Hi everyone, I am running out of space and need to get one or two new external drives. Which ones can you recommend? Should I buy 2x 1 TB or rather 1x 2 TB? Approximately how many photos can be stored on 1TB? Thanks, I would appreciate your advice. Have a great weekend and stay safe 😊
I use the Seagate Plus 2TB. I have never run out of space yet, though I have no idea how many pictures it would hold since each one is a different size. I have many thousands on there. The added plus on a Seagate is that you can drop it or knock it and it doesn't damage it internally. My previous backup couldn't handle that.
I have Western Digital and Seagate drives both in my PC and as externals for back up and happy with both brands. I currently have a couple of 1TB drives for backing up (I use different drives for different things). Regarding space, I think only you can answer that based on your photos in terms of both number and size of each file but as a bit of an idea in my photo archives I have 109,000 files and that amounts to 520 gb. Some photos are very old and therefore lower quality and smaller size files but the file size increases over the years and whenever I get a new camera!
I currently have these for my external drives and have been very happy with them - small, easy to use and easily portable too so I have actually used them when travelling or been able to take to work occasionally if I've needed files. I bought little neoprene cases for them online too which hold the drive and the cable. https://www.ebuyer.com/789995-wd-elements-portable-1tb-external-hdd-wdbuzg0010bbk-wesn
A 2TB one doesn't cost a lot more if you need more than a terrabyte!
I use a Touro 1TB external Drive. As of today, it has 54,000 jpg images on it... along with 15,000 songs (backing up my mp3's). And it is about 1/3 full.
@casablanca@roachling@30pics4jackiesdiamond@lsquared Thanks for all the info, I am so surprised at the quantity of photos 1TB can store! The WD Passport has also been recommended to me, so I probably will go with that one. Atm I have 1TB Elements which I use only for 365. Still not sure if I need 1 or 2TB, as I read that they actually only last five years. All these decisions ;-)
@ludwigsdiana I absolutely don't think the five years is true @30pics4jackiesdiamond you seem to have knocked three years off!
I've had loads of external hard drives for ages - WD, Seagate, Toshiba - all for different things. Some of them have very little on, but in the days when usb memory sticks weren't that big it was a good option.
If you are using them for storage and doing any processing on your pc/laptop I can't see why a drive with no moving parts should deteriorate. [Goes off to check.]
EDIT apparently HHDs do have moving parts - but some of my external hard drives don't whirr so presumably they're SSDs.
I don't think I've had one fail - but am now more concerned about failure from non use - am going to read up on that again. And something about magnetic electrons losing their charge!
Most useful piece of advice seems to be to backup important docs and photos and keep the copies out of your house. So perhaps 2 x 1TB drives.
And when you move photos, perhaps copy them to the new device first - and only when you are assured they are there and retrievable, delete the originals from their original location to free up space there (if that is the way you are going to work).
I've had a Western Digital drive for more than 5 years that I'm still using, it's only a 500gb one (it pre-dates the existence of TB storage I think. I imagine if they're in regular use, they may expire quicker but for occasional back ups they must last years. That said, the drives in our PCs last years and years too and they're in regular, constant use. I think if you buy a decent make you can expect it to last a good few years. I always have multiple back ups too - used to have two external drives and back up to both so if I lost one I had the other. (Now I have a different system involving back up to 2 spare drives in my PC, one external plus we have a shared mini server system for back up which is connected to my PC and husband's!!)
I actually have back up record sheet and note the date I do it as it's easy to forget ... I haven't backed up to external drives since Feb 2019!!! It's been on my to do list for months and I still haven't done it!
I did however to do a back up to the spare drives in my computer in January and have done partial back up to the mini server recently so even if something goes wrong, I shouldn't in theory lose data, but for 'tidiness' and peace of mind I do like to do full back ups in all three places ... that's a lockdown / furlough job I really must do!
I've had it in the past once where I was due to back up, couldn't be bothered so thought I'll do it tomorrow, and tomorrow the main drive corrupted! That was about 13 years ago, I lost a lot of files that time and vowed never to make the same mistake but I've clearly got very lax again!
Also when I say back up I mean make an extra copy of my files. I know a lot of people (especially with laptops) who copy files to a drive then delete off a laptop. When I back up fully and properly I make three copies but still keep everything on my 'main drives' so theoretically I always have 4 copies!
@30pics4jackiesdiamond I don't do my documents often enough now - I used to do it once a month (and that wasn't really good enough) - but occasionally I'll email myself one if I want it safe.
I have my photos on both pc and laptop - and I upload them to Flickr too. When space runs out and performance reduces on my laptop I download to an external drive which is then just stored - which is where my new worries come in.
PC has 2TB storage which isn't full yet and a 250GB SSD for the programs and processing, which ought to keep the integrity of the storage drives better for longer.
I have not long ago bought a 64GB usb stick to download copies of my documents onto and a friend will keep it at their house.
