HDD aren't really for moving round. I use to transport on in a box with 4 inches of soft foam around it and that wasn't enough to stop it breaking one time.

Then again that was 10 years ago.

So back to finding your solution.

Whats your budget? That's the controlling factor.
How often will it get replaced?

SSD's travel better then HDD's, why not a 5TB SSD?

Down side is they wear out. Each have a specified number or writes before expected failure.

If it's to last a long time then number of writes is your concern. You go with something designed for heavy ware like Western Digitals Red (These are designed for servers and last for 5 years when used for 500 writes a week) or if you got the money the Gold (it's out my price range so i don't know the spec but their for high performance servers).
https://www.westerndigital.com/en-ie/products/internal-drives/wd-red-sata-2-5-ssd?sku=WDS400T2R0A

if that isn't a concern then portability would direct you to a USB. These have reach the 1 TB mark so you could just move stuff with a USB
https://www.westerndigital.com/en-i...disk-extreme-pro-usb-3-2?sku=SDCZ880-1T00-G46

Personally I'd go SSD with HDD back up in the house. I'd lose a USB to the washing machine, or down the back of a chair.

 

It depends what you are storing, and what your travel really entails. Pendrives are great, but such small amount of storage. And they can end up in your washing machine or dryer pretty easily. It's nice to say you will keep them in a laptop bag religiously, but your laptop has internal storage so it's easy for them to end up in your pockets. If you are using an encrypted Live Linux as a persistent installation, this is a great option. You don't want a massive disk capacity.

SSD is the way to go if you really need this option. HDD are cheaper, but using a mechanical drive for regular travel is asking for them to become damaged. So it depends on your travel situations, again.

HDD are cheaper for more storage space. I use USB-C hd drives and they are very nice, and OK for "light travel". If I have one of them eventually fail, I'm going to use it as an enclosure for an SSD. I would pick that option over many others. Durable exterior and no moving parts from the SSD.

 

Last edited: Jul 7, 2024

Mechanical drives are susceptible to temperature so if you transport it during winter and suddenly move it into a warm room and immediately turn it on I can imagine that might be a factor in its durability. Ideally you would want to leave it in the new environment for a while before powering it up so it reaches room temperature. Condensation may be another factor.

Maybe try to prioritise your data so you can fit what you actually need on an SSD and have the bigger stuff in the cloud or a home server you can access from outside.

 

assuming data is backed up elsewhere, I'd definitely go for some sata SSD in a separate enclosure, there are plenty options on the market and advantage of such solution you can either replace SSD for bigger, or replace faulty/used enclosure for another

 

for traveling around, this is another issue with the larger capacity drive. the bigger the drive is, the less likely you are to make regular backups of it, in full. I'm not sure you even want the higher capacity drive. Refilling a 5tb hdd probably takes the better part of a day via usb. You really wouldn't save money if it dies or gets damaged. You'll just lose more stuff for the same price.

 

First, avoid any 3.5 HDD for travel.
They are meant for desktop (non moving).

2.5 hdd are a LOT more reliable "on the go" : thicker AND smaller diameter plates.
They are even "drop tested".

As you can see here, it is not so easy to find a good reliable HDD, and not related to brand or size :
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-drive-stats-for-Q1-2024/

If you need a small travel, SSD is the way to go. But be careful : they can fail too ;D

Bigger travel (4TB+) : 2.5 HDD well known brand enclosure (toshiba, WD, seagate ...) like you done for years.

A more "reliable" bigger solution : HDD RAID 1 travel enclosure with 2 disks.

Sadly, there is no rule for HDD.
I've seen HDD running for more than 20 years ... until RUST go them (yes, rust).
And others dead on arrival, whereas they are tested at the factory.

You can anyway find stats, like the usual BackBlaze ones.

 

You can try an M.2 SSD enclosure, that way you can keep clones of your other M.2 drives and also slot in new ones. Much better than "pen" drives or USB flash storage.

