eg icloud, google cloud?)

Failures in (home) NAS backup deployment are mainly caused by users themselves. Not knowing how the NAS/storage system works, not knowing how to interpret pre-failure signs/diagnostic, failure to implement proper power management, failure to implement data resiliency at file system level (C.O.W, snapshots), failure to implement proper security (physical & network), implement incorrect drive replacement sequence/procedures, locked into proprietary storage system (SW and HW), etc. Making matter worse, thinking that with a NAS, they can ignore the 3-2-1 backup strategy and over rely/trust the NAS as the ONLY backup. Fact is, all enterprise storage uses (some form of) RAID on storage servers which consumer call it a “NAS”. If such storage system “had not worked”, the bank data you just access from your banks online would have been long gone. The only reason it does not work for someone is because that “someone” do not know what he/she is doing, which i agree that setting up a competent storage system is not for everyone. That is why I advised using commercial cloud services for your important/precious data of common folks.​

Yes. Not gonna lie. I am an amateur when it comes to choosing methods for archival. I was stuck with countless DVD drives as my data drives for quite a while before jumping to external drives.
For external drives, it is not the slower speeds that tells whether the drive is dying. There will be drops to 0 and so on. Remember. They are archival drives that have not been accessed for months or years at a time. So it doesn't have the luxury of running through S.M.A.R.T drive test like my other drives on the PC upon boot up. But for more than 10 years, I guess I am very lucky to be able to get my data out of the drive once the signs starts to show long before it actually dies. Something you won't get a chance to figure out when it dies instantly like an NVMe SSD.

I will not even go with Cloud Storage. Why pay monthly for a service that will scan through your data and delete anything it wants? My friend with his iPhone relies on cloud storage. He subscribed to Google Drive and kept some of his data on it. Until one day, he was asking for help because his personal data got deleted when Google deems it fit to be deleted. Probably prawn data.
All I can say is, I told him so.

When I refer to RAID, I mostly mean on PC. When your OS becomes corrupted and you had to reinstall, you might risk having your 2-4 Data drives running in RAID having its data becoming totally inaccessible on the newly installed Windows. I ever ran into that problem. It is why I've been keeping all of my 4 NVMe SSD and 2 SATA SSD running on its own and then delegating the Folders to each of the drives. I've been very fortunate to have all my data intact through the years on multiple NVMe and SATA SSD drive transfers of said files. So I prefer to stick to this method with an External Drive to backup crucial data on the NVMEs and SSDs that needs to have redundancy. I understand if this is very archaic and old school. It is fine by me. I am not asking anyone to follow this method. Just sharing my bad experience with RAID whose weakness turns out to be the OS itself if it ever fails locking you out of your entire data because of your RAID config.

Now for NAS, it's not just user error. Things like this can happen to anyone. Look at Gamers Nexus for example. He will explain just how severe the point of failure can be when you have all your eggs (drives) in 1 basket (NAS). 20 over Terabytes of data gone just like that? No thanks. Way too risky and expensive to remedy.
But hey, if you can chart me a safe path that has worked for you for many many years, I won't mind learning from your experience and giving it a try.

 

[Phen8210]

After seeing how catastrophic an NVMe drive can fail not once but twice both with the old and new one, I will try my best not to store anything on it as long term storage. Thus why I'll transfer any data for archival purposes and long term storage over to External HDD drives. At least even if the HDD drive is failing, at most, the transfer speeds will slow down while giving me enough time to buy a new drive and transfer all the data over. In the case of my NVMe, once the controller or the entire NVMe drive starts failing, the data inside is almost instantly lost leaving you with your mouth agape with all your important memories lost just like that.

This is also why I am against NAS and Raid configurations. Sometimes the data is unreadable in anything but the original NAS as seen by the high amount of failure rate with certain NAS brands and models. Yes, there may be solutions to this NAS and RAID issues but it will take up a LOT of your time finding the solution, troubleshooting and so on. Wasting days on end followed by wasting hundreds of dollars on seeking professional help. It is just not worth the added cost and headache to fix.

So my simplest and safest solution is still External Portable HDD drives where you will be given signs that your drive is failing giving you ample time to transfer any and all important archived data out before it truly dies and even if it dies, it won't affect your other individual drives unlike RAID or NAS.

So my older NVMe drives do use UGreen and Asus Arion USB NVMe enclosures but I treat them like USB drives for quick transfer of files to load onto a router to act as a NAS network that can be found by any and all devices at home or other simple and safe use cases.

some nvme r quite prone to failure

1 year can rma 3 time.. and its a lot of the same one.

For some, no matter how you torture it dont die..

 

[Phen8210]

Anyway, just use cloud or SSD.. don't need to setup a NAS unless you need it to be LAN.. or have some sort of special reasons..

 

[Ctrl_Alt_Del]

some nvme r quite prone to failure

1 year can rma 3 time.. and its a lot of the same one.

For some, no matter how you torture it dont die..

Which nvme ssd torture do not die?

 

[Ctrl_Alt_Del]

Can check if ur NVMe drives fragile? i just upgrade to 2gig one and want to use the 500gig drive as external..when removing the heatsink, maybe bend the drive a very slight at the other end (as need to force a bit) and the drive now stopped working (in external drive enclosure). The enclosure confirm is working cause i use it to clone the drive. Too lazy to plug back into PC to test for now.