Have used my Seagate 2T for quite a few years now and had no problem. No clue how many pictures it holds but everything I've taken for the last 6 years is on it. Try to update monthly to the cloud and Seagate.
Diana -
While you are at it, you all should consider a second external back up drive and switch them out occasionally. @casablanca@roachling@30pics4jackiesdiamond@lsquared@anniesue
I really like Annie-Sue's advice and strongly recommend doing it that way.
.
I have two drives in my desktop - one for storage and one for programs and work.
Then, I have two external backup drives, one that is always plugged in to my desktop and one that is stored out of the house in my Hubby's Man Cave in case of fire in the house.
I have my files backing up automatically to the external at 1 am every Sunday night and I swap these out regularly. so I will only lose what has not been backed up since the last switch if anything ever happens to either external back up drive.
Had a 3T external hard drive, had all my raw images on it, some 34K. Fired up my computer one day, and NO external. Had several techs look at it and there was no recovery.
Have gone to the cloud for back up. $60US, or about, per year and I now go thru and prune the files before releasing them to the storage.
I have also started to use the cloud for other backups that I need/want saved ( grandkid's stock market account transaction) . Also have UI and Pswd in three different offsite locations,
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I currently have these for my external drives and have been very happy with them - small, easy to use and easily portable too so I have actually used them when travelling or been able to take to work occasionally if I've needed files. I bought little neoprene cases for them online too which hold the drive and the cable.
https://www.ebuyer.com/789995-wd-elements-portable-1tb-external-hdd-wdbuzg0010bbk-wesn
A 2TB one doesn't cost a lot more if you need more than a terrabyte!
Not unwrapped it yet, and I am very worried about emptying all my years of photos onto a small plastic box!!
As I type my laptop is now transferring 40,304 photographs to it!!
@30pics4jackiesdiamond you seem to have knocked three years off!
I've had loads of external hard drives for ages - WD, Seagate, Toshiba - all for different things. Some of them have very little on, but in the days when usb memory sticks weren't that big it was a good option.
If you are using them for storage and doing any processing on your pc/laptop I can't see why a drive with no moving parts should deteriorate. [Goes off to check.]
EDIT apparently HHDs do have moving parts - but some of my external hard drives don't whirr so presumably they're SSDs.
I don't think I've had one fail - but am now more concerned about failure from non use - am going to read up on that again. And something about magnetic electrons losing their charge!
Most useful piece of advice seems to be to backup important docs and photos and keep the copies out of your house. So perhaps 2 x 1TB drives.
And when you move photos, perhaps copy them to the new device first - and only when you are assured they are there and retrievable, delete the originals from their original location to free up space there (if that is the way you are going to work).
@roachling @anniesue @lsquared how often do you back up go external drive??
@ludwigsdiana apologies for hijacking your thread!!!
I actually have back up record sheet and note the date I do it as it's easy to forget ... I haven't backed up to external drives since Feb 2019!!! It's been on my to do list for months and I still haven't done it!
I did however to do a back up to the spare drives in my computer in January and have done partial back up to the mini server recently so even if something goes wrong, I shouldn't in theory lose data, but for 'tidiness' and peace of mind I do like to do full back ups in all three places ... that's a lockdown / furlough job I really must do!
I've had it in the past once where I was due to back up, couldn't be bothered so thought I'll do it tomorrow, and tomorrow the main drive corrupted! That was about 13 years ago, I lost a lot of files that time and vowed never to make the same mistake but I've clearly got very lax again!
Also when I say back up I mean make an extra copy of my files. I know a lot of people (especially with laptops) who copy files to a drive then delete off a laptop. When I back up fully and properly I make three copies but still keep everything on my 'main drives' so theoretically I always have 4 copies!
I have my photos on both pc and laptop - and I upload them to Flickr too. When space runs out and performance reduces on my laptop I download to an external drive which is then just stored - which is where my new worries come in.
PC has 2TB storage which isn't full yet and a 250GB SSD for the programs and processing, which ought to keep the integrity of the storage drives better for longer.
I have not long ago bought a 64GB usb stick to download copies of my documents onto and a friend will keep it at their house.
While you are at it, you all should consider a second external back up drive and switch them out occasionally. @casablanca @roachling @30pics4jackiesdiamond @lsquared @anniesue
I really like Annie-Sue's advice and strongly recommend doing it that way.
.
I have two drives in my desktop - one for storage and one for programs and work.
Then, I have two external backup drives, one that is always plugged in to my desktop and one that is stored out of the house in my Hubby's Man Cave in case of fire in the house.
I have my files backing up automatically to the external at 1 am every Sunday night and I swap these out regularly. so I will only lose what has not been backed up since the last switch if anything ever happens to either external back up drive.
Have gone to the cloud for back up. $60US, or about, per year and I now go thru and prune the files before releasing them to the storage.
I have also started to use the cloud for other backups that I need/want saved ( grandkid's stock market account transaction) . Also have UI and Pswd in three different offsite locations,
seems very helpful in explaining - I'm going to read some of the linked documents too