 

I got an older Corsair GTX 128GB, it's actually an SSD inside, not a flash stick, so far almost 14TB written (and over 1500 hours runtime), I feel like it can die anyday xD

 

are there any good M.2 enclosures yet? I feel like they have compromised cooling design and throttled speeds (most being limited to USB 3.2 gen2 or even worse)

 

You are correct in that statement.

Short of thumb drives, SSD's are your going to be your best bet for travelling devices. Enclosed NvME's are quite expensive when you get into the larger size devices but as far as portability goes they are right up there with SSD's and thumb drives. The basic rule for travelling devices is the less mechanics that are involved the better.

Also, you might want to consider making use of checkums when you read and write your data to/from the device(s). I started using this method for my backups to ensure they are bit perfect from the portable backup medium to the large archival HDD's they are stored on. I have since carried this concept over into all aspects of my data archival processes. In this way I can tell early on where I stand on data integrity and it acts as an early warning to preventing large catastrophic data losses.

 

Last edited: Jul 9, 2024

I hear you my friend Artic, ... I just went through similar, and it prompted me to take on a larger solution to my data problems...

I literally had ~80 drives, from SSD's to HDD's (2.5 and 3.5 variety) etc.. from over the years, and while I am pretty religious about my backing up. (most of this stuff was by it's own definition, already redundant)... but the problem was, well, it was a mess.

It started when I had a 5TB portadrive like you did, a WD 2.5 travel drive which had nothing on it that I was precious about, just Plex media and music and downloads that I had made while traveling and whatnot over the last few years (which anything important was already backed up to larger drives and cloud).. but someone knocked it off on the ground while plugged into my laptop, which pretty much brought the end to that... I was fortunate that there was nothing on it (I was able to look at the directory etc)...

but that basically kicked in my long procrastinated "data hygiene/collation task" that I have put off for years...

Fortunately last winter, before SSD's and HDD's spiked in price, I was able to get 2 2TB's, and 1 4TB SSD drive on great sale, as I was already planning on getting a new computer etc etc... and thinking about all those other drives sitting elsewhere... I bit the bullet and got 2 18TB drives (which if I had to do again, would have probably gone with 4 10TB's or 12TB's etc just as more baskets for those eggs kinda thing...)...

So I spent a long time a few months ago with one of my old old 5,1 Mac systems, going through each old drive, and had 5 partitions on one 18TB drive:

1: Work. (like old sessions etc over the years)
2: Kontakt and sample etc assets for applications
3. Samples
4. "Personal"(photos, correspondence, school papers, articles written, family stuff etc etc)
5. Installers (from over the years)

and I just painfully spent the time dragging and dropping into those buckets.. (nothing like going through your whole damn life and facing stuff you either haven't wanted to think about but should or not and blah blah blah blah....)

Out of all my old drives, (and some were IDE and whatnot) and some hadn't been turned on in literally ~15-20 years etc outside of just backing up... only one was problematic, and I knew it already, and actually more modern software etc was able to retrieve what I needed off of it.

So all those old drives (again, most of which were duplicates of each other in 3 different places at least, or a lot of overlap....)... pretty much distilled down to 1 18TB. Then I cloned that drive. (didn't take that long with Carbon Copy Cloner actually... not 'quick', but after all that other nonsense, I wanted a safety of a safety etc...

Fortunately at the time, the 18TB 7200 spinners were not expensive. Now they are more.

I know you don't have the same problem I do with that amount of crap, but I believe pretty strongly in having anything you care about at all backed up in 3 places, or the 3-2-1 rule and whatnot...

I have to travel frequently, so the 3 SSD's are easy peasy as NVME's put together are smaller then a pack of cigarettes... I still have one 18TB in the enclosure when I am going to need it etc, and I have 2 8TB 7200 spinners that I am currently sifting through to slim down and leave in a particular place once organized etc... but those are going in the safe once they are sifted...

I wouldn't recommend traveling with all that heavily obviously lol, but I just kinda had to...

