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Portable External hard drive 2018 recommendations
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Portable External hard drive 2018 recommendations

DJ Marv the Maverick 3:41 PM - 7 January, 2018
My 2TB Lacie Rugged has only 100gb of space left. Videos are eating up space and now in the market for another drive...preferable 4TB or more.

Single cable (USB Type C on both ends)

Bus powered

I'm looking at this Lacie 5TB USB C LaCie Rugged 5 TB Thunderbolt Plus USB-C Portable 2.5-Inch External Hard Drive for PC and Mac - Orange www.amazon.co.uk

Just wondering if there are any other recommendations/suggestions before buying that.

I have 2 Seagate Expansion 4TB as back up currently, was planning to use one of them as the replacement for the Lacie but I'm a bit anxious as they have lost connection once or twice before whilst I was practicing with them. Think it's a loose cable connection but I don't want to chance it in a live scenario. So they will remain as back up drives.

Had the Lacie for about 2 to 3 years and I had no issues whatsoever with it whilst djing though I've noticed that any slight movement of the thunderbolt connector results in disconnection in the last week or two. Could be my Macs thunderbolt port acting up...after 4 years of plugging and unplugging.

New type C USB Mac is on the way
Chino 8:22 PM - 7 January, 2018
I use G-Technology- G-drive brand almost exclusively. Currently, I use an earlier version of the 4TB drive listed below running off of firewire 800.

www.bhphotovideo.com
Chino 8:28 PM - 7 January, 2018
Once pricing comes down, I will switch to a 4TB version of the SSD listed below…

www.bhphotovideo.com
DJ Marv the Maverick 8:46 PM - 7 January, 2018
Quote:
I use G-Technology- G-drive brand almost exclusively. Currently, I use an earlier version of the 4TB drive listed below running off of firewire 800.

www.bhphotovideo.com


Thanks Chino. I considered it and liked the fact that it uses a printer cable but I didn't buy it as it requires power so I ordered this G-Technology 2.5-Inch 4 TB USB 3.0 External Hard Drive - Black www.amazon.co.uk
DJ Marv the Maverick 8:47 PM - 7 January, 2018
Quote:
Once pricing comes down, I will switch to a 4TB version of the SSD listed below…

www.bhphotovideo.com


I have the 500gb of this drive...my resolume content is on it. Sweet drive.
djcrap 10:22 PM - 7 January, 2018
I just upgraded to this 8tb drive! And loving the fact that it has 2 thunderbolt ports, a USB 3 connection, a fun to keep it cool, and 3 other raid formats you can chose by a flip of a switch in the back. Plus comes already mac formatted

www.bhphotovideo.com
monicayelle 8:37 AM - 10 January, 2019
I have recently bought Samsung T5 Portable USB-C SSD for my Mac and so far faced no issues. It has up to 540 MB/s read speed and up to 520 MB/s write speed.

www.thecrazybuyers.com
RR437T 4:05 AM - 11 January, 2019
You don't need to pay a premium for some of the high end brands. G-Technology is owned by WD. They put regular WD drives in the enclosure. I'm pretty sure they use red lable. Same thing for Seagate and LaCie.
Rebelguy 2:12 AM - 12 January, 2019
Would this work?

www.sweetwater.com
Chino 2:33 AM - 12 January, 2019
^ What worries me about that drive is that its 5400 RPMs. Large libraries benefit from higher RPM drives(7200). Or better yet an external SSD.
DJ Marv the Maverick 2:36 AM - 12 January, 2019
Quote:
^ What worries me about that drive is that its 5400 RPMs. Large libraries benefit from higher RPM drives(7200). Or better yet an external SSD.


I used the 2TB Thunderbolt 2 for about 2 years with no issues. Dropped a few times too.

I have since repurposed it...swapping out the hard drive for a 4TB SSD.
CMOS 5:43 PM - 12 January, 2019
5400 RPM drives are usually more stable than 7200 for externals. The 7200's create more heat because they spin faster and the USB enclosures usually dont have any kind of fan like the inside of a PC would to cool it down.

