[jlstyle]

I wouldn't recommend going with more than 1 tb for external hard drive. It's a hard drive and they do fail. You don't want 3 TB of data loss. But if you buy for intensive archiving, size matters.

[Benstuck]

Originally Posted by jlstyle

I wouldn't recommend going with more than 1 tb for external hard drive. It's a hard drive and they do fail. You don't want 3 TB of data loss. But if you buy for intensive archiving, size matters.

So 1 TB? And what causes EHD failure/defect?

[jlstyle]

Originally Posted by Skhmund

So 1 TB? And what causes EHD failure/defect?

It depends. I use EHD for my 3d work and a lot of data transfer cause stress on them. I have had 2 failed EHD after using about a year. Both western.
and honestly, if you are only scanning bills to share with CPA, large storage flash drive is safer and easier to carry with just enough storage size for your use. I think even 64gb flash can go long way for plain images.

[Benstuck]

Originally Posted by jlstyle

It depends. I use EHD for my 3d work and a lot of data transfer cause stress on them. I have had 2 failed EHD after using about a year. Both western.
and honestly, if you are only scanning bills to share with CPA, large storage flash drive is safer and easier to carry with just enough storage size for your use. I think even 64gb flash can go long way for plain images.

So in your opinion, a flash drive over a EHD?

[bkM3]

Originally Posted by jlstyle

It depends. I use EHD for my 3d work and a lot of data transfer cause stress on them. I have had 2 failed EHD after using about a year. Both western.
and honestly, if you are only scanning bills to share with CPA, large storage flash drive is safer and easier to carry with just enough storage size for your use. I think even 64gb flash can go long way for plain images.

i agree with this. external hard drives have alot more moving parts that makes it more prone to failing as opposed to a usb drive.

[jlstyle]

Originally Posted by Skhmund

So in your opinion, a flash drive over a EHD?

For your application, yes.
But if you are interested in anything else, EHD has a lot more to offer.

[zx10guy]

Flash drives are not without issues either. Flash drives have a service life measured in the number of writes it can endure before you won't be able to save any more data to it. For most people it's not an issue as many people won't reach that point. But flash drives can fail for other reasons.

I have a Patriot 32MB SD card which has failed on me and I only used it for my digital camera.

If you happen to have a hard drive fail, there are ways to recover the data depending on the failure. With a flash drive failure, your options are limited.

[Benstuck]

Originally Posted by zx10guy

Flash drives are not without issues either. Flash drives have a service life measured in the number of writes it can endure before you won't be able to save any more data to it. For most people it's not an issue as many people won't reach that point. But flash drives can fail for other reasons.

I have a Patriot 32MB SD card which has failed on me and I only used it for my digital camera.

If you happen to have a hard drive fail, there are ways to recover the data depending on the failure. With a flash drive failure, your options are limited.

Lol this is making my decision very difficult. I'm worried that I load all my business expenses on there and one day my EHD or USB doesn't work and I'm SOL, because I plan on getting rid of all the paper.

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by Skhmund

Lol this is making my decision very difficult. I'm worried that I load all my business expenses on there and one day my EHD or USB doesn't work and I'm SOL, because I plan on getting rid of all the paper.

It's a pain, but that's why I suggested buying two external hard drives. But make sure each hard drive is from a different manufacturer. Buying from two manufacturers usually minimizes the risks of losing data due to a hard drive failure as it's unlikely you'll have a failure of both drives at the same time.

[jlstyle]

Originally Posted by Skhmund

Lol this is making my decision very difficult. I'm worried that I load all my business expenses on there and one day my EHD or USB doesn't work and I'm SOL, because I plan on getting rid of all the paper.

You are taking it way too seriously.
Just save everything in your computer and transfer it to whichever drive you decide to use.

[Benstuck]

Originally Posted by jlstyle

You are taking it way too seriously.
Just save everything in your computer and transfer it to whichever drive you decide to use.

Thanks man!

[CJ421]

You'll be fine as long as you are keeping your data copied somewhere (2x copies).

I bought a Western Digital Passport 2TB earlier this year on sale; it's been reliable and trouble-free so far. That drive replaced a 500GB Western Digital Passport I had for almost four years prior - no issues.
External hard drives are commodities, it's hard to go wrong as noted provided you buy a mainstream brand like Hitachi, WD, etc. Buy the base model drives; a lot of companies sell "deluxe" external hard drives which usually just include a bunch of software that they charge extra for.

[BLK235iNJ]

For business I highly recommend a cloud service. Most of the hard drives mentioned in this thread all have a single point of failure. If you need redundancy then I would buy an external with dual drives set up with a mirror. This way if you have a failure (disk) you have some kind of redundancy. If the power/case fails then you can replace the case/pwr and get your data back. If you go with a single hard drive and you experience a disk failure getting the data recovered can be pricey.

Now if you go cloud...redundancy/ha is part of the service. IMO your data will be protected much better. If you need a certain retention period you can create folders to manage this. And if you decide in the future to spend the capex on proper storage you can always migrate the data back.

[P1]

Get a 1TB portable HD from Western Digital. You can find them for $50 or $60.