advice on large external USB3 hard drives (14-16tb) for new iMac

[mlblacy]

Looking to add two new external drives for a new iMac that is on order. One drive for basic work files, and another to run Time Machine backups. I don't want a NAS drive, and not really interested in an enclosure with drive bays. The sweet spot is between 14-16gb in size. More interested in size over speed, as my image libraries will be running on Thunderbolt drives.

Drives I am looking at, are the WD 14TB Elements Desktop at $260, the WD WD 14TB My Book Desktop at $280, or the Seagate Expansion Desktop 14TB External for $245. I currently have a bunch of both WD and Seagate drives, and am OK with the performance vs storage. Any input or advice?

 

[wardie]

Looking to add two new external drives for a new iMac that is on order. One drive for basic work files, and another to run Time Machine backups. I don't want a NAS drive, and not really interested in an enclosure with drive bays. The sweet spot is between 14-16gb in size. More interested in size over speed, as my image libraries will be running on Thunderbolt drives.

Drives I am looking at, are the WD 14TB Elements Desktop at $260, the WD WD 14TB My Book Desktop at $280, or the Seagate Expansion Desktop 14TB External for $245. I currently have a bunch of both WD and Seagate drives, and am OK with the performance vs storage. Any input or advice?

You would typically want a time machine drive to be 2-3x the amount of stuff you are backing up. Obviously if you’re using it to back up a 14TB drive that’s got a lot % of content on, that’s going to be tricky. Personally on brands I’ve found WD and Seagate much of a much-ness...

 

[mlblacy]

I work in publishing, advertising, and marketing. I do a lot of post work on still images too, but handle those backups with CarbonCopy Cloner on separate drives. So, yes... a lot of files.