Portable hard drive suggestions?

[Leo]

Anyone have suggestions about portable hard drives for file back up? Over the past few years, I've had two of those orange LaCie portable hard drives and both failed (fine for 6-8 months, then suddenly they weren't recognized by my Macbook when plugged in). Done some research and every brand -- WD, Seagate, Toshiba, etc. -- seem to be the same: 2/3s of the reviews are ok, 1/3 say they are crap with the same problems I had.

Appreciate any suggestions. 500GB would probably be fine but being looking at 1TB. I'm too paranoid to use the cloud and too cheap to buy a Time Capsule.

Thanks.

 

[Ness Rowlah]

Been running backups to various 1 and 2TB WD (MyPassport Ultra and Air) and Sony 1TB (HD-E1) USB3 drives for the last two-three years and experienced no major problems so far.
Don't install whatever software comes with the drives. There are problems with Macbooks and USB ports/drives (several threads on Apple.com, this is just one of them -
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6607783). Sometimes it takes a while for a drive to show up and on the odd occasion I do need a reboot to get the drive back.

All old-school mechanical drives are prone to failure over a lifetime,
if you get four-five years out of a drive then it's probably time to upgrade anyhow.

 

[Leo]

Thanks, Ness. Ended up going with the Seagate Slim Plus 1TB (http://www.seagate.com/external-hard-drives/portable-hard-drives/standard/backup-plus/). And yeah, read lots about not DLing the software, I just sent up folders and then copy/paste folders off my Macbook hard drive. So far, so good.

 

[Ness Rowlah]

depending on the value of what you store and the size of your laptop's drive.

A) consider setting up Time Machine
B) consider getting a second portable drive. Time Machine can use two drives so you can back up to the second drive say once/twice a week and store it at different location (I store mine in a drawer at work). Should the worst happen (laptop and USB drive both gets stolen), then at least your files are safe in that secondary location.

 

[Leo]

lots of people have suggested multiple/redundant backups. i'm giving it a shot, currently using my new seagate drive plus my old lacie, which has decided to work again. the problem is they are sitting right next to each other on my shelf at home, so should put one offsite.