Amazon has the 4TB Elements for the same price, but it has a 2 year warranty instead of 1 year...
it's best to have two copies, but you don't need a dedicated drive for each computer. just enough space for everything you want to back up.
i've had no problems using a pair of 4tb portable HDDs to regularly backup not just my laptop, but all sorts of files from cameras, etc. i wouldn't suggest SSDs, there's no need for their speed, or price premium, for backing up data.
mine are older, but basically two of these https://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Elements-Portable-External/dp/B0713WPGLL/ you can probably use smaller drives, if your budget needs to :)
once a week make a backup onto one drive, and every month or so i update the backup on the second drive. so i have a "current" backup and then a "disaster killed my current version" backup copy.
there's plenty of programs that will help make the backups easier by only copying the changed content from your currently used computer.
Looks like HDs are 2.5" to avoid the power brick thing... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0713WPGLL/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_glt_fabc_6YCMW89D2A6JHDF74VBY
My question will be how reliable is this specific model of WD hard drive?. I never thought to use a 2.5" instead of 3.5" (they feel like more robust) and I'm not sure if the performance will be the same. However, this approach using the the sabrent hub is very clever and clean reducing the space required for the setup.
That's cool and all but if that was the case, this thing would have a rating score much lower than 4.7 https://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Elements-Portable-External/dp/B0713WPGLL and people wouldn't use recovery softwares since it fucks up their hard disk
Disk was never full. I have no idea why you're acting like I raw dogged this hard disk 24/7/365 or something. I almost barely used it.
I think you would need to consider 3 things:
Reliability. I don't know if a Blu-ray has more reliability than your average external hard drive, but having to mess around with the physical discs (and prevent them from getting scratched) could be a pain. You can also get bad discs.
Read-write speed. The Blu-ray discs you linked are 6X, which can transfer 27 MB in a second, or a gigabyte in ~35 seconds. A USB 3.0 cable can transfer 640 MB in a second. (These are both maximum speeds, obviously actual speeds would be lower.) So a regular USB 3.0-connected external hard drive would be able to transfer a lot faster.
Convenience. That 100-pack spindle can fit 2.5 TB of data, and to transfer all that data you would need to physically insert and eject all 100 discs, and spend time burning each one (I'll assume you have some way to break the data up into discrete 25GB blocks that expects multiple discs, like those computer games that installed off of 3 CDs). You can buy a 4TB external hard drive for roughly twice the price of that spindle and only have to plug in once.
Final conclusion: go back in time to 2008 and spend an entire afternoon ripping your parents' CD collection into iTunes, realizing after 3 hours that you're not even halfway done. Then decide if that's your backup solution
In that case, you’re fine. I cant speak to the drive you showed but this is the one i use: WD 4TB Elements Portable External Hard Drive HDD, USB 3.0, Compatible with PC, Mac, PS4 & Xbox - WDBU6Y0040BBK-WESN https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0713WPGLL/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_4QYNNTCEEPPSGH6BC2MY?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
WD 4TB Elements Portable External Hard Drive HDD, USB 3.0, Compatible with PC, Mac, PS4 & Xbox $85 at the time of this post.
Im not OP so idk what they have, but i use this one:
WD 4TB Elements Portable External Hard Drive HDD, USB 3.0, Compatible with PC, Mac, PS4 & Xbox - WDBU6Y0040BBK-WESN https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0713WPGLL/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_MB2WBBV2B4RWEWT48CV6?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
I use a Western Digital 4tb usb 3.0 external drive for my media on my Plex server, works well.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0713WPGLL/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_glt_fabc_JMEFZM29G0ANB3KDJGPA?psc=1
Edit, doesn't require any external power, runs off Shield.
You're looking for an Xbox hardrive yes? Here's the one I got, except it's 4tb when mine was 2tb. The Seagate one is the official one, but this one works just fine, and is on sale.
https://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Elements-Portable-External/dp/B0713WPGLL
I'm not even sure where that guy came up with $100 for 2TB because it's not 2015 anymore, it's more like 4TB for $100 of HDD: https://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Elements-Portable-External/dp/B0713WPGLL/
The fact is plenty of people have valid reasons for requiring a large amount of storage, and it's not up to us to police their workflow.
