Which External HDD

stevevp · Mar 23, 2023

Dear All,

Grateful recommendations for a new external HDD in the 4-6TB range as my LaCie 2Big is on the fritz! This is for local back up purposes, I also have cloud back up with Crash Plan.

I've been looking at various WD Passport models and SanDisk G-Drives but all have varying reviews with worrying failure rates.

I don't need anything fancy, just something reliable that just works. USB 3.x preferred but USB-C would work too.

Many thanks.

XiaoDeer · Mar 23, 2023

I've had better quality control, performance and reliability by purchasing bare drives and a good quality enclosure.

It seems that manufactures take their worst drives and stuff them in the cheapest case to make externals.

Greybeard2017 · Mar 23, 2023

stevevp said:
Dear All,

Grateful recommendations for a new external HDD in the 4-6TB range as my LaCie 2Big is on the fritz! This is for local back up purposes, I also have cloud back up with Crash Plan.

I've been looking at various WD Passport models and SanDisk G-Drives but all have varying reviews with worrying failure rates.

I don't need anything fancy, just something reliable that just works. USB 3.x preferred but USB-C would work too.

Many thanks.

I have WD Passport and SanDisk G-Drives (and also Seagate drives) which have worked without problem - so long as you use one of the big names and don't have a single point of failure it should be fine.

Sean Nelson · Mar 23, 2023

Have you considered buying a USB hard drive dock and then just using a bare drive? That way you know what you're getting. With enclosed drives you don't really have any clue what's inside, and even if you check out people's reviews there's no guarantee that the unit you get will have the same guts.

Craig Gillette · Mar 23, 2023

Any suggestions for docks? I got 2 recently but 1 I wasn't able to upgrade firmware for the larger disk.

Sean Nelson · Mar 23, 2023

Craig Gillette said:
Any suggestions for docks? I got 2 recently but 1 I wasn't able to upgrade firmware for the larger disk.

I'm surprised that any dock you can buy today wouldn't work with large drives. That was an issue you had to take care with over a decade ago. The Startech docks I bought back then work fine with even the 16TB drives I just bought over the past several months.

Is it possible that you're having some issues trying to deal with a large boot drive but your motherboard doesn't support booting from GPT partitions? That's a motherboard issue and not a dock issue.

Craig Gillette · Mar 24, 2023

No, the boot drive an M.2 socket and M.2 storage are fine. I got a dock to work with transferring data to the new computer. One dock works on both pcs with an 8Tb drive. I bought a second dock, same brand, this with fan, to have 2 docks but description and reviews were a bit unclear about needing a firmware upgrade and while it seems to have upgraded, it won't take the drive. I'll replace it and thinking of a 2 bay drive. These are flat and it got hot for the first big transfers so thinking one of the vertical end mount types for airflow, too. Several similar looking brands so not sure which is suitable or better or just relabeled.

stevevp · Mar 24, 2023

Very many thanks for all the replies to my original post. I will probably have another look at the Passport and G-drives.

I already have a hard drive adapter kit (which just clips onto the end of a hard drive and doesn't seem particularly secure) but might look at getting an enclosure.

The trouble is everything has a bad review if you look hard enough!

David Lal · Mar 24, 2023

stevevp said:
Very many thanks for all the replies to my original post. I will probably have another look at the Passport and G-drives.

I currently have two 5tb Seagate USB3 drives which I use for backup. They more or less mirror one another as to content. I swap each over every other day. Hard to imagine both of them going down simultaneously. I have had Western Digital (4tb) - still do. None have shown any signs of problems in the last year or two.

Inside the PC case I also have two bootable mechanical HDDs of 1 and 2tb respectively. Personally I would not want the extra hassle of docking stations.

stevevp · Mar 24, 2023

David Lal said:
stevevp said:

Very many thanks for all the replies to my original post. I will probably have another look at the Passport and G-drives.

Click to expand...

I currently have two 5tb Seagate USB3 drives which I use for backup. They more or less mirror one another as to content. I swap each over every other day. Hard to imagine both of them going down simultaneously. I have had Western Digital (4tb) - still do. None have shown any signs of problems in the last year or two.

Inside the PC case I also have two bootable mechanical HDDs of 1 and 2tb respectively. Personally I would not want the extra hassle of docking stations.

