Seagate 5TB External Desktop or 4TB Portable?

[vbctv]

I'm trying to decide which to buy tomorrow. I currently use 4 different Portable Hard Drives for my Movie & TV Shows and I want to combine them into 1 or 2 depending which route is better here.

I'm looking at either the Seagate 5TB External Desktop Hard Drive which is $129 or the Seagate 4TB Portable Hard Drive which is $119.

My question & worries are about life of the drive. I have had good luck with Portables and bad luck with External Desktop Drives. But that was on PC, never have used anything but Portable drives on my Mac in 2 years. Some of the questions I have are will the drive sleep if connected 24/7 to the Mac, and will it wake up randomly like on PC or will it stay sleeping until I open it? Will that keep the lifespan longer?

I'm looking to use Plex with my Apple TV which is why I want to combine drives. Just trying to figure out which is the better route & get opinions from everyone.

 

[Tomorrow]

If you're planning on leaving the drive connected and not moving it around, I'd get the desktop drive.

 

[tjwilliams25]

I agree with going the desktop route, however, I would suggest the Western Digital 6TB if you're going with a large, long-term solution. I've heard plenty of nay-sayers against Western Digital, but they're the only drive I'll use now, externally. I have several from 8 years to now that I still use. The only external that's died on me is a Seagate and I almost lost all of my media when it happened. Of course, your experience may differ. Just my 2 cents.

 

[styymy]

I'm trying to decide which to buy tomorrow. I currently use 4 different Portable Hard Drives for my Movie & TV Shows and I want to combine them into 1 or 2 depending which route is better here.

I'm looking at either the Seagate 5TB External Desktop Hard Drive which is $129 or the Seagate 4TB Portable Hard Drive which is $119.

My question & worries are about life of the drive. I have had good luck with Portables and bad luck with External Desktop Drives. But that was on PC, never have used anything but Portable drives on my Mac in 2 years. Some of the questions I have are will the drive sleep if connected 24/7 to the Mac, and will it wake up randomly like on PC or will it stay sleeping until I open it? Will that keep the lifespan longer?

I'm looking to use Plex with my Apple TV which is why I want to combine drives. Just trying to figure out which is the better route & get opinions from everyone.

[doublepost=1457388459][/doublepost]I've had success as of late with desktop externals as well. I've been using several external Fantom Green Drives for several years now without any issues. These drives are usb 3.0 and Time Machine friendly.

 

[EssentialGadget]

[doublepost=1457388459][/doublepost]I've had success as of late with desktop externals as well. I've been using several external Fantom Green Drives for several years now without any issues. These drives are usb 3.0 and Time Machine friendly.

I have 3 of the Seagate 5TB drives. Very impressed with them. They do have a power supply that has to be plugged in. Should work great to store movies/music - file server stuff. I am using 2 of them in a RAID Mirror for time machine on my file/iTunes Server. The other is a TM for my iMac.

Been powered up and running for about a 8 Months

 

[firedept]

I'm trying to decide which to buy tomorrow. I currently use 4 different Portable Hard Drives for my Movie & TV Shows and I want to combine them into 1 or 2 depending which route is better here.

I'm looking at either the Seagate 5TB External Desktop Hard Drive which is $129 or the Seagate 4TB Portable Hard Drive which is $119.

My question & worries are about life of the drive. I have had good luck with Portables and bad luck with External Desktop Drives. But that was on PC, never have used anything but Portable drives on my Mac in 2 years. Some of the questions I have are will the drive sleep if connected 24/7 to the Mac, and will it wake up randomly like on PC or will it stay sleeping until I open it? Will that keep the lifespan longer?

I'm looking to use Plex with my Apple TV which is why I want to combine drives. Just trying to figure out which is the better route & get opinions from everyone.

I have 2 Seagate External Drives and have had no issues with either. Found them to be solid performers. I am using Plex on my Seagate 5TB Personal Cloud without issues. It stays asleep when it should and only wakes when I am using it. Both do a solid job for me.

 

[maflynn]

I love the idea of portable drives as it provides a lot of protection but that protection is not needed if the unit is sitting on the desk. I usually take in my portable drive to work as a form of offsite backups.

 

[LiveM]

I use an 8TB Lacie Porsche Design desktop drive for Time Machine Backups of my various drives with family photos and videos. The original drives live in my office.

Nice aluminium body designed to complement the Mac.