External Drive Options

[mroy16]

As my external HDDs are aging and getting to the point of replacement, I've been considering a number of options. Following the advice of many people on these forums, I'm planning on switching to internal disks in enclosures. Here's my current question:

I've seen several 4 or 5 bay external drive bays, and they all seem rather pricey and bulky. I don't need hardware RAID or anything - just a place to keep a few external drives. It seems that, for the same price, I could get a small USB 3 bus and a few 2.5" drive enclosures.

So, are there any pros or cons to an all-in-one bay compared to a few single bays? I'd definitely get an independently powered USB hub if I went with the multiple single bays, but is there a real difference between 2.5" and 3.5" drives, or in how they're stored? Also, I don't need a huge amount of storage space - I mostly want the multiple drives for redundancy / backups.

Thanks for suggestions!

 

[pika2000]

My take on this based on my personal experience

1. 2.5" drives tend to be more expensive for the same size vs 3.5" drives
2. 2.5" drives tend to be more reliable (I've experienced less failures, not none, but less) vs 3.5" drives
3. 2.5" drives tend to be slower (most are 5400rpm), while 3.5" drives tend to be 7200rpm. Not really a big deal if the purpose is for data/backup.
4. If you look for all-in-one bay, make sure it has at least some duplication feature (eg. RAID-5). This is the point of having an all-in-one bay imo, so you can have your data duplicated without having to manually do them. And make sure you get a solution where it is easy to recover from failed drives.
5. Few single bays can be cheaper, but it introduces a risk of not having duplicates/backups as we all tend to be lazy.

So there you are. If you have the budget, look at solutions like drobo or synology. If not, at least buy two drives at a time, and make sure they are duplicates of each other in case one fails.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Buy two drives and use one for time machine and one for carbon copy cloner or super duper, Then you'll have a time machine back up with easy access to all your old files etc and a complete bootable copy of your current set up for any drive failures. Also consider icloud for your docs and photos etc for on the go access using phone or pad or MacBook and a 3rd copy in case of emergencies of all your most precious stuff.

 

[LorenK]

Icy Dock makes a reliable (so far, two years and counting) 4 bay external drive bay, it's available in lots of places and can be found around $115. I've used several different brands and the key failure point seems to be the controller card, which has failed on two different external drives I've used, not the Icy Dock, yet. With four slots, you can choose whatever types of drives you want and configure it as a JBOD or RAID. The thing about storage is that it seems that the more you have, the more you need, it's easier to keep things if you have sufficient storage, so it works to have extra space.

 

[Tech198]

I do have a NAS which houses my all my main stuff, but two 2TB external drives i keep on me..

3.5' hard drives are larger, but if you portability u can easily fit carry on you, 2.5 really is the only choice, since while you can get small 3.5, u trade portability for capacity.

However if all that's needed is external drives and no central location, that's ok as well. but when one dies, u'r gonna have a job trying to get it back when it does, or u would have to either keep them in sync, and replace the failed one, or back one drive up somewhere else that will fit all the data. Question would be : where is that somewhere else? Or would u just have all 2-3 external drives and hopefully one of then won't die?

 

[ZapNZs]

As my external HDDs are aging and getting to the point of replacement, I've been considering a number of options. Following the advice of many people on these forums, I'm planning on switching to internal disks in enclosures. Here's my current question:

I've seen several 4 or 5 bay external drive bays, and they all seem rather pricey and bulky. I don't need hardware RAID or anything - just a place to keep a few external drives. It seems that, for the same price, I could get a small USB 3 bus and a few 2.5" drive enclosures.

So, are there any pros or cons to an all-in-one bay compared to a few single bays? I'd definitely get an independently powered USB hub if I went with the multiple single bays, but is there a real difference between 2.5" and 3.5" drives, or in how they're stored? Also, I don't need a huge amount of storage space - I mostly want the multiple drives for redundancy / backups.

Thanks for suggestions!

The advantage of single-bay enclosures (at least for me) is that one can be kept in a different physical location and also completely disconnected from both the computer and the power grid except times when actively making the backup (providing protection against data loss that otherwise would not be covered if all of the drives were stored in the same physical location and constantly connected to either a hub, power source, or the computer.)

From what I have gathered, there seems to be more reliability data available on 3.5-inch drives than there are for 2.5-inch models...with that said, longitudinal data on the said topic (especially in a consumer environment) is surprisingly lacking. From the limited data that is available, several HGST 3.5-inch models seem to fare the best. Unfortunately, such stats come from an environment that is very different from a consumer's home, and some recent data I've seen suggests that humidity plays a significant factor in failure rates (which will presumably be very different in a datacenter versus a house). Some pre-fabricated 2.5-inch externals also use a soldered SATA bridge, which is something I strongly dislike given port damage or enclosure failure means getting the data off of the drive becomes a complex operation and the drive has no future viability (where as with a model that is not soldered, all you have to do is transfer the internal drive into a new enclosure.)

What storage size requirements do you think you will need?

 

[mroy16]

Thanks for the advice, everyone. I saw some Icy Dock products in my initial search, and it's good to hear a positive review.

I think my primary usage will be with 4 drives:

1. ~1TB HDD for Time Machine
2. 250GB SSD as a CCC bootable backup
3. ~1TB media drive (iTunes library and movies/TV)
4. manual backup of (3)

I really only need two of these connected at a time, so individual enclosures probably make a bit more sense for me.

 

[wayoutwest5505]

I purchased 2 Glyph 6 TB Rack mount drives. Use Logic, iMac. Lots of backup options. 2 TB Fusion drive 27 in. 16 gig iMac
Love Super Duper. Home studio. Songwriter. Utah