But was confident as I knew everything was backed up multiple times and I clone my system drive pretty much every other day (more because I am still building my system, and Apples new apfs format etc which I've come around to, as all I need to clone is my user data, which takes less then a minute on ssd thunderbolt or usb c... as the os would just be reinstalled and my user data brought over in the case of a catastrophe other then completely hosing the internal boot drive)... (note: I only use apfs on ssd's, not spinners)

With apfs on ssd, I keep all my files encrypted, and there is little to no slowdown with the built in architecture, which is nice, and now that I've got my data in different places and backed up, I feel a lot better (although there is plenty to eggs in those baskets that need some cleaning and going through themselves kinda thing)... but it was a 'start' for 'me' with decades of data not as organized as I would like as always too busy, and drives weren't as cheap as they were around last winter and Black Friday/christmas sales etc....because if it wasn't cost effective, I obviously wasn't buying 36TB's of spinners and 8TB's of ssd's you know?

That is all much more then what you want... but I think the idea is the same, in that you want to be able to travel with some stuff, have some stuff remain at home base etc...

I would still trust smaller 2.5 spinners for stuff traveling or going and back and forth from someplace absolutely, (but again, they are backed up), and those at 5TB can still be found for ~$100USD on sale, which is not nothing, and I am painfully aware of the price differential between the States and the UK and EU... which IS significant at times...

So, sorry for the TL/DR, but I was just relating how I just went through this all, and managed to do it 'relatively' inexpensively (which I had budgeted for and got lucky on timing of prices), and it was a pita I had put off for a long time...

But now, I just need my laptop, and my samples and workspace in flux is all on those ssd's, and good to go with a padded case for the ssds which is small and they are backed up, so I don't have to sweat it.

I've got a 512GB microsd in my laptop as it has an sd slot, so I use that for temp storage, as it's certainly not fast, nor am I as trusting of the media (despite the fact I have seen those microsd cards go through the damn wash so many times without a hiccup on my buddies sloppiness..)

I know money is always tight for everyone, but losing work and losing memories and hard hours seems to ultimately be more expensive, and I would just prioritize what you know you can't lose, and have that properly backed up, and have another cheaper solution (hopefully a fast one) with you for on the move... but usb sticks and sd slots are not something you really want to use for recording Ableton sessions unless you have to kinda thing, and they aren't that great or fast for, say, Kontakt libraries and whatnot... I mean you ~can~, but...

Drives fail as you know, it's not if, it's when, and ssd's can go without warning, and hdd's are more prone to physical shock and other mechanical failure as they are just spinning rust... so it's a balance.. of what you need when and how fast you need it delivered, and always have it backed up... it sucks spending money to store stuff you already have stored, but it's cheaper insurance then should it go south.

(anecdote: I had one drive from 15 years ago, that I had long written off as dead, and it's contents were drums recorded and sessions at a particular studio that were important to me and some others, and those who were entrusted with copies and backups of it had crapped the bed on that as well, it was a 200GB IDE drive, and it would spin up, but never mount or be seen by any system, whether it was Mac/windows/linux etc... and somehow on some windows site, someone suggested to me to get it up and spinning with power and the adapter, and then hot plug the IDE to usb cable, then to my system, had nothing to lose, so f'it, and boom, it worked. it caught, mounted, I swept all off it, and phew, back in static wrap and box to hopefully never be seen again, as if I do, it will be because the other 3 backups of it failed...)

so again, way too long tl/dr here, but I feel for you, as spent way too much time and more money then I would like addressing all this over the last 6 months or so....and feel a load off my back that things are at least dealt with somewhat responsibly.

best of luck my friend.

 

Last edited: Jul 9, 2024

Yeah, sigh, sorry for the long comment, but obviously it has been something that has been on my mind and something I have been having to deal with a lot over the last 7 months of re-organzing my life and putting together a new system etc, and having lost a 5tb portadrive just like you did, ug... it was time, had saved the funds and whatnot and prices and my time aligned for once to approach it..

and also, yeah, when I think of touring/travelling/bike riding and whatnot with my sole copy of some stuff... well...I've definitely dodged some bullets.. and the data God's have been somewhat kind to me.

