What External/Portable hard disk to get

[entertaint]

I'm looking to get a portable hard disk to store my lectures and school work on but after thinking about it I'm pretty sure a external hard disk will fulfill my needs. Not like I need the entire collection of what I did in school on the go right.

Looking to get either 1 or 2TB variation should be more than enough, any recommendation for brand/series that is known to last I don't need super high read speed or any fancy specs, serviceable and budget can liao. Hoping to get good deal on 11.11

 

[Rogue]

Samsung T7 SSD 1TB... Get from amazon.sg.

 

[Entry Level PC]

I'm looking to get a portable hard disk to store my lectures and school work on but after thinking about it I'm pretty sure a external hard disk will fulfill my needs. Not like I need the entire collection of what I did in school on the go right.

Looking to get either 1 or 2TB variation should be more than enough, any recommendation for brand/series that is known to last I don't need super high read speed or any fancy specs, serviceable and budget can liao. Hoping to get good deal on 11.11

Just get the cheapest.
Only thing is you need to handle with care.
Cannot take heavy bump or drops.
Maybe you might want to consider using a USB3 Thumbdrive instead.
1x 128GB around $20 should be enough for your needs
Small/Light/Durable

Portable Harddisk are fragile.

 

[firesong]

Just get the cheapest.
Only thing is you need to handle with care.
Cannot take heavy bump or drops.
Maybe you might want to consider using a USB3 Thumbdrive instead.
1x 128GB around $20 should be enough for your needs
Small/Light/Durable

Portable Harddisk are fragile.

External SSDs can take knocks. I won't really recommend rotational drives in 2021 unless you absolutely need the most space.

A good high speed Thumbdrive helps too, but prices have been going up quite a lot in the past year.

Last year during Black Friday I got my Samsung Fit Plus 128GB for about $21 on Amazon.sg. It's >$10 more expensive now. I went with the 128GB for the 400MBps read/60MBps write speeds, compared to the slower 300MBps read 64GB and below drives, and that it was only $3 more expensive than the 64GB then).

A good alternative is to get a cheap NVMe enclosure (I got my Orico for around $18 on Lazada) and use a NVMe drive (could get a 512GB for around $60 on Carousell if you hunt). Faster and lighter than an external SSD.

Edit: Photo of a 2.5" External HDD and a NVMe enclosure for comparison, with $1 and 20¢ coins for scale. I hardly use my 2.5" drive now.


Photo of Orico NVMe enclosure alongside the Samsung FIT Plus 128GB and a microSD card for scale

 

[Entry Level PC]

External SSDs can take knocks. I won't really recommend rotational drives in 2021 unless you absolutely need the most space.
But a good high speed Thumbdrive helps too.

SSD can, but the price is not that sexy
Unless price is not an issue for you

 

[firesong]

SSD can, but the price is not that sexy
Unless price is not an issue for you

$68 for 512GB sexy enough?

 

[Entry Level PC]

$68 for 512GB sexy enough?

My best price is $59 for 1TB on Amazon SG for Seagate® BarraCuda™ 120 SSD
I camp long long many months and jitao whack 4x when I saw it on Amazon
had to tan gu gu for many months for them to honor and deliver

 

[firesong]

My best price is $59 for 1TB on Amazon SG for Seagate® BarraCuda™ 120 SSD
I camp long long many months and jitao whack 4x when I saw it on Amazon
had to tan gu gu for many months for them to honor and deliver

Yeah. I was looking for ready-made drives online but saw the prices were too expensive.

Came across the Orico M2PV-C3 NVMe enclosures with the RTL9210b chipset (the most stable one from research), so I bought 2 of them on Lazada and picked up 2 lightly used 512GB drives at $50 each on Carousell (one had only 60GB of writes!) Current prices have gone up quite sharply, I suppose due to the chip shortage. But it's still a better deal than buying ready-made imo.

PS: 2.5" SATA drives are slower (hence cheaper), and physically bulkier (see photo above, the 2.5" enclosure is 4-5x larger than the NVMe enclosure) and heavier than NVMe drives.

 

[Entry Level PC]

Yeah. I was looking for ready-made drives online but saw the prices were too expensive.

Came across the Orico M2PV-C3 NVMe enclosures with the RTL9210b chipset (the most stable one from research), so I bought 2 of them and picked up 2 lightly used 512GB drives at $50 each on Carousell.

You got check how much TB Written over those used SSD?

 

[firesong]

You got check how much TB Written over those used SSD?

Yeah. According to CrystaldiskInfo, the Hynix PC601 had 60GB of writes (came with laptop and unused), and the Adata 8200Pro had a bit over 200GB (according to the seller, it was the slower chip, but I didn't want it for my laptop so it's okay).

I really mean very lightly used.

 

[firesong]

I'm looking to get a portable hard disk to store my lectures and school work on but after thinking about it I'm pretty sure a external hard disk will fulfill my needs. Not like I need the entire collection of what I did in school on the go right.

