need an external hard drive recommendations 2-4TB

[raverx3m]

if you were to use it for backup of mixed types of files from music to your vacation videos
which drive would you buy?

3.5 or 2.5
optical, ssd or hybrid(im well aware of price of large ssd drives please dont be captain obvious)
regular usb or usb C

im also not a big fan of seagate from bad experience in the past so no seagate drives please

 

[PP Mguire]

I wouldn't use an external for it.

 

[raverx3m]

why not?

 

[raverx3m]

its not for backup in storage.
i wanted external just in case i need to plug it into a laptop or share something
im wont be bringing it with me everywhere. its mostly for backup but it needs to be mobile
im downsizing my desktop to miniature components later. and it will be completely occupied internally without the backup drive

 

[PP Mguire]

Well 2 things. First you said:

if you were to use it for backup of mixed types of files from music to your vacation videos

This makes it sound like you want to use it as a backup. Since I already figured you didn't mean a true cold storage backup I figured something you just wanted to use as storage. Then you asked this.

which drive would you buy?

I don't buy drives except explicitly to go into my NAS. I personally feel HDDs are an antiquated form of technology that should only be used for mass media storage until flash prices go down for large amounts of data.

That being said, I have an idea of what you want and it's pretty much what I do. The difference being I don't buy external drives unless I know what's inside them. I personally use 2 512GB SSDs that I bought enclosures for. Only because I don't trust drives with how much I bump into my desk and I leave the one plugged in 24/7.

My dislike of external HDDs has amplified since needing to use them a lot at work. With just regular usage I've seen several brands die and wouldn't trust them with your neighbor's porn. I just think the advanced platters are too fragile for an external environment.

 

[raverx3m]

well i mean whichever way works if i have to buy a drive and a case separately i can do that if that is a more solid option for what i need.

and its not gonna move very often if at all. mostly will be plugged into my desktop

so what should i look for . i really dont know if theres any specifics i need to look for
like certain parameters on bench tests or something.
so you recommend to go with ssd then?
what about NAS

the way i have it setup now is
drive1 ssd for system drive samsung evo
drive2 work drive where i move/save do all the stuff with like play music from etc
drive3 backup for the other 2 drives and long term storage.
i dont acces this drive often or have any files that are accessed often
i move files there that dont get used every day

im planning to have similar system on my new desktop but with 2.5 drives instead
and an addition of an external drive which holds backup of everything

first my system drive failed (baracuda seagate)
then my work drive failed also seagate
then my second work drive failed which was also seagate
now im using my old backup drive (WD) as a work drive and bought the last drive to use as a backup which is also WD

i lost alot of family videos and pictures on that last seagate drive that failed so i want to get a drive that will last. but i dont know if theres such thing
i have defrag and error check on schedule once a month now for all drives
so far its been about 2 years no problems with the drives

 

[PP Mguire]

Drives can fail easily depending on the environment, this is such with any brand. HDDs are very susceptible to vibration and heat. Having defrag and error checking on also puts unnecessary strain on the drives. If you truly want a backup it needs to be a cold backup. This drive needs to be shut off and away from everything until it needs to be used. To sway away from potential bit rot (which takes years) this drive should be replaced every 5-10 years too. This is the most opportune setup but not everybody can do this.

An external drive will only add slight convenience in the fact that it's external. Your OS drive and drive that gets writing to for these pictures and such should be an SSD really.

Buying an in store external vs buying your own enclosure really makes no difference. Keeping a HDD boxed in to suffocate from its own heat and leaving it susceptible to vibrations due to being in your active environment makes it more likely to die. For some reason I feel I've already had this convo with somebody on here, but all I can really say is if you want it to live and it needs to be a proper backup, it needs to be a cold backup.

 

[raverx3m]

well if I don't access files on it the drive doesn't spin up right?
leaving it plugged in shouldn't make it spin up after I set proper settings for it

and I'm sure there are aluminum cases that can act as a heatsink
I don't mind spending a bit extra if it means more reliable drive

is there any specific drive that's alrady proven to be good for this kind of thing? and I figure out the case