Recommendations for a 4TB USB 3.0 or USB C External Hard Drive for everyday data.

[jdc]

magicmikey wrote:
Ultimately, it comes down to whether I buy an OWC Mercury Elite or save some money and buy a WD My Book.

Not sure why are you stuck on these 2 drives as your only choices.

I guess I over recommended with a RAID (you mentioned "speed). If you are just going for the cheapest and/or slowest 4 TB drive you can find.

I'd just get whatever. No need to spend more than $90 -- dozens of 4 TB drives at that price, desktop or portable.

IMHO, warranty is irrelevant. If a $10000 drive dies or a $1 drive dies -- you data is gone either way -- unless you have a true automated backup. Just plugging a drive in whenever you remember is *not* a real backup.

[magicmikey]

jdc wrote:
[quote=magicmikey]
Ultimately, it comes down to whether I buy an OWC Mercury Elite or save some money and buy a WD My Book.

Not sure why are you stuck on these 2 drives as your only choices.

I guess I over recommended with a RAID (you mentioned "speed). If you are just going for the cheapest and/or slowest 4 TB drive you can find.

I'd just get whatever. No need to spend more than $90 -- dozens of 4 TB drives at that price, desktop or portable.

IMHO, warranty is irrelevant. If a $10000 drive dies or a $1 drive dies -- you data is gone either way -- unless you have a true automated backup. Just plugging a drive in whenever you remember is *not* a real backup.
I narrowed it down to these two because I know and trust the Mercury Elite (I own an older one that is FireWire 800) and, after lots of research, the WD seems to be the highest rated of the low-priced hard drives. Your suggestion of a RAID system is ideal but beyond my current budget. As I stated in my original post, I’m trying to keep it below $200 and a RAID system will exceed that. The Mercury Elite is at the upper end of what I’m doing willing to spend right now and I’m not convinced it is sure to be better than the budget drives. I didn’t ignore your original suggestion. I simply don’t have the means to go that route right now.

[mrlynn]

I'm not a professional photographer, but I have a lot of photos and also audio files (from my radio show) that I plan to off-load from my iMac (2TB drive filling up). To this end, I just ordered an OWC Mercury Elite Pro Dual RAID USB 3.1 for $85, plus 2 Toshiba 4.0TB X300 3.5" drives, $113 each. Total $275 plus tax.

I plan to use the RAID enclosure in RAID 1 mode, which makes one drive a mirror of the other. So if one fails, you've got a backup. I will also back up to TM and my nightly clone. That should be enough.

Those prices are/were 'Labor-Day Specials', but may still obtain. C. $300 is more than you specified, but I think it's a reasonable price for me. You could get cheaper 4TB drives from BestBuy or somewhere.

/Mr Lynn

[clay]

4tb portable usb 3 hd - $70
https://slickdeals.net/f/13369249-4tb-se...=frontpage

[jdc]

on the cheap:

$50 for case: https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProRai...+enclosure&qid=1567996047&s=instant-video&sr=8-9

$55 X 2 for drives: https://www.amazon.com/Hitachi-HUA723030...rd_w=BzYSI&pf_rd_p=ef4dc990-a9ca-4945-ae0b-f8d549198ed6&pf_rd_r=B0D4PN9NJHX0X8H5DCDK&pd_rd_r=87967c4e-1a44-4cc3-806a-310c91f77aa3&pd_rd_wg=jj5jb&pd_rd_i=B005QTSDDQ&psc=1&refRID=B0D4PN9NJHX0X8H5DCDK

$160 for 6 TB RAID 0, with speeds over 300 MB/s R/W.

Heres mine from 2016:

and mrlynn -- if you already have a TM and nightly clone, then Id just go with a RAID 0 too. =)

[magicmikey]

mrlynn wrote:
I'm not a professional photographer, but I have a lot of photos and also audio files (from my radio show) that I plan to off-load from my iMac (2TB drive filling up). To this end, I just ordered an OWC Mercury Elite Pro Dual RAID USB 3.1 for $85, plus 2 Toshiba 4.0TB X300 3.5" drives, $113 each. Total $275 plus tax.

I plan to use the RAID enclosure in RAID 1 mode, which makes one drive a mirror of the other. So if one fails, you've got a backup. I will also back up to TM and my nightly clone. That should be enough.

Those prices are/were 'Labor-Day Specials', but may still obtain. C. $300 is more than you specified, but I think it's a reasonable price for me. You could get cheaper 4TB drives from BestBuy or somewhere.

/Mr Lynn

That's a good plan. I'll plan for that for the future when I have a little extra cash. For now, I'll go the cheap route to get by.

[magicmikey]

clay wrote:
4tb portable usb 3 hd - $70
https://slickdeals.net/f/13369249-4tb-se...=frontpage

Great deal but Staples has disabled the coupon code for technology so it won't give the $20 off. I was excited until I saw it wouldn't go through.

Thanks for the tip, though.

[magicmikey]

jdc wrote:
on the cheap:

$50 for case: https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProRai...+enclosure&qid=1567996047&s=instant-video&sr=8-9

$55 X 2 for drives: https://www.amazon.com/Hitachi-HUA723030...rd_w=BzYSI&pf_rd_p=ef4dc990-a9ca-4945-ae0b-f8d549198ed6&pf_rd_r=B0D4PN9NJHX0X8H5DCDK&pd_rd_r=87967c4e-1a44-4cc3-806a-310c91f77aa3&pd_rd_wg=jj5jb&pd_rd_i=B005QTSDDQ&psc=1&refRID=B0D4PN9NJHX0X8H5DCDK

$160 for 6 TB RAID 0, with speeds over 300 MB/s R/W.

Heres mine from 2016:

and mrlynn -- if you already have a TM and nightly clone, then Id just go with a RAID 0 too. =)

I got pretty excited by this and then I took a good look at it but the reviews on the RAID case are not very good. Apparently, it's not nearly as good as it once was.. Lots of people reporting that they used to be good (which is why you're happy) but not anymore. Lots of issues reported. That makes me nervous. 33% of the reviews are two star or less on the case.

[mrlynn]

jdc wrote:
and mrlynn -- if you already have a TM and nightly clone, then Id just go with a RAID 0 too. =)

I don't really see the advantage of RAID 0, since it just doubles the size of one drive. You could just use a USB hub and two external drives to the same effect, or just buy a single large drive (in my case, 2 x 4 = 8TB). The point of RAID 1 is the redundancy.

My TM drive is 4TB, but my clone is only 2TB, so I will probably have to upgrade to a larger drive for the latter, and maybe the former. I've been using WD 'My Book' and 'Easy Store' externals (from Best Buy) with good results.

/Mr Lynn

[jdc]

It’s the speed.