Old hard drives as long as never drop from height can take a lot of abuse....still got 5-6 year old hard disk, anyhow throw is storage, still working. My old 4 gig Hitachi drive still holding a lot of photos and movies (now redundant since can easily download )..still working (now put inside external case)

I has a seagate 3.5" hdd made in 2006 with no bad sector no weird sound until i killed it in 2020. Plugged in power cable to wrong connector on modular psu then the hdd emitted smoke.

 

[TanKianW]

Yes. Not gonna lie. I am an amateur when it comes to choosing methods for archival. I was stuck with countless DVD drives as my data drives for quite a while before jumping to external drives.
For external drives, it is not the slower speeds that tells whether the drive is dying. There will be drops to 0 and so on. Remember. They are archival drives that have not been accessed for months or years at a time. So it doesn't have the luxury of running through S.M.A.R.T drive test like my other drives on the PC upon boot up. But for more than 10 years, I guess I am very lucky to be able to get my data out of the drive once the signs starts to show long before it actually dies. Something you won't get a chance to figure out when it dies instantly like an NVMe SSD.

I will not even go with Cloud Storage. Why pay monthly for a service that will scan through your data and delete anything it wants? My friend with his iPhone relies on cloud storage. He subscribed to Google Drive and kept some of his data on it. Until one day, he was asking for help because his personal data got deleted when Google deems it fit to be deleted. Probably prawn data.
All I can say is, I told him so.

When I refer to RAID, I mostly mean on PC. When your OS becomes corrupted and you had to reinstall, you might risk having your 2-4 Data drives running in RAID having its data becoming totally inaccessible on the newly installed Windows. I ever ran into that problem. It is why I've been keeping all of my 4 NVMe SSD and 2 SATA SSD running on its own and then delegating the Folders to each of the drives. I've been very fortunate to have all my data intact through the years on multiple NVMe and SATA SSD drive transfers of said files. So I prefer to stick to this method with an External Drive to backup crucial data on the NVMEs and SSDs that needs to have redundancy. I understand if this is very archaic and old school. It is fine by me. I am not asking anyone to follow this method. Just sharing my bad experience with RAID whose weakness turns out to be the OS itself if it ever fails locking you out of your entire data because of your RAID config.

Now for NAS, it's not just user error. Things like this can happen to anyone. Look at Gamers Nexus for example. He will explain just how severe the point of failure can be when you have all your eggs (drives) in 1 basket (NAS). 20 over Terabytes of data gone just like that? No thanks. Way too risky and expensive to remedy.
But hey, if you can chart me a safe path that has worked for you for many many years, I won't mind learning from your experience and giving it a try.

Just check out who GamerNexus turns to for his NAS help following this. You will get your answer.

 

[Phen8210]

Which nvme ssd torture do not die?

I don't mean that they won't die completely, but they are less prone to failure. However, Lila is correct that some NVMe SSDs are known for having a much higher failure rate, but not all are horrible.

From my previous data analysis, the WD Black (not SE) and the 970 EVO/PRO are good options for Gen 3 SSDs, they tend to survive better when operated in a not-ideal environment.

The ones with the most reported issues are typically those with Phison controllers, and customers often complain of repeated failures. Even after multiple RMAs, the drives may soon fail again, prompting them to switch to a different model that doesn't have the same problem.

I have noticed a distinct pattern where those SSDs tend to fail much faster when used in high-end gaming laptops that run hot. In laptops with poor thermal design, the GPU can reach temperatures as high as 90°C while gaming. In some cases, this can cause the SSD to overheat and crash even when it's not being used which may sound surprising but is a real issue.

I suspect that the onboard electronic components used in these very budget-friendly SSDs may not be very robust.

All these stuff are mostly common knowledge in the industry, but public opinion is usually swayed by the media so only insiders from large corps are aware. Afterall, business has to go on (which is no longer my buisness).

 

[Ctrl_Alt_Del]

I don't mean that they won't die completely, but they are less prone to failure. However, Lila is correct that some NVMe SSDs are known for having a much higher failure rate, but not all are horrible.

From my previous data analysis, the WD Black (not SE) and the 970 EVO/PRO are good options for Gen 3 SSDs, they tend to survive better when operated in a not-ideal environment.

The ones with the most reported issues are typically those with Phison controllers, and customers often complain of repeated failures. Even after multiple RMAs, the drives may soon fail again, prompting them to switch to a different model that doesn't have the same problem.

I have noticed a distinct pattern where those SSDs tend to fail much faster when used in high-end gaming laptops that run hot. In laptops with poor thermal design, the GPU can reach temperatures as high as 90°C while gaming. In some cases, this can cause the SSD to overheat and crash even when it's not being used which may sound surprising but is a real issue.

I suspect that the onboard electronic components used in these very budget-friendly SSDs may not be very robust.

All these stuff are mostly common knowledge in the industry, but public opinion is usually swayed by the media so only insiders from large corps are aware. Afterall, business has to go on (which is no longer my buisness).

Watched many ssd data recovery videos on youtube. Some cases were a single tiny capacitor resistor faulty. Many cases of samsung nvme ssd with blown fuse, pmic. Maybe unstable power supply in laptop dc power brick.