USB Hard Drive recommendation please?

I backup my Mac Mini UPnP server with a Seagate Expansion Portable Hard Drive (using the SuperDuper! software). The Seagate Expansion Portable Hard Drive is available in both 1TB (which is what I use) or 2TB capacities. The Seagate Expansion + Portable Hard Drive is available in 2TB or 4TB capacities. All of these have USB 3.0 connectivity. My Expansion Portable Hard Drive is partitioned as I also use it to archive data from another machine. This arrangement works very reliably and completely hassle free for me. 

Hope that may help.

We use a WD Elements 3TB drive to back up the Qnap, and it’s fine. The My Passport has some fancier features, but just for backup the Elements does everything required. 

I use a WD My Passport Ultra,  small, simple & portable, I store it in my office safe.  No set up required (my Synology NAS backup software does it all)    literally plug & play 

Unless you look at something like the Lacie which offers a little more protection ... any drive will operate almost identically.  They will all fail randomly, but for most people there will be no issue.  Inside the "pretty" cases they are all the same drives.

The only caveat I would say to that is its worth looking up whatever drive you decide, as some of them have their USB interfaces soldered on to the drive hardware making recovery in case of failure more difficult.

Personally I wouldn't pay more for a "Mac compatible" drive, just reformat it as you say.  If you want to share between Windows and Mac however, may be worth going for a Seagate as you can then get the free NTFS write compatible driver for Mac OS.

I use a 2 TB WD My Passport to back up my the ripped CDs and downloads. No issues so far, but it is only in use for a year and a few days.

Thanks for the pointers and input folks - very much appreciated. I’m out of the loop as to whats available in terms of new hards drives as I’ve not had to buy anything for a couple of years, so wanted to confirm the key suppliers remain and there hadn’t been any significant new kit launches I wasn’t aware of.

Thinking of sticking with LaCie (Mini Rugged for now) as I’ve owned numerous D2 & ‘Neil Poulton’ (black plastic cased) drives over the years - all but one of the Neil Poulton drives have worked just fine, the D2 drives bing very reliable to date - except for the power bricks which like to fry themselves after a couple of years! Alternatively, the WD My Passport 4TB looks like very good value as there seem to be offers out there at the moment.

All being well, I’ll get something ordered over the weekend.

One thing you might consider ... is buying separately a 2.5" HDD and a separate enclosure.  You know exactly what you are getting that way.

As I commented above, one issue with "brand" 2.5" HDD such as WD and Seagate brand is they are often coming with a built in USB interface.  This is fine unless you have a problem such as with the enclosure and to recover data want to remove the drive from the enclosure and connect it to a computer another way.

I think (though not 100% sure) that you should get a "real" SATA drive with LaCie or G-Drive, the WD is likely to be "native" USB (in other words the USB interface is part of the drive and not removable).  I can't find information if there are native USB Seagate drives though.

Mike-B posted:

I use a WD My Passport Ultra,  small, simple & portable, I store it in my office safe.  No set up required (my Synology NAS backup software does it all)    literally plug & play 

I don’t think I need to keep my music collection in the safe as if I got robbed I think that it would probably be the only thing they didn’t steal ????

Thanks Eloise - I have an old OWC Express 2.5” enclosure which I could use with a 2TB HD, but as the case is slim it will only accommodate drives to 9.5mm, which rules out the bigger 4TB 15mm drives for this little box. 

I did have a very quick search but could not find any 15mm Bus powered (essential) enclosures for these bigger 15mm 3 and 4TB drives. This would be the ideal scenario as it allows big capacity and flexibility for drive replacement in case of failure. 

A little more research before I plunge!

I have just reformatted an old WD My Passport to use on my MacBook took three clicks. On WD own site they are selling 1TB My Passport Ultra for £32.99 and 2TB for £47.99 which can be reformatted for mac.

Thanks Bob, yes I know its a very simple, straightforward process - I've done it quite a number of times with my collection LaCie D2 (work) drives.

At the moment, top choice is a 4TB WD My Passport drive, as Ariver has it to on offer, and also at a few the other computer kit sites too. 

Yetizone posted:

Thanks Bob, yes I know its a very simple, straightforward process - I've done it quite a number of times with my collection LaCie D2 (work) drives.

At the moment, top choice is a 4TB WD My Passport drive, as Ariver has it to on offer, and also at a few the other computer kit sites too. 

Yes I think the WD usb's are very underrated for audio as they can be connected directly to many network players/streamers and are reasonably discrete. Also the drag and drop loading on mac is so simple.

Just a quick update... I’ve just ordered a WD 4TB My Passport drive from the UK Western Digital store. Look forward to finding out how it performs.

It may be of interest for those about to buy - they currently have an offer on with a free dedicated ’squeeze top’ case specifically for the My Passport drive, worth £11.99 - handy for a little added protection. 

Thanks for all of suggestions from the bods who chipped in

Bob the Builder posted:

I don’t think I need to keep my music collection in the safe as if I got robbed I think that it would probably be the only thing they didn’t steal ????

    Hi Bob,   the 'safe' is a left over from my days working for a living,  these days it's more of a handy store cupboard rather than me being OTT with a backup drive.   

The 4Tb WD My Passport has arrived and I'm really surprised how small this portable drive is. Music files all backed up now with a second duplicate to this HD. Pretty quick for USB3 too. A phone snap of the My Passport, next to UQ2 for size reference..