I did read that Seagate have a higher failure rate - although it could be a specific drive. Certainly my failed LaCie drive is from Seagate. I do have a 2TB Passport which hasn't given any problems. Ditto my wife with a G-Drive. Perhaps i just need to buy two and spread the risk!

XiaoDeer · Mar 24, 2023

Craig Gillette said:
Any suggestions for docks? I got 2 recently but 1 I wasn't able to upgrade firmware for the larger disk.

The StarTech docks have proven the best for me but they are not the cheapest.

Carey Brown · Mar 25, 2023

Craig Gillette said:
Any suggestions for docks? I got 2 recently but 1 I wasn't able to upgrade firmware for the larger disk.

I bought an OWC dock from B&H along with 2x 16TB WD 7200RPM UltraStar drives. The dock has a USB 3.1 gen 2 10Gbps connection. I've been very happy with it. Well built. Separate power switches for each drive.

Richard James · Mar 25, 2023

stevevp said:
I don't need anything fancy, just something reliable that just works. USB 3.x preferred but USB-C would work too.

I have used multiple StarTech 2-bay docks for years. Both SATA and USB. Drives are "bare" and mainly WD Black, with a couple of Seagates.

I currently have 3 docks connected to my workstation.

No unexpected problems.

Richard

stevevp · Mar 26, 2023

Richard James said:
stevevp said:

I don't need anything fancy, just something reliable that just works. USB 3.x preferred but USB-C would work too.

Click to expand...

I have used multiple StarTech 2-bay docks for years. Both SATA and USB. Drives are "bare" and mainly WD Black, with a couple of Seagates.

I currently have 3 docks connected to my workstation.

No unexpected problems.

Richard

Can you advise which StarTech docks you are using please.

Carey Brown · Mar 26, 2023

stevevp said:
Richard James said:

stevevp said:

I don't need anything fancy, just something reliable that just works. USB 3.x preferred but USB-C would work too.

Click to expand...

I have used multiple StarTech 2-bay docks for years. Both SATA and USB. Drives are "bare" and mainly WD Black, with a couple of Seagates.

I currently have 3 docks connected to my workstation.

No unexpected problems.

Richard

Click to expand...

Can you advise which StarTech docks you are using please.

OWC Drive Dock

Sean Nelson · Mar 26, 2023

stevevp said:
Can you advise which StarTech docks you are using please.

These are the docks I've been using since 2010, but they've been discontinued:

Richard James · Mar 26, 2023

stevevp said:
Richard James said:

I have used multiple StarTech 2-bay docks for years. Both SATA and USB. Drives are "bare" and mainly WD Black, with a couple of Seagates.

Click to expand...

Can you advise which StarTech docks you are using please.

Steve, I have at least 3 generations in use. The oldest is eSATA, the other 2 are USB 3/3.1

Today I would buy this one: SDOCK2U313, USB 3.1 2-bay.

If thinking of multi-bay docks, remember that overall read/write speed (USB) is split between drives, and may be limited to the speed of the slowest drive.

At my last workstation upgrade I was unable to get 2-port eSATA cards that ran both ports concurrently. Plus, StarTech appear to no longer make eSATA connected docks.

Richard

stevevp · Mar 26, 2023

Very many thanks.

I think the OWC is the winner but need to study the specs in detail. I also need to decide which flavour of USB to go for.

A dock will also enable me to recycles some of my existing spare HDDs or at least copy off the contents.

Sean Nelson · Mar 26, 2023

Richard James said:
If thinking of multi-bay docks, remember that overall read/write speed (USB) is split between drives, and may be limited to the speed of the slowest drive.

With a USB 3 connection it will only be a bottleneck if you're using the very fastest 16TB hard drives, and even then just barely. My 7200rpm 16TB hard drives max out at around 230-240MByte/sec, and USB 3 is capable of 500MByte/sec. There's some latency and protocol overhead, of course, and contention will play a role. But generally speaking I wouldn't expect too much of a hit with two drives.

External SATA SSDs in the dock would be another matter since they have much higher peak speeds.

DazeMae · Mar 28, 2023

XiaoDeer said:
I've had better quality control, performance and reliability by purchasing bare drives and a good quality enclosure.

It seems that manufactures take their worst drives and stuff them in the cheapest case to make externals.

Which enclosures would you recommend?

Which External HDD

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