I recently started going through all old home videos and pictures, and aggregating them onto my home (RAID mirrored) server. I bought this little (physical size) hard drive for one reason: to backup that data on the server. While the data is mirrored on the servers hard drives, those two hard drives are in close proximity and are susceptible to failure from external sources (electrical/thunder, water, fire, etc). The reason why I paid more and went with a small hard drive (2.5") as opposed to a full-sized hard drive (3.5") was for the ability to store the hard drive into a safety deposit box. Now if you do some research, hard drives aren't great for long term storage that is disconnected. If you attempt this method I add the caveat that you should connect the hard drive to a machine once in a while. I personally plan on updating the files every 4-6 months.
"But C.Rogers, why would you do this when there is cloud storage!?". Simple, privacy and speed. Cloud storage is over the internet and subsequently is limited by the fastest upload speed your internet provider gives you. It is further limited by any bottle-necks the data hits along the way to it's destination. When you're talking about backing up terabytes of data, this is already a turn off as it would take a huge amount of time (a week or more?) to upload initially. Granted after that it can do incremental back up's that won't take nearly as long, that leads me to my next problem, privacy. There are two aspects I worry about, non-encrypted transmission and legality/security of the service (who really owns the data on their servers, and how secure is it really?). Does the service provide the ability to encrypt the uploads and downloads so no one in between can look at my data? Does the data stay encrypted on their servers? When push comes to shove, who owns the data once it's on their servers? Finally how secure is the service from being hacked? While all these questions have answers that would probably sway me toward cloud storage, the fact that they exist at all means there are far more variables than I'm comfortable with. More variables mean higher percentage of problems arising from unforeseen scenarios. You know whose going to hack this hard drive when its not in my possession? A bank robber. Done.
"You said it's fast? How fast?". To that I can't comment fully as I don't have a machine with USB 3.0. Best I can offer is USB 2.0. To that end I can mention that I'm getting an average of 20 megabytes (not megabits*) per second writing and about 27 megabytes per second reading.
Compatibility: Confirmed working on Windows 7 and Windows Server 2007 without issue.
Construction: Feels solid, nice little rubber pads on the bottom. Still a hard drive though, I wouldn't go dropping it.
Noise: Church Mouse status
Bloatware: Minimal. It comes with Western Digital's management and back up software installed (totaling 254 MB on the hard drive). I imagine I could delete it, but I see no need. In fact I might need some of it in the future. Additionally, it's not "in your face" as soon as you plug it in. There if you want it, but silent if you don't.
Other notes: The wire it comes with is about 12 inches long. If this is your first USB 3.0 device, be aware that it is a different wire than USB 2.0 1.1 and 1.0. While I believe USB 2.0 and previous micro wires will work, you will not get USB 3.0 speeds. Thus if you need a longer cable and want USB 3.0 speeds, you will need to order one separately.
tl;dr:
+Great hard drive for a reasonable price.
+Small enough to store in a safety deposit box.
+Speeds of 27 MB/s read and 20 MB/s write on USB 2.0.
+No real bloatware, just additional utilities included on the hard drive totaling 254 MB's.*
+Pretty quiet.
-USB 3.0 cable provided is only 12" long.
*did not use the auto or cloud backup options, can not comment.
| RAM | 2 TB |
|---|---|
| Hard Drive | 2 TB Portable |
| National Stock Number | 7025-01-624-1465 |
