External HD For Photos: Good Solution ?

[Robert4]

Hello,

New iMac owner.

I was about to transfer many Folders of Photos I've taken
over the years from my old W7 pc to the iMac.

Just realized that the sum total of all these photos
is something like 20 GB+.

I do not think it is a good idea, therefore to use up so much of the 1 TB HD
on the new MAC.

If I purchase an external (1 or 2 TB) HD, and leave it always connected to the MAC via
USB, is this a practical solution ?

Would it be easy for someone who is even less computer literate than
me to "easily" access them ?

Thoughts

BTW: Who has the best reputation these days in external HD's; WD or Seagate ?
Any model suggestions for this application ?

Thanks,
Bob

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Hello,

New iMac owner.

I was about to transfer many Folders of Photos I've taken
over the years from my old W7 pc to the iMac.

Just realized that the sum total of all these photos
is something like 20 GB+.

I do not think it is a good idea, therefore to use up so much of the 1 TB HD
on the new MAC.

If I purchase an external (1 or 2 TB) HD, and leave it always connected to the MAC via
USB, is this a practical solution ?

Would it be easy for someone who is even less computer literate than
me to "easily" access them ?

Thoughts

BTW: Who has the best reputation these days in external HD's; WD or Seagate ?
Any model suggestions for this application ?

Thanks,
Bob

Well 20gb is not very much and all to be honest I can’t see why you would worry about using 2% of your drive space for photos.

You’ll be fine with any usb 3 external drive for media storage but I would use it for back up and just put 20gb of photos on your Mac that’s nothing, most computer games are 60gb these days for example.

Seagate are terrible WD are bad, it’s very difficult to buy anything else for a decent price but Gtech are highly rated and fast and Toshiba make very reliable drives.

 

[Robert4]

Hi,

Thanks.

Will do.
Sure is a lot to learn.

Bob

 

[Georgio]

+1 on the G-Tech external drives. I've had a thunderbolt 4TB for about 5 years and it's been faultless.

 

[Bryan Bowler]

Hi Bob,

Congratulations on the new iMac! In answer to your question, there is absolutely nothing wrong with storing your photos on your iMac’s hard drive and I recommend you store them there.

To help educate you on this topic, a traditional spinning hard drive (not an SSD) will start to show noticable signs of slowing down once it reaches approximately 70% of its capacity. Approximately 8-10% of the hard drive’s space is lost in the formatting process, so a good rule of thumb is to try and ensure your data does not exceed 50% of a drive’s capacity if you do not want to see any performance loss whatsoever. So, you are free to utilize up to 500 GB of data in your current hard drive without any worries in the world.

Now, I do strongly recommend that you attach an external hard drive and use it exclusively for Time Machine backups. If you have not used Time Machine before, it is an Apple program that is already on your iMac and it is super easy to use and will help protect you from data loss and give you the ability to recover any file that is at least 1 hour or older. It is preferable for a Time Machine hard drive to be at least twice the size of your normal hard drive (in your case, 2 TB)...but 4 times the size would be even better (4 TB).

As for which brand of external hard drive to buy, you’ll find a wide range of opinions. Suffice to say that any and all spinning hard drives are prone to eventual failure, which is why it is so important to have a backup strategy that works for you. G-Tech has a good history of reliability, but they are a little more expensive. Western Digital has good pricing and is generally a good performer. Some Seagate models in recent years have had higher rates of failure, so some people have steered clear of the Seagate brand altogether. For an external drive permanently attached to your iMac, be sure to get an external hard drive with a power supply and vents versus a bus-powered portable hard drive that is made for laptops.

A good example of the type of external drive to get is a Western Digital My Book. You can get a 4 TB model right now at B&H Photo with free shipping and no tax (if you’re outside of NY and NJ) for $100:

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1273855-REG/wd_wdbbgb0040hbk_nesn_4tb_my_boo.html

I hope this helps and again, congrats on the new iMac!

 

[Fishrrman]

I don't think that 20gb of space used for photo storage is going to make that big of an impact on a 1tb hard drive.

HOWEVER -- you want to keep those photos backed up on at least one EXTERNAL drive as well.

Depending on how important the pics are to you, perhaps TWO external drives (with one stored at a location other than home).