which external backup drive would you buy

[raverx3m]

after 3 of my seagate drives failed one after another and took most of my photos with them im looking for some recommendations for an external backup hard drive (no seagate please lol)

mostly for pictures videos and documents

i would say 2-4 TB would be enough at least for next 10 years

im looking for a drive that will last longest

1 what speed
2 what type( spinner, ssd or hybrid)
3 which plug usb usb3 or usb C?
4 what other specs i should check when picking a drive for backup

 

[PP Mguire]

By backup, that would infer that this was in fact a backup (second copy) and left unplugged in a closet as cold storage and these Seagate drives died out of nowhere with no power. Considering you lost these pictures I'm going to guess this was an external left plugged into your machine all the time and you randomly copied stuff over which is not a backup.

For the use case having an external is not very smart because leaving them plugged in the drives can get hot or the USB controller board can fry. Basically any brand can do this if mistreated.

If this drive is only used for pictures and videos something like a WD Green would be fine, or any other 5400/5900 RPM drive. USB end type doesn't really matter. For immediate picture and document placement I went SSD because I'm using 2.5" drives and they last a lot longer. For my cold backup I've been using a 1TB Samsung drive for a long time now.

 

[raverx3m]

the seagate drives were internal only for storage no installed software with minimal access.. and proper maintenance like defrag and error check once a month

the backup im looking for now is just a drive that i can store and plug in maybe once a month to upload new pics and videos etc

 

[PP Mguire]

Shouldn't need to defrag or error check a drive that's not getting used, that's unnecessary. If the power setting was to keep the drive off after several minutes of inactivity then pretty weird to just die randomly. I beat the **** out of my drives and so far nothing has failed *knock on wood*.

Anyways, pretty much anything will work for you long as you treat it like a backup and don't beat it up.