[decker1313]

I think this is the right place to post this..forgive me if I am wrong.

I am planning on replacing the internal hd on my laptop (ASUS Q501L) with an ssd which will hold my OS (win10) and lightroom catalog/previews(5.7). By doing this I will need to purchase an external hd to house the rest of my data (photos, web browser, games, etc.) Is there any type of external hd which will do this better than others? My initial plan was to buy two 1tb portable hds to start and then add at least one more later on. Is this a suitable plan to house the rest of my data and be able to access it easily? Is there a better option or am I way off the mark? My hd currently holds about 125gb of data including everything, OS, lightroom, photos, every other program. I don't use the computer other than editing, web browsing, and on rare occasion a game.

[ChipB]

I think what you'll find is that you need 2 external drives of at least 2TB - one for your 'stuff' and the other as a backup drive. I've used a couple of different Western digital drives - don't buy the 'consumer' drive (it has a blue label indicating the size) - black label is a much better drive ( at least according to the guy at my local computer shop).

[Digitalis]

I use SSDs for running programs and editing really,really big files. I use standard hard drives(albeit really fast ones) that hold entire catalogs of work and original raw files. These drives are connected in a RAID array for data protection (drive mirroring) I'd say this should be the standard - especially if you wish to keep your work. Working off one drive is quite literally putting all your eggs in one basket. I use external drives for backup - which is important since these are the days where a piece of malware can maliciously destroy a users data and all connected drives in short order.

black label is a much better drive

you mean western digital black drives, I have an issue with these - as fast as they are, they run rather hot. my PC has several of them and they run on average about 40°C and on high IO runs, they can reach temps upwards of 53°C

[btnapa]

I think this is the right place to post this..forgive me if I am wrong.

I am planning on replacing the internal hd on my laptop (ASUS Q501L) with an ssd which will hold my OS (win10) and lightroom catalog/previews(5.7). By doing this I will need to purchase an external hd to house the rest of my data (photos, web browser, games, etc.) Is there any type of external hd which will do this better than others? My initial plan was to buy two 1tb portable hds to start and then add at least one more later on. Is this a suitable plan to house the rest of my data and be able to access it easily? Is there a better option or am I way off the mark? My hd currently holds about 125gb of data including everything, OS, lightroom, photos, every other program. I don't use the computer other than editing, web browsing, and on rare occasion a game.

Replacing internal hd with ssd, what external hd to use?

It depends on your budget. What @digitalis suggests is the right way to go but it is more costly than a two drive solution.

I am currently on a one main and one backup solution. As soon as I have the funds, I am going to get a RAID and still back up to another drive. All my mission critical client files are triple, even quadruple backed up. Even then, I am still worried that I may lose all my data. Remember that your backup drive needs to be bigger than the main drive. So if the main is 1TB, make the backup 2TB to allow for incremental backups. I was asking the RAID drive company rep. about the fact that RAIDs could go down too. Their suggestion was to backup the RAID with another RAID. Now that gets even costlier. I have had my share of drive failures so I am always on top of it, making sure files are backed up regularly.

[TonyW]

I think this is the right place to post this..forgive me if I am wrong.

I am planning on replacing the internal hd on my laptop (ASUS Q501L) with an ssd which will hold my OS (win10) and lightroom catalog/previews(5.7). By doing this I will need to purchase an external hd to house the rest of my data (photos, web browser, games, etc.) Is there any type of external hd which will do this better than others? My initial plan was to buy two 1tb portable hds to start and then add at least one more later on. Is this a suitable plan to house the rest of my data and be able to access it easily? Is there a better option or am I way off the mark? My hd currently holds about 125gb of data including everything, OS, lightroom, photos, every other program. I don't use the computer other than editing, web browsing, and on rare occasion a game.

I think you are on the right track of buying at least 2 disks and using a back up and swap regime - 3 may be better with one to be stored off site.

Unless you have a business need for 365 days 24/7 access then I would suggest avoiding RAID due to adding a layer of complexity and still not having a backup solution. RAID arrays can and do fail and while tolerant to a single disk failure (you had better have spare disks in house for hot swap) can be a real pain if two go down and you have to rebuild the array etc.

RAID is not a backup solution and never designed to be such. Every RAID I have come across (in business) is part of a system that includes a proper backup strategy in the form of secondary storage either Data Tape or ODF etc.

