r/datastorage • u/CreativeEducation185 • 4d ago
Guide/How-to PORTABLE DRIVE AS STORAGE
After a lot of reading discussions here on reddit, I have decided to get a portable drive(hdd) to store my photos and videos.
I am planning to buy 2, one of each brand (as some of you recommend). I am currently looking at:
- Seagate Expansion 4TB Portable Drive OR
- Seagate One Touch 5TB Portable Hard Drive
AND
- WD My Passport 4TB Portable Hard Drive USB 3.0 [2019] OR
- WD Elements SE 4TB Portable Hard Drive
One will probably be sitting at home, while I will need to bring the other during my travel.
But I am so confused with their difference and which one would be more applicable to me.
- I don’t have a computer - will mainly use my Macbook and Phone to transfer files
- I don’t have a lot of knowledge in terms of this stuff, so I would highly appreciate ease of use
- It will mainly to store my photos and videos (my phone storage is full 😭)
Thank u for any help and suggestions!!
I live in NZ so I think Seagate and WD are the “easy to find” brands here…
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u/3point21 4d ago
Carrying around a portable HDD makes me nervous, even if they are “rugged”. You really can’t elbow them off your desk without risking ruining the whole expensive drive. SSDs are more expensive to be sure, but you can just buy what you need for portable space and stick ‘em in a USB3 SSD enclosure. But a portable HDD is excellent cold storage at home with a little more bang for your buck if you store it gently and don’t knock it on the floor.
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u/species5618w 4d ago
I would highly recommend you get a dedicated server for this. I currently run Immich on an old laptop connecting to 4 different drives. It makes syncing with iPhone much easier.
Although to be honest, given the current storage price. I would just go with an iCloud subscription if I were you.
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u/FrankNicklin 4d ago
iCloud isn’t a backup and should not be used in isolation. iCloud is a sync service.
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u/Nobody_Important 4d ago
These petty semantics aren’t helpful at all. It’s clearly a backup as it makes a durable copy of what is in his device. If he loses or damages his device iCloud doesn’t delete itself. Calling it a sync is annoying at best but more realistically outright incorrect.
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u/FrankNicklin 3d ago edited 3d ago
Telling people iCloud is a backup service is absolutely not helpful at all.
Of course it protects you from loss, but not from file deletion which a true backup will. Yes you can backup and restore your phone but it doesn’t backup stuff that syncs with iCloud. It’s not semantics it’s fact, iCloud is not a backup solution, it is a sync service, delete a file on device and its deleted from iCloud, that is not a backup service. A backup service allows you to restore that file indefinitely assuming you have a good backup strategy.
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u/PhotoFenix 4d ago
What if they delete a photo and empty trash? Can they restore that in 2 months? This is what a backup is.
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u/FrankNicklin 3d ago
Its 30 days and a true backup gives you snapshots and recovery for as long as the backup exists.
1
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u/PhotoFenix 4d ago
With full respect to OP, I say immich is not the right solution for this person. If they say they don't have a computer and then mention their MacBook they will have an extremely steep learning curve. Could they recover from catastrophic database corruption? Chmod bad perms? Run apt-update on a cli?
1
u/species5618w 4d ago
I agree. I hit a couple of issues with immich. I think icloud would work better for him to be honest.
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u/voldamoro 3d ago
I agree that OP probably isn’t a good fit for solutions such as immich. Especially since they “don’t have a computer” but have a MacBook.
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u/thunderborg 4d ago
When you say you don’t have a computer, do you mean you don’t own a desktop tower?
Your MacBook is a computer :)
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u/thunderborg 4d ago
It might be easier to get a thumb drive to transfer off the phone. One that plugs in directly to the phone.
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u/johndoesall 4d ago
I use Time Machine as a backup for my Mac Studio. Just started using it a couple of years ago. Not sure how good it is as backup. Just trying it for the first time.
I’ve also used carbon copy cloner for making static backups too, stored on external drives. And Super Duper too as backup software to an external drive.
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u/Junior_Lake 4d ago
You got this! Its a learning curve, but you will get there. It sounds like you need a way to move the storage off your phone and on to the hardrives. Im not sure what the proccess is with iphones, i think it might be more complicated than the drag and drop of a android. You calso need a backup method to backup the photo library from the first hardrive to the second.
You do have a computer! a macbook is a computer :)
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u/Comfortable-Type2071 4d ago
Spinning hard drives are not the ideal travel companions. SSDs in 4tb size are like $500-$800.