Usually with studio work, and/or having 2 different studios that were 1:1, always had redundancy/backups kinda built in.. and would sneaker net things back and forth on a portadrive or whatever was the system de jour at the time... but with touring with playback units on some, and having other computers that were triggered or played etc whatnot onstage,.. couldn't have a drive or even a system go to crap or go down, so would have 2 systems that would switch over with some overly expensive Radial box (SW8 or something like that), that if it detected a one or 5 sample drop out or whatnot, it would automatically switch to the backup system running in parallel (or one could do it manually with a switch).... argh... when I think of some of the costs on that stuff....

That will work, (also, not sure if it applies to you, but Amazon "day" is coming up in a week or 2, and that is always a good time to get some deals on that stuff... (always worried about getting fake sd cards and whatnot on Amazon so you always order from official company if can, and definitely check when you receive something as often things are not as they are labelled kinda thing... )...

Last year I think I got a 512GB micro sd (in form fitting sd sled for my laptop so it was flush) for around $30 USD on Amazon "day"(s)... and it works just fine for most things (speed not great, but whatever, 512GB of additional storage onboard is just that, more storage...

on my older laptops that still had dvd drives etc, (hell, even my towers) I would always take those out and squeeze in more drives absolutely... If you have to pick one option, that would be the route I would choose for speed/data integrity/etc...

I'm kicking myself for not getting more ssd's last year when you could get (granted, not the 'greatest', but not unbranded chinesium sketch) 2TB ssd's for $80 USD and 4TB's for ~$140USD... ((which again, only contained data backed up until that day... so not ~too~ worried about fail) ).

Prices are coming down a bit now, but I should have done my research better back then like I would now, and would have known more about how things were going to trend with supply chain control etc... as I knew I was going to need them, assumed like every other time in life, that drive prices tend to go down, not up, (not the case right now obviously) and if I want more drives, I am paying a lot more now..

It seems I check prices on a damn daily level, and have alerts set up at different price points etc... facepalm...

Agreed, and I would hate it if you lost all that work....and I'm so glad your losses were fairly minimal in the grand scheme.. and while I know a lot of the stuff I personally have so fastidiously backed up won't ever be needed, but you'd be surprised at times, and I've never regretted having it there you know? as you will get a call, and someone wants something, or wants to pay for something, and a 2 track mix isn't gonna cut it as they want some revisions or whatnot... or the ability to mix it again etc.. or you are sifting through your library of older and unfinished or abandoned ideas and you hear something that you want to revisit.. and hell, all that work you did back then, you spent the time to do so, you might as well have it...(in that process I found hundreds and hundreds of songs that I had NO memory of even having written or recorded, and/or snippets of some decent ideas that I just tossed into folders to perhaps look at later, or just for s's and giggles in my playlists when need inspiration etc...

And hell, it's nice having, say, the Absynth2 installer or something like that etc from way back when to either get yourself out of a jam or help someone else out, as that's happened a lot as well with friends needing damn Protools 7 or old vst or library etc and whatnot..

But yeah, if your laptop will support putting in another nvme m.2 drive, or sata, that would be ideal for recording etc... and for archiving projects not working on at the moment, or movies and mp3's etc, which don't require the speed, the sd slot for that.... and it sounds like you could add another 1.5TB onboard for around under ~75€... (hell, maybe 1TB micro sd's will drop on sale, or find a 2tb nvme ssd on sale, and you would be golden....)...

So not sure your time schedule, but I would definitely look around Amazon day coming up ( I know I will be, and if I see anything in your wheelhouse, I will definitely shoot you a message!)

It just sucks so hard that this stuff is so much more expensive in UK/EU, and other variety of impediments on that... I feel like a hard drive smuggler when I go from States to there, (but it is legit for personal use! and can fudge around having to pay tariffs or vat)..

more tl;dr from me again (sorry )

Let me know how it all works out!