Just my opinion of course and accepting YMMV

[dafbp]

Although RAID 1 (RAID 0 for backup is like playing russian roulette) is exactly meant for real-time seamless backup, if it brings extra costs (other than the hard drive), you can get by with the unsophisticated method of copying your data manually to any number of drives. My external USB 3.0 hard drive writes from the SD card at around 80MB/s+, so it's a matter of launching one copy while doing something else. (I'm talking about backup, not the drive where you work your pictures).

For backup purposes, try to find hard drives that DON'T say 7200rpm, as that brings extra heat and less durability (they go together) along with the extra performance, which you don't need in a backup drive.

The external drive method is good not only because of the previously mentioned malware security issue (as long as you only connect them when you need them), but also because you can have as many as you want without having to pay for a very big (expensive) case or NAS system. Just make sure not to drop them. Also, external 2.5'' drives don't need a power supply (and they somehow manage to make them all different, so you can't lose it), so along with the much smaller size, you get less cluttering. For me, it's worth the small price difference.

[Igor123]

Guys, it's great that you think about back-up! But you think about it all wrong! =)

Yes, raid is not a back-up solution so forget that (read about it elsewhere, too many reasons to go through here), unless you want it for a bit faster speed, but then an SSD is better (but less space..), and that's IF the inteface you use for the external storage permits those speeds (if limited to usb2, there's probably no point)

Off-site backup was mentioned, and that's great, but not very practical to walk to a bank-box each time...also, when the time comes, if having two identical disks, a not too uncommon scenario is that they both are of age, and when one fails, you do a large read on the other...causing it to fail as well.

But a more practical way to handle backups, off-site, and point-in-time (to avoid backing up your mistakes), and redundant etc, is to simply outsource it. A common "con" against cloud-backups is that you let someone else handle your data, but then encrypt it first and the problem is solved. Depending on how much you want to do yourself you can pay a bit more for a more automated sync-solution with versioning enabled, or a more tailored cloud storage service where you control more yourself, but also takes a bit more work.

If not looking at the big ones, which are a little bit more expensive, I've recently started using backblaze, >10 years in the game, but cheaper than google, Amazon etc. (since Amazon pulled their infitite-images-model for non-prime cloud storage users i switched), and while I use their b2 cloud storage solution for backup (costs me ~30$ per year for ~300gb backup), there is also the $5 per month more automated "back-up your PC no matter the size"-version.

This way you have all the backup-criteria covered, while also a practical solution, but only need to worry on getting one local disk for extra space. (A bonus benefit is that you can reach your data on their portal even when not having your laptop with you)

As for that local disk, if using it for executing programs (games etc), and not just data storage, you'll want speed in that one as well. Check what the fastest connection you have on your laptop is, and use that one, and find a suitable disk that can match the speed of that interface. (No point in getting a slow usb2-disk if you have a usb3.1 port...but often you don't have too many of 3.1 since they require a lot of bandwidth to support that standard). Chances are, if money permits it, you are better of with an external SSD as well, but if you do get a cheap one, make sure it has some memory cache...lately they have started releasing really cheap ones without any RAM as cache, making them in some cases barely faster than a good hdd...

Also, if having other computers in the household that may need storage or access that data, a NAS might be of interest instead of DAS...but then it get's more expensive, especially for the fast ones. (But when looking at spec/features for a NAS you easy get into backup-discussions again...handle that in the cloud and not in the NAS/DAS/Local storage...just max performance locally and the backup in the cloud)

EDIT: If looking at HDDs, there are ones with a built-in SSD cache, which are a good compromise between price and storage size!

[leekil]

I think this is the right place to post this..forgive me if I am wrong.

I am planning on replacing the internal hd on my laptop (ASUS Q501L) with an ssd which will hold my OS (win10) and lightroom catalog/previews(5.7). By doing this I will need to purchase an external hd to house the rest of my data (photos, web browser, games, etc.) Is there any type of external hd which will do this better than others? My initial plan was to buy two 1tb portable hds to start and then add at least one more later on. Is this a suitable plan to house the rest of my data and be able to access it easily? Is there a better option or am I way off the mark? My hd currently holds about 125gb of data including everything, OS, lightroom, photos, every other program. I don't use the computer other than editing, web browsing, and on rare occasion a game.

If *everything* you currently have is only 125GB, then you may not need to store photos on an external drive. Depending on how much you expect your data usage will be increasing in the future, you could get a 256GB or 512GB (or even 1TB) SSD to hold everything, and the access would be much faster and more convenient than having an external drive you would need to access on a regular basis.

