External Storage Options

Jen B · Jan 9, 2020

Hello everyone,

I was wondering if anyone had any external hard drives they recommend? I'm only on week one of flying and already my Mac is filling up to capacity storage wise and I need a good external option. It didn't take long with a few HD videos and RAW photos for me to realize I need an alternate solution. I'm thinking an external hard drive would be best so I could travel with it.

Thoughts?

TMA-1 · Jan 9, 2020

Western Digital and Seagate make some excellent, reliable external drive upwards of 10-12 TB. I have used both. Costs are between $120-160 on average (USA buyer through Amazon or Best Buy)

They’re quite portable, although at that size, be aware that they require an external power supply rather than power purely from the USB connection.

umanbean · Jan 9, 2020

I want a big external with an SD card slot, just recently started shopping.

Here's a review of several:

3 Best External HDD With SD Card Reader

Are you a photographer or video logger looking for an external hard drive with an SD card reader? Check out our list including the best choices.

www.google.com

Rchawks · Jan 10, 2020

I would suggest using a backup in case of failure.

crlmjohnson · Jan 10, 2020

Jen B said:
Hello everyone,

I was wondering if anyone had any external hard drives they recommend? I'm only on week one of flying and already my Mac is filling up to capacity storage wise and I need a good external option. It didn't take long with a few HD videos and RAW photos for me to realize I need an alternate solution. I'm thinking an external hard drive would be best so I could travel with it.

Thoughts?

i purchase a 4 TB usb harddrive (Western Digital) it is about 4 inches X 6 inches from Fry's Electronics, for 99.00

JoeBoy · Jan 10, 2020

I use a 5TB Lacie rugged external hard drive. Easily available on Amazon and are relatively cheap. I've had zero problems with it and backup my 2tb + Lightroom folder to it daily from my Mac.

Jovito · Jan 10, 2020

Windows 10 pc user. FYI bought the Western Digital USB 4 TB only gives me 3.6 gig. Thought it was defective so exchanged it. Same 3.6 gig. In my opinion that is a big loss. Expected a little loss but not that much.

Thomas B · Jan 10, 2020

I use Promise, configurable with 4 HDs... I have 4 if the 4TB WD blacks in it, and a Lacie 10TB. I connect the to my iMac as peripheral drives and use the card reader in my computer.

Rchawks · Jan 10, 2020

My Externals.
Left to right, Buffalo, Maxtor (2) G tec (4)

Skyflyer129 · Jan 10, 2020

I recommend Seagate external hard drives. Well worth the money IMHO.
BlueSkies from SoCal.

Thomas B · Jan 10, 2020

Recommend either a good backup system or one with multiple drives in a hot swappable RAID5 if you want to safeguard from any data loss.

Jen B · Jan 11, 2020

Thank you so much everyone, I really appreciate the feedback.

pjarvo18 · Jan 11, 2020

Jovito said:
Windows 10 pc user. FYI bought the Western Digital USB 4 TB only gives me 3.6 gig. Thought it was defective so exchanged it. Same 3.6 gig. In my opinion that is a big loss. Expected a little loss but not that much.

You are getting 3.6GB or TB? 1TB should be about 931GB usable space so if 3.6TB show up that would be accurate.

Weazel · Oct 2, 2020

Question: I’m not too familiar, however HDD or SSD? Which is better for those of you that have external HD

Thomas B · Oct 2, 2020

I use SSD... less/no moving parts to fail. They are more costly. I have 2 on my iMac; a 6TB and a 12TB... both in RAID5

Weazel · Oct 2, 2020

Thomas B said:
I use SSD... les moving parts to fail. They are more costly. I have 2 on my iMac; a 6TB and a 12TB... both in RAID5

Thanks! Yeah need one to store all my drone pics/videos and other stuff I want backed up.

Clipper707 · Oct 3, 2020

Prior to Covid, I'd spend about 7 or 8 months of the year living out of two backpacks, so I value portability and SSD when I'm down range.

SanDisk Extreme Pro comes in 500GB, 1TB or 2TB capacities. I carry three 1TB drives for redundancy.

I feel like the price went up. Today they're on Amazon at $189 I remember them being around the $119 mark for 1TB.

Electromen · Oct 3, 2020

I have a new 16" MacBook Pro and a Mac Pro tower.
Everything I use is SSD. The difference in speed is worth the extra cost.
Which Mac do you have? The connection matters, USB, Thunderbolt, 2 or 3 ?

THE CYBORG · Oct 3, 2020

I don’t use a Mac so don’t know what port you use to connect an external HD but if you have USB 3 make sure the HD you get is USB3, you will get a noticeable speed difference.