External Drive for question

[okan]

Hi there,

I've recently got a Macbook 16". (this is my first device with usb-c ever)
I'm doing lots of video editing and some motion graphics but i'm leaving my job soon and going freelance(i'm moving to another country due to my wife's job) That's the reason i bought the mbp 16 Lucky me, i'll be able to work with my old company, as a freelance.
So, now i have to buy a couple of external drives since i don't want to put anything inside macbook except some apps.
I've found a few options:

LaCie 2big Dock RAID 8TB External RAID Hard Drive HDD with SD Card CF Card Slots, for Mac and PC Desktop Data Redundancy Thunderbolt 3 USB-C USB 3.0, 1 Month Adobe CC, Data Recovery (STGB8000400)

Ideal for Mac laptops and small PCs needing extra oomph and storage, 2big Dock Thunderbolt 3 is a desktop RAID solution offering 8TB and speeds of up to 440MB/s. Designed and built for utmost efficiency, it features SD card and CF card slots for direct file ingestion, a USB 3.0 hub for charging d...

www.amazon.com

G-Technology 8TB G-RAID with Thunderbolt 3, USB-C (USB 3.1 Gen 2), and HDMI, Removable Dual Drive Storage System, Silver - 0G05748-1

The G-RAID with Thunderbolt 3 is a high-performance, dual Enterprise-class 7200RPM hard drive storage system featuring Thunderbolt 3, USB-C (supports USB 3.1 Gen 2) and HDMI connectivity to quickly access, browse, edit and backup your digital library. For ultimate flexibility, choose between hard...

www.amazon.com

Those are both raid externals with thunderbolt 3. I can make one of this as my work this. I'll also buy a back up disk but it doesn't have to be a raid drive.(will move the files to backup disk once i'm done with the project)

So my question is, Lacie has a display port on the back, g-technology has hdmi. I'll also use an external display so this extra ports will save my some money. I don't now which one will be better. Display port or hdmi. Also, if you know, which brand is better?

I also found some ssd alternatives but they are so expensive for my budget

I'm also open to all recommendations This is going to be my first time as a freelancer.

 

[Stephen.R]

In terms of the drives themselves:

I've had a few LaCie drives in the past (I still have a working dual 2.5" RAID0 Little Big Disk from about 12 years ago, and I believe my first ever LaCie (an even older d2 desktop drive) is still running fine for TM backups at my parents house), but I wouldn't likely buy them, or G-Technology again. They're both owned by larger HDD/SSD manufacturers now (LaCie is owned by Seagate and G-Technology by Western Digital) and even when they weren't they were quite pedantic about replacement drives (i.e. for a failure), in my experience - anything not bought from them directly was essentially a warranty voiding exercise.

Personally I'd find a TB3 or USB-C multi-drive device that is available as a "0TB" option. Even if you don't want to buy it that way, and choose to buy it pre-populated, it means it's a supported feature to user-install drives, so you can upgrade the drives to either larger capacity or SSD's later if you wish.

I haven't used it personally but this OWC dual-drive dock is pretty well featured compared to the others, and is essentially the same price as the 8TB options you already looked at: https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/TB3RSDK08T/. Like the LaCie it has DisplayPort out, supporting up to a 4K display.

Regarding DP vs HDMI:

Personally I would always aim to use DP if possible - HDMI is essentially a TV/Receiver/etc standard, and a pretty common trend in "help me" threads seems to be:

1. "My display doesn't look quite right, it's connected via HDMI and I've tried a bunch of settings"
2. "Ok have you tried DisplayPort?"
3. "No yet, let me try that. Oh hey look it works perfectly".

In 2019 HDMI input on displays seems to be like the weird VGA D-SUB analog input on LCD's ~15 years ago - it's a lowest common denominator option - DVI was undoubtedly a better option but a bunch of cheap devices (both PCs and displays) didn't offer it, so this catch-22 cycle of **** continued.

 

[okan]

Thank you for your detailed answer and recommendations.

In terms of the drives themselves:

I've had a few LaCie drives in the past (I still have a working dual 2.5" RAID0 Little Big Disk from about 12 years ago, and I believe my first ever LaCie (an even older d2 desktop drive) is still running fine for TM backups at my parents house), but I wouldn't likely buy them, or G-Technology again. They're both owned by larger HDD/SSD manufacturers now (LaCie is owned by Seagate and G-Technology by Western Digital) and even when they weren't they were quite pedantic about replacement drives (i.e. for a failure), in my experience - anything not bought from them directly was essentially a warranty voiding exercise.

Personally I'd find a TB3 or USB-C multi-drive device that is available as a "0TB" option. Even if you don't want to buy it that way, and choose to buy it pre-populated, it means it's a supported feature to user-install drives, so you can upgrade the drives to either larger capacity or SSD's later if you wish.

I haven't used it personally but this OWC dual-drive dock is pretty well featured compared to the others, and is essentially the same price as the 8TB options you already looked at: https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/TB3RSDK08T/. Like the LaCie it has DisplayPort out, supporting up to a 4K display.

Regarding DP vs HDMI:

Personally I would always aim to use DP if possible - HDMI is essentially a TV/Receiver/etc standard, and a pretty common trend in "help me" threads seems to be:

1. "My display doesn't look quite right, it's connected via HDMI and I've tried a bunch of settings"
2. "Ok have you tried DisplayPort?"
3. "No yet, let me try that. Oh hey look it works perfectly".

In 2019 HDMI input on displays seems to be like the weird VGA D-SUB analog input on LCD's ~15 years ago - it's a lowest common denominator option - DVI was undoubtedly a better option but a bunch of cheap devices (both PCs and displays) didn't offer it, so this catch-22 cycle of **** continued.