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Need Recommendations for External Hard Drive

MacConvert2007

MacConvert2007

macrumors member
Original poster
May 23, 2007
63
2
Just got a new MacBook Pro M1 Max and I need an external hard drive to do time machine backups. I think 12-14 TB should be enough. I want to spend around $250. Any recommendations?

I’ve looked at Western Digital Elements and My Book, as well as Seagate Expansion. But they all got some bad reviews on Amazon for arriving dead or not being as good as advertised.

Thanks.
 
It’s my main rig and I’ll do a little bit of everything with it including heavy computer gaming. I’m also a bit of a data hoarder—I love the humble bundle site and am always adding gigabytes of books, PDFs, comics, music, movies and tv shows. My music collection is 260 GB and will grow larger as will the others. Plus I’m always trying new things with my machines. Thanks for the advice.
 
Oh and reliability of the backup drive is more important to me than speed. At the end of the day I will plug it in to backup while I sleep.
 
MacConvert2007 said:
It’s my main rig and I’ll do a little bit of everything with it including heavy computer gaming. I’m also a bit of a data hoarder—I love the humble bundle site and am always adding gigabytes of books, PDFs, comics, music, movies and tv shows. My music collection is 260 GB and will grow larger as will the others. Plus I’m always trying new things with my machines. Thanks for the advice.
Click to expand...
Well, why not look into a NAS storage solution with SSDs?
 
The main 8 TB drive is an SSD. I guess I want a cheap backup solution in case the SSD fails. Something $250-$300. Any ideas?
 
MacConvert2007 said:
The main 8 TB drive is an SSD. I guess I want a cheap backup solution in case the SSD fails. Something $250-$300. Any ideas?
Click to expand...
$250-$300 for 12-14TB of storage? Not going to happen. Just a NAS enclosure for 2 disk bays on NewEgg is around $280 and that's without any disks. Selecting 1x NAS disks to reach the desired range is at $320-$380.

So overall in a NAS configuration you are looking at any easy $600. However, a single external drive under the portable category can fetch $120 USD for 5TB.
 
What if I drop NAS, and just go a single external drive in 8TB-16TB range. What is a good brand and model? Can I achieve a $250-$300 drive?
 
Well what does the 8 TB NAS solution cost? Go ahead and give me a link to a viable one? I’ll consider it if you think it is a superior solution. I know it will be more expensive.
 
MacConvert2007 said:
Well what does the 8 TB NAS solution cost? Go ahead and give me a link to a viable one? I’ll consider it if you think it is a superior solution. I know it will be more expensive.
Click to expand...
Just a NAS enclosure for a disk setup: Click Me this is $280 USD with no disks provided
A 6TB disk: Click Me for $199 per disk. For redundancy you need 2, which brings the cost for disks to $398

Overall, you are looking at: $678 + S&H for a setup at the 6TB range with redundancy. Yes, it is expensive.

Mind you, I gave you popular options, you can look around for other options, but this will give you an overall idea.
 
OP:
"The main 8 TB drive is an SSD. I guess I want a cheap backup solution in case the SSD fails. Something $250-$300. Any ideas?"

My suggestion:
Get an 8tb platter-based HDD (unless you want to splurge for an SSD, if they even make them that large).

Get CarbonCopyCloner (or SuperDuper).

Use either CCC or SD to do a cloned backup (and then an "incremental backup" each night). Both can create bootable backups, even with the latest Mac OS versions.

Now the backup clone can serve in an emergency to boot the computer if necessary.
 
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