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(Most) reliable external HDD?

jz0309

jz0309

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Original poster
Sep 25, 2018
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SoCal
Looking for a new reliable external HDD for backup purposes. I had recently go 2 WD Easystore drives go bad on me (see link below) within a couple weeks timeframe. I had been using WD for 2 decades with no issues and I picked WD as I had issues with Seagate before. So my trust in WD is not really high anymore ...
Looking at the landscape, G-Technology is owned by WD so I assume they have WD drives in them. LaCie is owned by Seagate and some articles suggest they use Seagate, WD and Hitachi. Hitachi and Toshiba seem to be the only other ones remaining and the reviews I've seen thus far have been not stellar.
I currently back up my data onto 2 SSDs using CCC, my though was that I would use TM for add backup, but given how TM works, that drive would have to be 5 or 6 TB, 8 might be best. If I stick with CCC then 4 TB should be sufficient for the next 2-3 years.
Hitachi and Toshiba seem to max out at 4TB ...

What are folks using here for HDD backup and how reliable has it been for you?

2 external HDDs failing AFTER Big Sur upgrade?? or?
 
If I needed an external, platter-based HDD today, I'd look for either a Toshiba or an HGST (Hitachi) 2.5" drive. There are size limitations, I think... either 2tb or 4tb.

I'd try to avoid WD and Seagate.

I'd buy a BARE drive, and an enclosure of my choosing, and put 'em together myself.

I use CarbonCopyCloner for backups (one could also use SuperDuper).
Has worked well for me for many years.
 
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If this is critical to you and you have lots of changes on a daily basis some form of RAID with complete mirroring/duplication of the data is appropriate, if not just use a bunch of cheap single HDs sequentially. There are a few options around e.g. https://shop.westerndigital.com/pro...g-raid-2-thunderbolt-3-hdd#SDPH62H-008T-NBAAD BUT configured to RAID 1 (note you need twice the intended storage!)

I recommend Carbon Copy Cloner as the application to control the backups
 
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Personally no issues over many years with WD red drives bought as bare drives and configured in RAID storage. Perhaps I’ve been lucky.
 
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Fishrrman said:
If I needed an external, platter-based HDD today, I'd look for either a Toshiba or an HGST (Hitachi) 2.5" drive. There are size limitations, I think... either 2tb or 4tb.

I'd try to avoid WD and Seagate.

I'd buy a BARE drive, and an enclosure of my choosing, and put 'em together myself.

I use CarbonCopyCloner for backups (one could also use SuperDuper).
Has worked well for me for many years.
Click to expand...
it seems to be 4TB max, which will work for me if I stick to CCC ...
I do have an external enclosure that I used with my 2008 MacPro, but it has a fan built in and with now only having SSDs, my iMac is silent and not sure I want to have a continuous fan going ...
 
ssmed said:
If this is critical to you and you have lots of changes on a daily basis some form of RAID with complete mirroring/duplication of the data is appropriate, if not just use a bunch of cheap single HDs sequentially. There are a few options around e.g. https://shop.westerndigital.com/pro...g-raid-2-thunderbolt-3-hdd#SDPH62H-008T-NBAAD BUT configured to RAID 1 (note you need twice the intended storage!)

I recommend Carbon Copy Cloner as the application to control the backups
Click to expand...
No, any kind of RAID setup would be overkill for my needs ... I use internal and external SSDs for data and currently back up to external SSDs, not a whole lot of day-to-day data, except I'm going out on a photo shoot and bring back 30 or so GB, which happens not to frequent at present time ...
I will take another look at SSD for backup, currently they are ~ 3.5-4 times the price to a platter, but I also know that RAM/NAND prices are starting to fall, so maybe ...
Just that this experience does not make me confident in any "cheap" HDDs anymore, and yes, I know that SSDs don't last "forever" ...
 
I have always used Lacie for TimeMachine and clones, with no issues.

edit: D2 Professional models.
 
Last edited:
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justashooter said:
I prefer NAS drives, have used both the Seagate IronWolf and the WD Red drives. The little extra money is worth it. Put them in a OWC external enclosure such as the Mercury Elite Pro:
eshop.macsales.com

OWC Mercury Elite Pro 0TB 3.5-inch External Storage Enclosure

USB 3.2 Gen 1 5Gb/s interface for 3.5-inch SATA drives. USB Type-B to Type-A cable included.
eshop.macsales.com eshop.macsales.com
Click to expand...
I had a NAS over 15 years ago (Buffalo Terastation), I liked it, but I’m only looking to backup my iMac so will stick to an attached drive(s) …
 
I'm not suggesting a NAS, I am suggesting NAS rated drives. Like the WD Red drives and the Seagate IronWolf drives. In a standard enclosures. Of which I prefer OWC products such as the one I mentioned. I have one that is probably 10 years old, a Mercury Elite AL Pro that has e-sata, USB 2 and Firewire 800. Yes, I have an older MacBook Pro with Firewire 800.
 
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justashooter said:
I'm not suggesting a NAS, I am suggesting NAS rated drives. Like the WD Red drives and the Seagate IronWolf drives. In a standard enclosures. Of which I prefer OWC products such as the one I mentioned. I have one that is probably 10 years old, a Mercury Elite AL Pro that has e-sata, USB 2 and Firewire 800. Yes, I have an older MacBook Pro with Firewire 800.
Click to expand...
Sorry, misunderstood… I actually have an old enclosure from OWC that I used with my MacPro, will check it out again but what I don’t like about it is a fan going at all times
 
justashooter said:
I'm not suggesting a NAS, I am suggesting NAS rated drives. Like the WD Red drives and the Seagate IronWolf drives. In a standard enclosures. Of which I prefer OWC products such as the one I mentioned. I have one that is probably 10 years old, a Mercury Elite AL Pro that has e-sata, USB 2 and Firewire 800. Yes, I have an older MacBook Pro with Firewire 800.
Click to expand...

I have 2x spare OWC Mercury Elite AL Pros if anyone in UK is interested. Great enclosures, I used with old Macs running FW800…
 
justashooter said:
My Mercury Elite does not have a fan, I don't believe the one they sell now does either.
Click to expand...
I got mine out, it definitely has a fan and houses 2 5.25 hard drives, has a USB and esata port ... I'm using the old 2.5TB drive for secondary backup for now, plus I decided to take advantage of my MS365 and copied files and photos to OneDrive. So for now I'm good but will replace the above HDD later this year ...
 
jz0309 said:
I got mine out, it definitely has a fan and houses 2 5.25 hard drives, has a USB and esata port ... I'm using the old 2.5TB drive for secondary backup for now, plus I decided to take advantage of my MS365 and copied files and photos to OneDrive. So for now I'm good but will replace the above HDD later this year ...
Click to expand...

There was/is a Dual version with 2 drives RAID capability and probably a fan (most dual enclosures I’ve had have a fan). The one we were talking about above is a single drive model with no fan. Like this (except mine are older and only have USB2): https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/400/+USB2
 
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