In my own experience, yes you can use pretty much any external hard drive with the Xbox one. I’m personally not a fan of Seagate, but I had 3 models from them that stopped working so I’m a tad biased there. I would also agree with the previous poster try to avoid ones with separate power supplies. Personally after hunting around for a second external for my Xbox one, I decided that the official versions are to drum up profit but have less storage than non-official similarly priced externals. Last external I went with was this one: https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Portable-External-Drive-WDBU6Y0040BBK-WESN/dp/B0713WPGLL So far it’s served me well, it re-formatted correctly, is decently priced for the storage space, and thus far (almost a year-ish of use) hasn’t had any problems with the drive heating up nor any other problems.
I've had two; they're effectively plug and play when purchased new. I had a big fat Seagate that failed on me after two years, but it's had a few drops so I don't blame it. I upgraded to this one about five months ago, no complaints.
This! I actually use this for most of my steam games. The connection is strong and like *never* breaks as long as it's plugged directly into the computer (not through an external USB hub or anything like that) and it's pretty decent storage for the price it's at.
Buy the regular 4TB drive for $10 less. "Game Drive" is just marketing wank.
Also if your just looking for storage consider external hard drives. Safer if you get a virus since its only connected when u want it to be and you get huge bang for your buck. Ex
WD 4TB Elements Portable External Hard Drive - USB 3.0 - WDBU6Y0040BBK-WESN https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0713WPGLL/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_G4prAbF5HCDFG
This is a good lil drive if you're looking for portable.
And honestly wait till black Friday/cyber Monday you can probably find for much cheaper
there’s a 4tb western digital for about $90 on amazon
WD 4TB Elements Portable External Hard Drive - USB 3.0 - WDBU6Y0040BBK-WESN https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0713WPGLL/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_0rweEbDTPSWH8
edit: price and link
Spend $90 and be done with it.
https://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Elements-Portable-External/dp/B0713WPGLL/
It really depends on the software you will be using.
If it is Unreal Engine, you'll need a discrete GPU and plenty of memory, which is going to be quite expensive.
If something like Unity, even an older laptop with 8GB of memory and an integrated Intel GPU can handle most things. (I still use a 7 year old laptop that I have made minimal upgrades to when I am away from my desktop.)
Something to understand too is that the higher spec the laptop is, the shorter the battery life. You may not get more than an hour, maybe two, or heavy work in before you need to plug in. It may not last through an entire class, if they don't have plugs available.
I always recommend Dell when it comes to laptops and pre-built computers. Check your college's website and/or ask around, they usually get good deals from Dell.
Also, for me personally, 13" is too small, 17" is too big and heavy, 15" always felt just right and unimposing.
Lowest Spec Option, Dell Inspiron 3593 15"
Higher Spec Option, Dell G5 15" Gaming Laptop, ~$980
Alienware is well outside your budget, but don't even think about it. . .those things can be heavier than all of your textbooks combined. *rubs back*
With either, I would get a decent 24"+ monitor or two, keyboard, and decent mouse for at home/dorm room, if you won't have a desktop available.
Also, I highly recommend a West Digital 4TB Elements External Hard Drive for backing up and transfering work between PCs. I would also backup to the cloud somehwere, whether that be Google Drive, GitHub/GitLab, or some other place.
No. I don't like Seagates because I personally think they're unreliable, but everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
Just an example: Seagate makes an "official" external drive for the Xbox One, and if you look up reviews on that on Amazon, you'll see that a large portion of buyers complained that it randomly stopped working after 1-3 months: https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Game-Drive-External-Portable/product-reviews/B01065S79E
That is just one example, but I have had a seagate drive for 2 years and it died on me randomly too.
I'm sure every external drive has its pros and cons, though, and I'm sure some drives that I like may not work out for others, but that's just my 2 cents. I've had a different WD external drive for my PS4 for over a year, and it's been working great. I have this one if you're wondering. I just bought another WD for my new Xbox One X, too.