The 7200 drives also require more USB power to run, if you are sharing the USB bus with your sound card this could potentially cause dropouts depending on the power being used by the USB bus.


-my 2 cents, take with a grain of salt writing this as i battle a hangover.
LoLyfe 11:14 PM - 25 May, 2019
Quote:
I just upgraded to this 8tb drive! And loving the fact that it has 2 thunderbolt ports, a USB 3 connection, a fun to keep it cool, and 3 other raid formats you can chose by a flip of a switch in the back. Plus comes already mac formatted

www.bhphotovideo.com



just curious how has the drive held up? My library is about 5TB at the moment and my external is a G Tech GRaid 16TB using TB2. It's too bulky and to be honest I would rather keep at home as a full back-up system.
www.g-technology.com
VP 2:33 PM - 5 November, 2019
i'm in need of an external hard drive or case (i have a 6TB hard drive with about 3TB left) but the videos are starting to fill up fast.
found this post googling solutions and after reading the original post an idea came to mind.... how about a wireless external hard drive enclosure? does anything like that exist and would it work with serato? i'd rather just get a large capacity drive and have it in an enclosure and hidden or on the ground... the 4-5-6TB external drives at this point won't work for me.
djcrap 4:07 PM - 5 November, 2019
Quote:
Quote:
I just upgraded to this 8tb drive! And loving the fact that it has 2 thunderbolt ports, a USB 3 connection, a fun to keep it cool, and 3 other raid formats you can chose by a flip of a switch in the back. Plus comes already mac formatted

www.bhphotovideo.com



just curious how has the drive held up? My library is about 5TB at the moment and my external is a G Tech GRaid 16TB using TB2. It's too bulky and to be honest I would rather keep at home as a full back-up system.
www.g-technology.com


the hard drive is great has never let me down so far! no issues or problems at all
Javon 11:39 PM - 2 December, 2019
I dj using an external hard drive (1TB toshiba) but recently I've started to experience dropouts and cpu issues during my set. I was told by a Dj buddy of mine that it's def the drive and I need to upgrade it. So I have a brand new ssd (128gb) that was the original internal drive in my macbook pro that I would like to use for now while djing. Issues I didn't know I'd have with this drive is that once I format the drive, transfer the library ya know do your backups & transfers all the good stuff, once I use it, shut down serato, & say maybe come back the next day to practice a set again, the ssd external is completely wiped. Spoke with a mac tech who said the ssd is not being formatted properly and it may be because of the current OS X that's installed on my laptop (11.6 El Captain) also spoke with another Dj who said this was happening to him to and he def fixed the problem but I'm sure how! My macbook pro is a

(Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015)

2.7 GHz Intel Core i5

8 GB 1867 MHz DDR3

Someone would really save me a lot of trouble and most of all money by providing some insight on this issue if your familiar with it please share I'd like to know
popnwave 12:06 AM - 3 December, 2019
Quote:
I dj using an external hard drive (1TB toshiba) but recently I've started to experience dropouts and cpu issues during my set. I was told by a Dj buddy of mine that it's def the drive and I need to upgrade it. So I have a brand new ssd (128gb) that was the original internal drive in my macbook pro that I would like to use for now while djing. Issues I didn't know I'd have with this drive is that once I format the drive, transfer the library ya know do your backups & transfers all the good stuff, once I use it, shut down serato, & say maybe come back the next day to practice a set again, the ssd external is completely wiped. Spoke with a mac tech who said the ssd is not being formatted properly and it may be because of the current OS X that's installed on my laptop (11.6 El Captain) also spoke with another Dj who said this was happening to him to and he def fixed the problem but I'm sure how! My macbook pro is a

(Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015)

2.7 GHz Intel Core i5

8 GB 1867 MHz DDR3

Someone would really save me a lot of trouble and most of all money by providing some insight on this issue if your familiar with it please share I'd like to know


Uhh that is definitely an odd problem.