external hard drive?

[Patty]

I just got a new camera and need to get an external hard drive. Can someone please suggest what I should get. I plan to have large raw files now where previously I only had jpegs. I take a LOT of pics and need to have room to back them up. What brand, if that makes a difference, and what size hard drive should I get? Thanks in advance for any suggestions, Patty

PS. I hope that it's OK to ask this here. I couldn't see anywhere else on the forums to ask.

[theArchitect]

Depends on how much you want to store and how much redundancy you want.

The expensive solution is something like a Drobo storage system that autmatically spreads your data across serveral drives so it will always be available if one fails - it also means you can swap in & out different sized drives. There are options to run it over a network too.

A cheaper but less flexible solution would be a standard USB/firewire external drive - I use the Seagate FreeAgent Desk. I'd suggest getting at least a Terabyte (TB) so there's a lot of room for expansion.

[Patty]

Thank you so much for your response! The "cheaper but less flexible solution" is exactly what I was wanting to know about. I'm not a pro photographer by any means. I waited a long time to get the camera that I wanted, so expensive isn't something I can do right now, or probably ever.
Again, THANKS!

[Jim Poor]

An external enclosure with a regular old internal drive offers the best compromise of cost, capacity and reliability.

Originally Posted by Patty

Thank you so much for your response! The "cheaper but less flexible solution" is exactly what I was wanting to know about. I'm not a pro photographer by any means. I waited a long time to get the camera that I wanted, so expensive isn't something I can do right now, or probably ever.
Again, THANKS!

[freybear3]

I use a 1TB for my external HD. I own a few of them. I use SEAGATE, they are fast and reliable

[Gaurav Prabhu]

I agree with Jim. Get a Internal 1TB WD HDD & buy a seperate HDD enclosure(SATA to USB or SATA to Firewire). This will come cheap & will benefit you in economy. Just make sure you keep the HDD safe & don't drop it as the internal HDD's are delicate inspite of them being put inside the enclosures.

[DivotMaker]

I am with freybear3, I use Seagate exclusively because of reliability and speed (and the 5 year warranty)

I have a 1TB external for my backups and a couple of 320g for portability (that way I dont have to bog down my hard drive with things I dont use frequently)

[douglas]

I use LaCie, and have had no problems The prices (here anyway) have really come down recently,and so get a TB.

[mipo]

Agree on building your own is a money saver.
I do just that most of the time
But you do not get the auto backup utilities.
For me it makes no difference. I write my own batch files and scheduled them.

But for travelling I use Transcend StoreJet portable drives. (carry a few of them around)
Small in size, no external power required and rugged. They are now up to 650gb.

Also use them for off site backup.


Have fun!