which portable HDD

[Big Jim]

I have a WD Ultra 750GB, which until recently has never skipped a beat.
I unfortunately dropped it a few weeks ago from about 3/4 feet on to a laminate floor, sine then it has acted up.

I do use it purely portable so it gets dragged around quite a lot.
I was thinking about replacing it with one of these

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00FG1WVN2/

a - because it is a "rugged" drive
b - it is a decent price for a drive that is suppose to be able to take a bit of a kicking.
c - it has the normal A type connector on the drive end instead of the USB 3.0 micro which I find feels a little flimsy at times.
the only downside I guess is that it isn't WD, which is my favourite brand. What I don't want to do is buy seagate, I don't trust those things at all.

Any thoughts ?

 

[ComputerRepairTech]

You mean for tech work? I would go with an enclosure that supports write protection and put a reliable SSD in there like a samsung.

 

[Big Jim]

You mean for tech work? I would go with an enclosure that supports write protection and put a reliable SSD in there like a samsung.

I tend to use USBs for the tech stuff, though occasionally this drive gets used for that as well.

 

[Markverhyden]

Agreed SSD. Pickup a Zalman enclosure and an SSD. It's not cheap, but the SSD will help avoid those spindle type failures. And the Zalman enclosure lets you use it as a bootable device as well as regular storage.

 

[Larry Sabo]

Any thoughts ?

I would want to know what drive is inside the enclosure. It could be a Seagate, or Samsung (now owned by Seagate), or a (not very reliable) WD Blue . For portable drives, an SSD is less likely to suffer platter/head damage from being moved about/dropped. For SSDs, I try to avoid anything but Samsungs, unless it's for really short storage where loss of data won't be catastrophic. If you need the extra space only reasonably available with spinners, I'd suggest buying an external enclosure and sticking a WD Black in it.

Edit: You could get a rugged enclosure for the spinner, like this one: https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-Enclosure-2-5-Inch-Tool-less-S251BRU33/dp/B00V6AE20W

 

[NJW]

I'd definitely buy the enclosure and disk separately – that way you know exactly what the drive is. I just don't trust the 'ready made' solutions. It also means that you can change out the drive or the enclosure without having to replace everything.

An SSD is a no-brainer, too. I do like the feature set of the ruggedised Startech enclosure that @Larry Sabo linked to, but the flexibility of the Zalman suits me better.

 

[Big Jim]

For what I use it for an SSD will be overkill.
I don't mind buying an enclosure and disk separately, I'll have a look now to see if there are any enclosures that offer better protection for the drive.

The drive I linked to uses a Samsung Momentus 1TB by the way, so probably best to avoid it.

 

[GTP]

You mean for tech work? I would go with an enclosure that supports write protection and put a reliable SSD in there like a samsung.

This^^^ I continually drop mine and so far no problems.

 

[HFultzjr]

Speaking of such....................
Does anyone know of an "enclosure/case" for a Zalman?
I would like the extra protection if I can find one that fits and still allows it to work.
Thanks.

 

[Big Jim]

I would want to know what drive is inside the enclosure. It could be a Seagate, or Samsung (now owned by Seagate), or a (not very reliable) WD Blue . For portable drives, an SSD is less likely to suffer platter/head damage from being moved about/dropped. For SSDs, I try to avoid anything but Samsungs, unless it's for really short storage where loss of data won't be catastrophic. If you need the extra space only reasonably available with spinners, I'd suggest buying an external enclosure and sticking a WD Black in it.

Edit: You could get a rugged enclosure for the spinner, like this one: https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-Enclosure-2-5-Inch-Tool-less-S251BRU33/dp/B00V6AE20W

I missed this comment originally, however I have bought that enclosure, just waiting for a UK supplier to get stock of 1TB WD Black drives now so I can order one to go in it

 

[Larry Sabo]

That's great, @Big Jim. Let us know what you think of the enclosure, if you will.

 

[Big Jim]

That's great, @Big Jim. Let us know what you think of the enclosure, if you will.

Do you have one ? or are you thinking of getting one ?

It says that it is waterproof so should be pretty robust.

 

[Larry Sabo]

@Big Jim, I don't have one but have thought about getting one a number of times.

 

[NJW]

... just waiting for a UK supplier to get stock of 1TB WD Black drives now so I can order one ...

So, just what is this 1 TB of data that you need to carry with you?

 

[Big Jim]

So, just what is this 1 TB of data that you need to carry with you?

I periodically use it to transfer a full backup of our shop to my home.
I have a daily backup via FTP but its set to ignore huge files.

And I don't need 1TB but the difference in price between 500/750/1TB is almost nothing.

 

[NJW]

Right, that makes – kind of – sense.

And I don't need 1TB but the difference in price between 500/750/1TB is almost nothing.

I'd be concerned about the relative reliability of the higher data density of 1 TB. Not based on fact, just hunch – maybe one of the data recovery folk has more idea.

 

[Big Jim]

So the enclosure arrived and these are the thoughts so far.
Its BIG, I really should have checked the size before I bought this as it is quite a bit bigger than I expected.
You can see it next to my WD mypassport in the pictures.

Inside is well padded, I'm fairly happy that the drive will be pretty well protected if dropped

Transfer speed is meh, I stuck a spare Sanddisk ultra 240GB SSD in it until my WD Black arrives and I just transferred an image file of 22gb and it averaged around 140 - 160MB/s
Writing the same file back to the drive it was hovering around 200MB/s


Also one thing that is quite concerning, you have to unscrew 2 screws inside to take the SATA > USB board out, connect that to the drive and them screw it back in, it does put quite a lot of pressure on the SATA connection o the drive when you screwit back down, you can see how much the SSD is sticking up in one of the photos.

and my last gripe with it (although i did know this before purchase so can't really complain) nowhere to store the bloody USB cable
the micro USB 3.0 B connector has a cover that goes over it when not in use, so cable kinda just hangs around loose.

I think this one might be a bit overkill for the use it gets from me, I have managed 5 years with the WD passport drive with no issues.

 

[Larry Sabo]

@Big Jim, thanks for the update. That sucker is huge!

 

[Markverhyden]

When it comes to shock protection there is no such thing as smaller is better. So I'm not surprised about the size versus a regular external portable USB. And those WD, like some others, have the the bridge and PCI integrated into one board. But I will say I have a couple of enclosures where the USB2 SATA bridge board is much smaller than the one @Big Jim has.