In any event, separate external backups of all your data are important, so plan to do those in any event.

[Igor123]

On line is fine for small catalogs that would fit in 300 GB. Especially in Sweden with fast Internet connections. But it would be foolish not to keep a local copy.

Every drive, including SSDs, will eventually fail. But given how storage costs continue to decline, they usually get replaced before they wear out.

Agree, didn't consider the possibility of a very large catalog or very slow connection, but but since there was such a small hdd to start with (125gb with OS and all), and only one/two disks were considered, I thought it probably isn't too big. Also, If the line isn't metered (if no cost per uploaded MB but only a monthly cost), and one can leave the computer on overnight, you can still backup for example more than 3.5GB per night (8h) over a little1Mbit connection (and most cellphones have more than that), so I still think it should be doable.

But yeah, I confess I also have a local backup in a NAS, maybe mostly due to legacy I think since I had it before I started using cloud and my sync scripts were already in place, so a plain copy locally usually doesn't cost much on an old slow disk somewhere.

But about your strategy (if you use it?), is there any particular reason you format the drive? I would have thought that would wear it out faster with all that extra writing, instead of using some tool for just writing the changes since last? (Using some simple tool that can automate that like robocopy on windows or rsync on linux, or perhaps even some built-in-snapshot-diff-based backup option)?

[Canada_Rockies]

I keep about 20K images on my 500 Gb SSD on MacBook Air. It has 200 Gb free after my Parallels desktop (Win 7 Pro) uses 206 Gb. I have a Western Digital 4 TB USB drive that is connected for periodic offloading of images and documents. The MacBook Air also runs "Time Machine" - an hourly automatic backup system that keeps 650 Gb of current backups externally on a 2.5" USB drive. I also have 2 external 2 Tb USB drives that I periodically back up with images I want to keep.

[TonyW]

Thinking about Cloud backup other than as an extra security layer is folly for a number of reasons.

Off site backup is a very good (and professional) approach that has the potential to protect you losing your data via theft, fire, flood etc. Yes you may be slightly inconvenienced by time to collect your backup but this may be offset when you consider just how long it could take to recover data from the cloud.

One of the reasons to rely on a personal backup is that you have all the data at hand and do not have to wait until the Cloud servers deign to work and give you back your data.

For example consider the case of someone with around 2 TB of data - by no stretch of the imagination a particularly high figure

Suggested scenario total catastrophe with loss of 2 Terabytes of data.

Recover data at a consistent speed from your ISP examples at :

34 Mbps = 137 hours 15 minutes = Nearly 6 Days !
51 Mbps = 91 hours 30 minutes = Nearly 4 Days!
100 Mbps = 46 hours 40 minutes = Best part of 2 days

Now if you can get 1 Gbps in your part of the world 4 hour 40 minutes to recover data may be acceptable - or may not. In this time you could probably have driven to or had someone deliver to you your data from your offsite storage

However you are still reliant on a third party service that may decide to close or be down for maintenance or quite simply get choked with traffic.

I would be interested to hear the experience of anyone having to recover more than a few MB of data from a Cloud service provider regarding data quantity and time to download with other relevant stuff

[mattb123]

As has been mentioned, you should assume any storage device WILL fail at some point and be ready for that with a solid backup plan.

My PC has a 1TB SSD for OS, applications, and my catalog, and a 8TB mechanical drive data volume for raw files and other large data. It backs up automatically nightly to a Windows Server 2012 I have in my basement crammed full of drives.

That might be overkill for you but the key is you need to have at least two copies on separate drives of any data that is important to you.

So get two external drives, one for data and one to back up your data and maybe your SSD as well, for a quick recovery if it fails. The better your backup plan, the less important the reliability of the drives is which is really a crap shoot anyway. There are some lemons out there but most drives are pretty reliable most of the time (read reviews).
For your data drive get the fastest interface you can, like USB 3 or eSATA but the backup drive can probably be slower (and cheaper) if you need to cut costs.
RAID is nice (when applied properly) but a true offline backup is safer. With RAID you may be protected from a single drive failure but something like a virus or accidental deletion of files aren't things RAID can help with. RAID is best used to enable a quick recovery or higher performance, but not as a substitute for backup.

Edited to add: Since your data is relatively small, I like the idea of keeping it all on one SSD, like a 512GB or 1TB sized and and use an inexpensive external to back the entire thing up. That should be easy to manage and will perform pretty well too.

[Igor123]

Thinking about Cloud backup other than as an extra security layer is folly for a number of reasons.

