Portable hard drive?

[ATEspo]

I picked up the latest 13" MBP and even though I opted for the 512gb version, its just not enough to make this my one and only machine. Now that I have a 512gb iPhone 11 Pro inbound, and almost maxed out iPhone X 256gb that I haven't backed up to iTunes yet, I went to best buy and was sold on a Samsung T5 1tb drive which I thought would do the trick.

I am now thinking about ditching my old iMac (2010) because it just collects dust and also ditching the external hard drives I have attached to it and moving everything to one external portable drive and this Samsung T5 ins't going to have enough room.

So my question is this, will a traditional external hard drive be good enough for what I'm looking to do? I'd need one that I can keep in my backpack with my MBP and access when I need to.

What are you guys rocking with your new MBP's? I want to keep it to USB-C only but not sure if I really NEED SSD or not.

 

[ATEspo]

I did a bit of digging and found this...
https://www.imore.com/best-usb-c-hard-drives-mac

 

[gumbaloom]

I picked up the latest 13" MBP and even though I opted for the 512gb version, its just not enough to make this my one and only machine. Now that I have a 512gb iPhone 11 Pro inbound, and almost maxed out iPhone X 256gb that I haven't backed up to iTunes yet, I went to best buy and was sold on a Samsung T5 1tb drive which I thought would do the trick.

I am now thinking about ditching my old iMac (2010) because it just collects dust and also ditching the external hard drives I have attached to it and moving everything to one external portable drive and this Samsung T5 ins't going to have enough room.

So my question is this, will a traditional external hard drive be good enough for what I'm looking to do? I'd need one that I can keep in my backpack with my MBP and access when I need to.

What are you guys rocking with your new MBP's? I want to keep it to USB-C only but not sure if I really NEED SSD or not.

Depends on what you are storing

- Whether it's data you access frequently
- Is the data valuable or not value
- Is the data backed up elsewhere
- How quickly do you need to access it

I have multiple network drives that I dump my stuff to. I don't necessarily need a local drive for "most" things.

 

[twanj]

There's the T5 2 TB version. Grab a couple of those.

Not sure you want non-SSD if you're lugging it around in a backpack all the time.

 

[ATEspo]

Depends on what you are storing

- Whether it's data you access frequently
- Is the data valuable or not value
- Is the data backed up elsewhere
- How quickly do you need to access it

I have multiple network drives that I dump my stuff to. I don't necessarily need a local drive for "most" things.

Exactly, I don't need all this stuff on my local drive on my MBP, plus its stuff I won't access frequently at all, I just like to have it available. Lots of old videos i've made, tons and tons of photos and some important personal files, thats all.

Well I guess I have a few options. I could do is use the T5 I picked up for my "on the go, access the data quickly" drive and get a HDD to back everything up and it can stay at home. I just have 2-3 older HDD's I want to put everything on one.
OR I can just get one of these "LaCie Rugged" 4TB drives and not keep it with me or in my backpack (I just simply don't need it with me 24/7) and just keep it at home in a drawer for when I need to access the data or use it to back my phone/photos up.

OR I could just use iCloud and backup everything right to the cloud and just get an HDD for a "hard" backup to keep at home.

[doublepost=1568687508][/doublepost]

There's the T5 2 TB version. Grab a couple of those.

Not sure you want non-SSD if you're lugging it around in a backpack all the time.

Honestly now that I think about it, I don't need to keep the drive with me 24/7, I just want to be able to access it quickly when I want to find a video/photo or file. Not too sure I need the SSD, I am not worries about read/write speeds as I am literally using it to store videos/photos and some documents.

 

[Howard2k]

If you don't need the data with you all the time you could also consider NAS or cloud storage.

 

[ATEspo]

If you don't need the data with you all the time you could also consider NAS or cloud storage.

Hmm, NAS is another option but I know nothing about it really, and I have been considering iCloud for all my photos but that won't help me out with all the final edited videos/movies I have been making for 16+ years.

I may just keep this SSD for all the content I can't put on iCloud and just back all my photos up to iCloud and call it a day.

 

[psingh01]

I have some WD usb3 2TB & 4TB drives for my laptop. I bought a usbc dongle to use them. You can also get cables that do the conversion too. You don’t have to limit yourself to drives that come with usbc out of the box.

Also don’t forget to get extra larger drives for backup. At least for time machine.

 

[FireBlade93RR]

check out Synology NAS drives,
i've got the 1812+ with 8 x 3TB disks WD red, have my whole Family's iTunes collection, movies, photo's, and Time Machine backup's on it, can access through internet remotely

 

[mpainesyd]

I have a Sandisk SSD ((1Tb) for travelling with my Macbook. Very compact and includes a short USB-C cable.

SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD Solid State External Hard Drive (1 TB to 4 TB) | Western Digital | Western Digital Store

The rugged SanDisk® Extreme Portable SSD delivers high-speed transfers with up to 550MB/s read speeds.7 This makes it perfect for saving and editing hi-res photos and videos. With an IP55 rating, it also stands up to rain, splashes, spills, and dust.1

www.sandisk.com

I have come across an article that warns about reduced power-off retention time for SSDs at high storage temps. ( https://www.extremetech.com/computing/205382-ssds-can-lose-data-in-as-little-as-7-days-without-power )

 

[baypharm]

I use Samsung T5’s and X5’s.

 

[ATEspo]

I ended up getting a Western Digital passport ultra 4tb. I partitioned it to run TimeMachine On my MBP and the rest to backup all my photos/videos/music.
I also got a SanDisk Extreme 512gb SSD for when I need/want to move large video files or large amounts of photos from my DSLR around.

I’m also going to use iCloud for photos once I clean my library up (way too much junk to back everything up right now.