which external HD should i get?

[Dualvansmommy]

i need a solid SIMPLE external HD to store ALL of the videos and photos i currently have in my iMac (8K worth of photos and videos) along with about 50 documents and few files. Thinking 1T should be sufficient for my needs?

i cant decide between the two im considering, as i want a really simple setup since im not all that tech savvy. Literally plug it in my imac USB, set it up and just let rest over for me.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LQQH83I/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

or

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00H4YGR48/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

 

[Weaselboy]

Either one of those is fine. Just pick the color you like the best. No real difference between them.

 

[Mannaerts]

I think WD gives you 3 years warranty while Seagate give you 2 years

 

[Dualvansmommy]

I think WD gives you 3 years warranty while Seagate give you 2 years

reading the reviews on amazon on WD product, people talked about backing up their files with this via time machine? how would that work if im not familiar with time machine? can i use this HD without having to rely on Time machine?

 

[Weaselboy]

reading the reviews on amazon on WD product, people talked about backing up their files with this via time machine? how would that work if im not familiar with time machine? can i use this HD without having to rely on Time machine?

Sure. When you plug it in it will ask if you want to use the drive for Time Machine. Just say no then you can use the drive however you want after.

 

[matreya]

I would STRONGLY recommend getting two hard drives, one for the photos etc and one for either time machine backups or simply a clone of your photos drive. You simply cannot rely on a single hard drive to keep valuable data.

If you decide to get a 2nd drive for time machine, make sure it is larger by a factor of 50% at least over the combined storage of your internal drive and your photos drive.

 

[sidewinder]

What I do may seem excessive, but it really is the least that one should do to keep one's data safe. It has saved my butt on several occasions. I get both backups and high availability by using my strategy.

Besides the 1TB internal boot drive in my MacBook Pro, I have four external drives in an OWC ThunderBay 4 (Thunderbolt 2). I use the internal boot drive to store most everything except for videos and photos. I store those on a 6TB external drive.

Drive 1: 1TB drive - Carbon Copy Cloner clones internal 1TB boot drive to this drive daily.
Drive 2: 3TB drive - Time Machine does incremental backups of the 1TB boot drive to this drive.
Drive 3: 6TB drive - Used for videos and photos
Drive 4: 6TB drive - Carbon Copy Cloner clones the 6TB videos and photos drive to this drive daily.

I don't really need Time Machine with my setup. But I do like having because it gives me a second backup of the boot drive. It gives me access to files that are no longer on the boot drive but were in the past. This is Time Machine's most powerful feature as far as I am concerned. I also get incremental backups during the course of the day providing backups to files created or modified in between the clones backups.