Looking to get either 1 or 2TB variation should be more than enough, any recommendation for brand/series that is known to last I don't need super high read speed or any fancy specs, serviceable and budget can liao. Hoping to get good deal on 11.11

Back to this question, I actually store my schoolwork on the cloud - using Microsoft OneDrive with a O365 family subscription - for a few reasons.
1) 1TB of space is way more than enough for schoolwork and other personal documents, especially if you don't keep photos/video/audio in the documents folders. I only have a few GB used for documents, including recorded lectures.
2) Ease of access - you just need to log in to retrieve data, so you're not as stuck if you happen to need file.
3) Versioning built in - you can revert to older versions in case something happens, including virus/ransomware attacks that corrupt your files.
4) Alternative collaboration medium that's not Google Drive, in case you ever need it. Sometimes I prefer to work directly in Word/Powerpoint rather than export from Google Docs.

Also, OneDrive family sub if you have the full 6 pax is less than $25/year per person, cheap enough to not worry, and it has MS Office included.

And yes, I still store backups on my external drives.

 

[emo_121]

i have a 4tb western digital for sale. used for 1 month only, to store my FYP project. After that no use liao. Can sell you if you interested, PM me

 

[entertaint]

Back to this question, I actually store my schoolwork on the cloud - using Microsoft OneDrive with a O365 family subscription - for a few reasons.
1) 1TB of space is way more than enough for schoolwork and other personal documents, especially if you don't keep photos/video/audio in the documents folders. I only have a few GB used for documents, including recorded lectures.
2) Ease of access - you just need to log in to retrieve data, so you're not as stuck if you happen to need file.
3) Versioning built in - you can revert to older versions in case something happens, including virus/ransomware attacks that corrupt your files.
4) Alternative collaboration medium that's not Google Drive, in case you ever need it. Sometimes I prefer to work directly in Word/Powerpoint rather than export from Google Docs.

Also, OneDrive family sub if you have the full 6 pax is less than $25/year per person, cheap enough to not worry, and it has MS Office included.

And yes, I still store backups on my external drives.

Cnt find 6 person to share onedrive family haha. Very nice option but I no friends lmao.

 

[entertaint]

i have a 4tb western digital for sale. used for 1 month only, to store my FYP project. After that no use liao. Can sell you if you interested, PM me

I don't have any other use so 4tb way too much for me, hope you find a buyer soon.

 

[entertaint]

External SSDs can take knocks. I won't really recommend rotational drives in 2021 unless you absolutely need the most space.

A good high speed Thumbdrive helps too, but prices have been going up quite a lot in the past year.

Last year during Black Friday I got my Samsung Fit Plus 128GB for about $21 on Amazon.sg. It's >$10 more expensive now. I went with the 128GB for the 400MBps read/60MBps write speeds, compared to the slower 300MBps read 64GB and below drives, and that it was only $3 more expensive than the 64GB then).

A good alternative is to get a cheap NVMe enclosure (I got my Orico for around $18 on Lazada) and use a NVMe drive (could get a 512GB for around $60 on Carousell if you hunt). Faster and lighter than an external SSD.

Edit: Photo of a 2.5" External HDD and a NVMe enclosure for comparison, with $1 and 20¢ coins for scale. I hardly use my 2.5" drive now.
View attachment 29887

Photo of Orico NVMe enclosure alongside the Samsung FIT Plus 128GB and a microSD card for scale
View attachment 29888

Definitely will consider thumb drive or nvme drive need to surf on 11.11/black Friday I'll probably just get the better deal aka baited by whichever has the higher discount.

 

[entertaint]

Just get the cheapest.
Only thing is you need to handle with care.
Cannot take heavy bump or drops.
Maybe you might want to consider using a USB3 Thumbdrive instead.
1x 128GB around $20 should be enough for your needs
Small/Light/Durable

Portable Harddisk are fragile.

I think most of my usage will be at home and maybe carry in bag sometimes only so fragile should not be a big issue, thumb drive is cheap so maybe I'll get that tho.

 

[xeonboy]

Isn't google drive a lot more convenient?

 

[it_geek]

all my drives are seagate. so far they have done what they are supposed to.

you can check out the seagate expansion series. comes with a 2 year complimentary rescue service.

 

[KYZT2021]

Wd elements?

 

[Mach3.2]

Back to this question, I actually store my schoolwork on the cloud - using Microsoft OneDrive with a O365 family subscription - for a few reasons.
1) 1TB of space is way more than enough for schoolwork and other personal documents, especially if you don't keep photos/video/audio in the documents folders. I only have a few GB used for documents, including recorded lectures.
2) Ease of access - you just need to log in to retrieve data, so you're not as stuck if you happen to need file.
3) Versioning built in - you can revert to older versions in case something happens, including virus/ransomware attacks that corrupt your files.
4) Alternative collaboration medium that's not Google Drive, in case you ever need it. Sometimes I prefer to work directly in Word/Powerpoint rather than export from Google Docs.

Also, OneDrive family sub if you have the full 6 pax is less than $25/year per person, cheap enough to not worry, and it has MS Office included.

And yes, I still store backups on my external drives.

School email also comes with OneDrive for Business and it integrates pretty nicely with windows . I haven't felt the need for a thumb drive to store my school work although I do have a 500GB Crucial MX500 in an external usb enclosure if I need external storage.