I just purchased a new Mac Mini M2 Pro. I now need to get an external hard drive for my computer to back up all my photos and videos and I’m looking at either the Western Digital My Passport 5tb model or the Lacie Rugged 5tb model. Which one is the best with a a low failure rate? Any suggestions??
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External Hard Drive (WD vs Lacie)
- Thread starter Mac2004
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I can't say. I think you should carefully calculate how big the drive should be (like if I have a 1TB internal drive, I'd get a 2TB external for backup appx) and get the cheapest slowest USB drive to back up to. It will not have to work hard, and if it should fail, it's cheap to replace.
I have had bad luck with external LaCie drives, DOA, died within a few months, unreliable mounting, etc but I’ve had others tell me, I’ve just been exceptionally unlucky. My 2 cents.
My first External ssd was a LaCie. Still doing its job as a backup drive, about five years later.
I use lots of WD ext disks, and their occasional failures are normal with such heavy use. I also keep a LaCie 3TB for “more reliable” storage. No complaints for either, but LaCie looks and feels more professional.
My strategy is this: I don't keep sensitive or valuable data on any physical unit, internal or external. I keep all of them on the cloud. So, Time Machine backs up only the OS and the installed apps.
Of course, I can't do that with my photo galleries, which are around 500GB for the keepers and another 500GB for the rest. For them, I keep three copies on platter external disks.
Of course, I can't do that with my photo galleries, which are around 500GB for the keepers and another 500GB for the rest. For them, I keep three copies on platter external disks.