Does anyone have any recommendations for a good 1tb external HDD, portable harddrive? Nothing fancy, just something reliable. I was looking to get another HGST Touro S but it seems they don't manufacture them anymore. Apologies if there's a general you're meant to post this sort of question in, I couldn't find it.
Buy Seagate. Never buy WD external.
Thank you for this piece of advice. That's interesting, I'd always heard WD was the way to go for HDDs, I had no idea they made bad externals. I also heard Seagate made bad HDDs. Interesting how it's flipped for externals.
For external you can shuck Seagate HDDs if you ever need to. You can't (easily) do that with WD.
What does that mean, to shuck an HDD? To be clear here I'm a guy of limited tech understanding, so I'm not looking to do slick autobackups or anything like that, what I'm looking for is basically just something I can plug into the USB slot when I want to back something up, then pack the whole thing away again. My only real concern is that it is reliable and 7200rpm.
Can easily connect it to a SATA port (just open the enclosure and extract the HDD, it's basically an internal 2.5in HDD inside) in case the USB fails, or for easier file recovery in case of physical damage.
Thank you, I understand now. Is there a particular seagate 1tb model that you would recommend? I am currently looking at
https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Portable-External-Hard-Drive/dp/B08GRM45J7/ref=sr_1_2?crid=2ZHXKUPBNKV8S&keywords=7200rpm%2Bexternal%2Bhard%2Bdrive%2B1tb&qid=1679091971&sprefix=7200rpm%2Bexternal%2Bhard%2Bdrive%2B1tb%2Caps%2C152&sr=8-2&th=1
But I notice it doesn't mention 7200rpm anywhere like my Touro does and on the platform section it lists it as Mac OSX.
There's also this review which is worrying:
>These perform ok, until they are about half full, then they start shingling the information (SMR), and performance just goes through the floor. This is due to it reading data, so that it can write the new data, with the existing data.
>Basically in laymens terms, these seem great for ~3tb, once you fill it past there, write speeds go from 100+mb/s to <1-2mb/s after the buffer fills up.
>I copied 60gb of home videos to it once it reached 50% filled, and its now at 6 hours of copying. Worse still it causes the entire computer to hang, as it has no idea why the drive just stops responding.
>Avoid these smr drives, they're junk.
Then would a CMR drive be better? That seems to be the alternative now as I google it.
I think they are all pretty much the same. Expansion Plus is pretty good, I have two of them. Mind you the 2TB model isn't that much more expensive than the 1TB model.
I can only find Expansion on amazon, not Expansion Plus. Is this what you mean?
https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Expansion-Portable-External-STEA1000400/dp/B00TKFEEAS?th=1
I have that model as well. They are basically the same thing, but with a redesigned case, and the Plus model goes up to 4 or 5 TB I think.
Damn, why is yours basically half the cost of the one I linked? And I accounted for USD to GBP. Amazon doesn't seem to carry that model.
I can find this model which seems to be more in line with the price of the one you posted
https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Expansion-Portable-External-Drive/dp/B08ZJDWTJ1?th=1
but the circuit board appears to be different. I don't even know if circuit board is the right word for it but that number designation at the end which seems to denote model is different.
Yeah, in your region they seem oddly expensive. The 4TB model can be had for about 90GBP.
Well, thank you anon, I'll keep it in mind.
Seagate just made a bunch of super dookie suiciding 3TB and 2TB HDDs for a while that ruined their reputation forever
1 TB HDDs are now more expensive than 1 TB SSDs. Get yourself some nice TLC SSD with a commensurate DRAM cache instead.
I've been told that it is impossible to recover data from a SSD if it goes bad so I'd prefer it be an HDD since speed isn't really a concern for me as long as it's at least 7200rpm.
For external drives, best to use an SSD - they're way less fragile than HDDs.
(They're also smaller, lighter, and often only need USB for power. Faster, too.)
If your only copy of data is on an external drive, you're playing with fire.
I mean to have three copies if the data on the computer itself counts, but I don't know, I suppose I'm just neurotic because I can imagine a bad series of coincidences ocurring and in that case I'd like to be able to at least get something.
Why 1TB HDD? Why not 32GB SSD? Same price.