This is trash? https://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Elements-Portable-External/dp/B0713WPGLL
It isn't refurb/renewed
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0713WPGLL
WDBU6Y0040BBK-WESN
I got one of these when it was on a big sale, I think around £50 at the time. Is it an SSD? I honestly cant tell I ain't some all-knowing pc gamer lord and just guessed.
Item | Current | Lowest | Reviews |
---|---|---|---|
WD 4TB Elements Portable External Hard Drive HDD,… | $104.98 | $104.98 | 4.6/5.0 |
^Item Info | Bot Info | Trigger
how much plex do you need ? shield pro has a built in plex server
https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/shield/shield-tv-pro/ ~$200
and
https://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Elements-Portable-External/dp/B0713WPGLL/ $105
back before the supply chain took a sh*t i'd recommend a Asrock J5005-itx to build a cheap and easy NAS, but you can't find them anymore.
Thanks for the reply! To answer your questions:
I chose this GPU for streaming + recording simultaneously as well as using After Effects and Premiere Pro as smoothly as possible. Do you think another card would be better suited for my build instead?
I actually DO use OBS! :)
What do you mean by "the AMD GPU encoder is terrible at best."? Would you recommend i7 instead?
I was not aware that it was an SMR drive! We're talking about the HDD and not the SSD right? What would you suggest I use instead of that drive?
Lastly, both of my external hard drives are this brand: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0713WPGLL/?coliid=IUVWQZUHQG4SC&colid=3SH5O69NVDQAF&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it
​
Thank you so much for your help!!
It would for sure but it's unnecessary. If you're ok with hdd, you can get a 4tb external drive for $95. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0713WPGLL/.
Well for example a my passport in my country is 99 € Like this one: https://www.amazon.it/dp/B0713WPGLL/ref=cm_sw_r_u_apa_fabc_seC2FbWJ6S3XT
While for an external I have 10 € for the enclosure and for a 4 TB drive I get for example this Toshiba at 140 € https://www.amazon.it/dp/B07CVHQ8ZJ/ref=cm_sw_r_wa_apa_fabc_wjC2FbGK47THD
So it would be 150 Vs 99. I could save some if instead of going the 2.5 route I would go for a 3.5 ( heavier and bulky ) but even there a 4TB barracuda green Is 90 €, so we are there with the cost with a bigger form factor
Just check on Amazon, is it this one?
Just some external drives - https://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Elements-Portable-External/dp/B0713WPGLL/
$90 bucks for a WD external 4tb drive right now on Amazon. Doesn't get much cheaper than that. https://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Elements-Portable-External/dp/B0713WPGLL/
Mi serve un hard disk portatile per un hyper nas a basse pretese per un raspberry Pi 4. Lo scopo è sostituire un hd da 256 che uso per storage....distribuzioni linux.
Quale HD prendo?
WD Elements Hard Disk Esterno, Portatile, USB 3.0, 4 TB, Nero - venduto da pincopallo e spedito da amazon, piu economico, strambo formato quadrato (?)
oppure
Seagate Portable Drive, Unità Disco Esterna Portatile da 4 TB, Nero (STGX4000400) - Edizione "amazon" (?), venduto e spedito da amazon, piu costoso
I have about 5 of these for both the xbox and ps4, they are great, rugged, and have survived over 4 years now with lots of worldwide travel:
​
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0713WPGLL/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
WD 4TB Elements Portable USB 3.0 High Capacity Hard Drive, WDBU6Y0040BBK-WESN,Black https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B0713WPGLL/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_xREBFbYTRKWG5
This is the Australian store, but it’s the hard drive nonetheless
Is it this one? Top review mentions the cable frequently disconnecting and becoming unresponsive, has that never been an issue for you?
​
Believe Mark Cerny said you can take your PS4 external drive and plug it right into the PS5 and continue playing. No reformatting.
It's the SSD expansion slot they said to stand by on.
As for what drive to get, honestly any decent external drive would do you well. WD, LaCie, and G-Drive are great brands. Seagate is fine too, but I've had some failures. Honestly all spinning drives are prone to failure after a few years.
or
No it was all in one.
