How should I handle my data storage

[adgjqetuo]

Hopefully this is the right section.

I hve around 1.75 TB of multimedia data. I have two external HDDs - one primry one backup synced with a program called syncovery.

The HDD is slow (~75-100 mb wrote speed). I’ve been processing my raw files onto my int drive and transferring to my external which is then picked up nightly by Syncovery and written to the backup drive.

How would you recommend I operate? Should I keep doing what I’m doing, or purchase a small SSD for daily use and backup to my HDD nightly?

I looked into cloud storage but since my ISP only offers 3-4mb upload speeds it would take nearly year to upload to a cloud. I’m open for suggestions because I’m feeling a little overwhelmed on how I should manage my files / data.

 

[seveej]

75-100 MB/sec write speed sounds slowish. What kind of external HDD is that and what's the interface (USB2/USB3/Thunderbolt/???)?

Because unless you can justify the expense for a Thunderbolt RAID, what you're doing sounds sensible...

RGDS,

 

[adgjqetuo]

It's a USB 3.0 HDD

 

[seveej]

Sorry for the slow reply,

On second thought, 75-100 MB is not that bad. While USB3 has a decent theoretical throughput, real-life transfer speeds to HDDs mostly stay in the 100-115 MBps range. The actual throughput is naturally very dependent on the types of files (small files/large files) you're copying.

I have no personal experience with syncovery - on paper it sounds like it should do the job.
The most important part is to avoid doing full backups (copying all files, whether they have been changed or not) and preferring incremental backups (copying only those files which have changed). Syncovery should be able to handle that for you.

Choices:
Minor improvement: look for benchmarks on other mechanical (HDD) USB3 drives. Some offer speeds up to roughly 160 MBps. Make sure whatever benchmark you trust reviews the exact capacity you are considering (as r/w speeds are largely dependent on data density per platter).

Major improvement: an SSD-based USB 3.1 drive. This gives you an improvement on the order of half an order of magnitude (x 5) if you find something suitable.

Major investment: A Thunderbolt-based multi-disk (RAID) solution.

Outside option: If your computer is not the only one interested in accessing those files, a LAN-based solution might be viable.