Off site backup is a very good (and professional) approach that has the potential to protect you losing your data via theft, fire, flood etc. Yes you may be slightly inconvenienced by time to collect your backup but this may be offset when you consider just how long it could take to recover data from the cloud.

One of the reasons to rely on a personal backup is that you have all the data at hand and do not have to wait until the Cloud servers deign to work and give you back your data.

For example consider the case of someone with around 2 TB of data - by no stretch of the imagination a particularly high figure

Suggested scenario total catastrophe with loss of 2 Terabytes of data.

Recover data at a consistent speed from your ISP examples at :

34 Mbps = 137 hours 15 minutes = Nearly 6 Days !
51 Mbps = 91 hours 30 minutes = Nearly 4 Days!
100 Mbps = 46 hours 40 minutes = Best part of 2 days

Now if you can get 1 Gbps in your part of the world 4 hour 40 minutes to recover data may be acceptable - or may not. In this time you could probably have driven to or had someone deliver to you your data from your offsite storage

However you are still reliant on a third party service that may decide to close or be down for maintenance or quite simply get choked with traffic.

I would be interested to hear the experience of anyone having to recover more than a few MB of data from a Cloud service provider regarding data quantity and time to download with other relevant stuff

I agree, I'm privileged with fast internet, but that's besides the point here, I still think it's by far the most practical way: OP currently has 125 GB HDD including OS, programs, photos and other things, so in this case we can drop those estimates by a factor 10, but even if considering 2TB, what do you use your photos for? Why the rush? In case of a data loss, in worst case if you have a paid job that is in a hurry and can be saved by the backup, that's usually just a few gb at most and probably less, and if not, in the (more or less inevitable but rare) case of a data loss, to get all the images back for pleasure viewing on a Sunday evening, may be ok to skip one week if not having to go to the safe box each month or quarter (but on the cloud you can do it constantly or each night instead).

About the third party closing down, yes, that is a risk so better look at those who have been in business for a while, and if you have the time glance at their financial numbers. But even in those cases, usually people get a couple of months to get their data before a service closes down. It would be extremely rare that they close down, without notice, at the same time as you suffer a data loss. When I switched from Amazon, they didn't close down but changed the contract and gave notice a couple of months before (or in this case a year before since they screwed up and ended up giving a year extra for free).

I agree, if having the cash for a slow local drive to put everything on once in a while, do it, but if not, I'd say still go for cloud as primary backup since it covers a lot more of the requirements of a good backup, than the work required to do it yourself, and also has some side benefits such as accessible data anywhere.

About retrieving more than a few mb from a cloud service...yes, I used amazon, they raised their prices, and what I didn't have locally (few tens of gb, not all of it) was retrieved overnight (and probably didn't take all night, but it was done in the morning). Where I work we set up entire hospital chains to do ALL their radiology imaging and reporting over the cloud, over ~1000km distances, each radiologist workstation connecting, retrieving and storing images from servers 1000 km away, TB of data each day. Agreed, this is on enterprise level and not usable for this, but the backbones are there. they've evolved over time even if consumer services didn't everywhere. As I understand there are a lot of problems with local providers in the US staying in the 90s with their contracts and speeds, but if that's not the case, I say it's far more practical using the cloud, and practical is important: If it's easy you'll do it, but if not you might skip going to the bank with the hdd a month or two when the time comes...

[Igor123]

I'm struggling to understand why a 10 minute drive to a bank branch is a problem. Then I realized, I'm in North Carolina, not Sweden and I have no. idea. Also, I shared an office for awhile with a Disaster Recovery Specialist and in principle, geographically displaced redundancy was and is sound practice. But I'm jealous of of affordable European ISP bandwidth. To quote Yogi Berra, "we agree different".

Seems we do =)

I don't have much farther to a bank, just that I thought the alternative is easier, but to be honest, haven't visited a bank in about 7 years since our mortgage, and that was just for signing the contract, everything else is done online and signed with a digital id, so the problem here is they are closing the "physical" bank offices, say about 90% in our town, just one office per large bank left, and the ones that remain often have very long waiting inside once there as a result.

But back to the point, just so I'm not misunderstood; I'm all for geographic redundancy as well! I just meant that the cloud storage provider handles that, I don't think any serious provider doesn't have multiple storage locations with back up/failover (and the local copy, if 100% of the data is there, would be a third location).

But as you say, to each his own and it's great that there are alternatives so we can do what suits us best.