I misremembered the make, western digital.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0713WPGLL/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_NHShFbWE4G1DE
Personally I would just get a larger external drive, not that expensive, back everything up to it, and wipe all the drives before starting over and reinstalling Windows. Nothing works quite so well as a clean install, but your call: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0713WPGLL/
https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Portable-External-Drive-WDBU6Y0040BBK-WESN/dp/B0713WPGLL
That’s the one I went with as I had the same view as the previous poster before me.
Does this also work with the 2.5" WD passport like this? https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0713WPGLL/
You could use a third party driver for Windows 10 to copy files from the Mac External drives to an inexpensive 4tb external formatted for NTFS. Here’s a link explaining that portion below.
https://www.howtogeek.com/252111/how-to-read-a-mac-formatted-drive-on-a-windows-pc/amp/
Link for affordable 4tb external drive.
WD 4TB Elements Portable External Hard Drive - USB 3.0 - WDBU6Y0040BBK-WESN https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0713WPGLL/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_hxFCCbT3X45TE
Then once you have one of your Mac Drives empty format it for NTFS and copy data from other Mac Drives to newly formatted NTFS drive.
Rinse and Repeat until all Data is on Windows NTFS formatted drives.
This solution option will only cost you 99.00 for new external drive and cost of Windows Laptop.
You should still be well in the Black on cost vs. a new MacBook Pro.
Hope this helps.
I got this one; works great.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0713WPGLL/ref=twister_B0759QK15G?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
I have two of these one for my PS4 and another for my PC and I love them. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0713WPGLL/
WD 4TB Elements Portable External Hard Drive - USB 3.0 - WDBU6Y0040BBK-WESN https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0713WPGLL/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_olDqAbTG9ZQRX
TL;DR: I'd suggest you get a 4TB USB3 external 2.5" for about $110.
I have used the heck out of these machines for work; really liked 'em. Was the server model, though, and have upgraded both the HDDs in these many times. Running the OS off an SDD and sticking a big second drive in (and maxing the RAM to 16GB) made for just an awesome Windows 7 machine. In addition to four USB2 ports, it also sports a FW800 port and a Lightning port, but I'm ignoring these (to keep my answer short*er*).
I'd break your question down into PLEX and non-PLEX questions.
The big PLEX question, I think, is performance. This is the last model of Mac Mini that had USB2. You say yours currently, "runs great throughout the house." It sounds like you use multiple clients? But do any of them run concurrently? As u/RX-Zero pointed out, you should get ~30MB/s throughput via USB2 (the HDD itself supports more but USB2 is the choke-point here). This is a marked step down in speed from any internal storage, but is it enough? We'll, it theoretically supports dozens of 1080p streams, so it will probably reveal a different choke-point before proving to be one itself.
The second PLEX question I might ask is one of portability; does your storage being portable make a difference for usability and/or recovery, for you? If you wanna take (rather than stream—for whatever reason) your content on the road with you, an external is easy. If your Mac mini fails, you could move your content to a replacement machine more quickly/easily. Mirrored backups are easier too.
The non-PLEX questions include cost, complexity, capacity and location. By location I mean location of the external storage. Do you have the space for an external HDD? Maybe a 2.5" with a short cable is easy. Maybe a single 3.5" will fit (don't forget that additional power socket though!). Maybe space isn't an issue? What about how it looks? Would adding an external upset the aesthetic?
By complexity I mean this (or this if you have a server model). I've changed the drives in these machines many times but I take it nice 'n' easy, every ... single ... time. ;)
Your capacity is limited by the 9.5mm tall (2.5") space, internally. You can fit a 2TB HDD in there (heck, even a 4TB SDD if money is no object) but that's it. Externally you can attach a 5TB 2.5" HDD or a bazillion-PB RAID enclosure. My point simply being that going external is unlimited.
Oh, cost. The good news? Storage is always getting cheaper. And, keeping it simple, it's a similar cost to go internal versus external (for the same storage capacity).
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0713WPGLL
And there are cheaper models if you don't need as much space.
Stay the hell away from Seagate. Get this instead.
For that price I'd rather get the 4TB WD Elements drive $10 more. Same storage and weighs .41 lbs vs 3 lbs.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0713WPGLL/ref=psdc_595048_t1_B01LQQHL4E