Portable Hard Drive

[cx]

Any recommendations for a particular external hard drive for backup use?

[makethatkerdistick]

Something like this would be what I would choose. From 500 GB all the way up to 2 TB:
https://www.amazon.com/SAMSUNG-Porta...a-912959816040

If you need more capacity, Samsung has another model that goes up higher.

I like solid state drives (SSDs) over the old style hard drives with spinning parts. A little more expensive, but more rugged, faster and less energy hungry for sure.

[PC7060]

Looks like a good option. Solid state is nice but spinning disks (7200rpm) are fine for backups.

I use drive carriers with spinning drives. Allows me to store one drive offsite.

SABRENT USB 3.1 to SATA External Hard Drive Docking Station for 2.5 or 3.5in HDD, SSD [Includes Both Type C and Type A Cables Supports UASP and 10TB Drives] (DS-UTC1) https://a.co/d/8scHgcU


Paired with a couple of these….
Seagate BarraCuda Pro 500GB Internal Hard Drive Performance HDD – 2.5 Inch SATA 6Gb/s 7200 RPM 128MB Cache for Computer Desktop PC La... https://a.co/d/8C8m2Yu

[Tiger Mountain Tile Inc]

I've got a couple of different types of these things.

They work well for tile guys since they're a bit rugged. I keep one in my work van with all my job photos.

Another one that I have is password protected. You can get them at Costco too.

[PC7060]

Another nice option!

[cx]

I'm thinking I want a solid state drive this time, PC, on accounta I store it "offsite," which for me is in the door pocket in one of my pickups. My current backup is a Western Digital My Passport Ultra, which is apparently corrupted and won't accept some of what I wanna put on it again. Apparently the only possible "repair" is to re-format, but it's where my only backup now exists and I don't wanna lose that (I think I can still access it). I'm thinking a SSD might fair better riding in the truck alla time? My thinking is faulty there?

I was looking at this 500GB Samsung, Jim. And I think even that is monstrously larger than I'll ever need. Any reason to believe your SanDisk is of substantially better quality?

[PC7060]

Solid state is good plan. Samsung makes good products. Funny that the 1TB is the same price. I’d go with that just because.

[Tiger Mountain Tile Inc]

I don't know enough about it to know if one is better than another. But, like PC said, I'd buy the 1TB version for a similar price.

It used to be that was way too much storage. Now I have one that's almost filled up.

[cx]

Yeah, James, I ordered the 1GB version. There will be no danger of my ever filling it up.

[PC7060]

[cx]

I think I'll never get over the size reduction of computer storage in this world. This new 1TB SSD could get lost in a shirt pocket! It's 1/4 the size of my previous Western Digital drive of maybe 10 years ago - or less.

And for those old timers, I can't recall how much storage we had in the computer system at the Fort Worth Air Route Traffic Control Center back in my Controller days, but the computer room was maybe a couple thousand square feet and contained probably a dozen or more 35mm reel-to-reel metallic tape drives that would store thousands of times less data. That was, of course, 42 years ago, but still........ I wish I could look up the actual numbers, but I doubt anybody still has that information.

Now, with this SSD, my biggest concern will be physically loosing the damn thing!

[smifwal]

Originally Posted by CX

. I wish I could look up the actual numbers, but I doubt anybody still has that information.

I would be willing to wager that I could find said information on the internet given the right details to go on

[Mathman]

back in 79 we had a Radio shack TRS-80 that had 4 KB that is 4000 bits of memory and used floppy disks to store apps and everything.
In the 80's when I got my first Amiga 500 I was stoked to get my first hard drive. A 20MB scsi drive.

[PC7060]

My father worked for General Telephone Electric (GTE) for almost 40 years starting in the mid 1950's. In the 1980/90's the telcoms converted to digital / fiber; he said they would convert analog system occupying 20,000 sft to digital systems in a space the size of a one car garage.

The old analog systems switchers, one for each phone number, were about the size and shape of small round top mailbox, each rotation of the dial phone initiated a similar rotation in the analog device. The room sounded like a thousand teletype machine and always had the pleasant odor of productivity (aka ozone) .

[cx]

I'd like to see it Shawn. All I can tell you is it was the Fort Worth Air Route Traffic Control Center,ZFW, located across the highway from the old Greater Southwest Airport, which was the local airport before DFW was built in the 70s. The computerized radar system went online sometime in the mid 70s, as I recall, and was obsolete by the time the FAA bought it from IBM (IBM told them that some components were no longer available as replacements at the time). It was a very shaky system, but ever so useful when it was working. It's major problem was that when the system got really busy, exactly when the computer was most valuable, it was prone to failures. Recovering from such failures (which the FAA always claimed was no problem at all) as a working controller could age a fella several years in a matter of seconds.

The computer room adjacent to the control room, was the only place in the building where smoking was prohibited and the temperature was kept at a level that required at least a sweater to remain in for long periods.