I need a new large capacity storage drive to backup my projects, masters, softwares etc. in Windows 11. I wont be using it daily for music making or anything, so not too worried about speed if it makes a huge difference in price. I haven't bought one in a few years so I don't know whats new, reliable, good bang for buck today? Thanks guys!

 

I have been using a WD Elements 5TB for years now for my sample libraries, and it has never failed. It’s USB 3.0, backward compatible with USB 2.0, and it’s not that expensive.

 

4tb Lacie Rugged hds for my externals. They are maybe 20 bucks more expensive than other manufacturers but there is no way I would consider switching other than to 5tb. I'd rather get 2 four or five tb than one ten tb for redundant backup and bulk storage.

 

Here are some options. I use RAID 0 drives personally - pricier but safer for important backups.

1. SanDisk Pro-G40 SSD (5 year warranty) - not RAID 0
   
   
2. LaCie Rugged SSD4 4TB (3 years but with data recovery)
   
   
3. LaCie Rugged RAID Pro (3 years but with data recovery)

Or go to the G-Technology store on Amazon, and pick the best (mobile, portable, or desktop) SSD for your budget. Some examples:

• G-Technology 8TB G-RAID with Removable Dual Drive Storage System
• SanDisk Professional 12TB G-RAID Mirror with Redundancy
  
  
• G-Technology 28TB G-RAID with Removable Dual Drive Storage

If in doubt, give Mac Hollywood a call - they're right in the thick of it and help out a lot of us in the creative community with our needs.

I know, I know, you said Win11, but a drive's a drive. Call them.

 

Since 2025 may it's running excellent
I'm using this everyday so it already had like 230 power cycles (turning it ON/OFF)
Right now it has like 13TB left free space and all of my stuff is on there since 2015 (I backed up everything from my older laptops, old PC, etc)
I also own an 8TB Seagate from like 2021 it's the same zero issues & running and no failure for 5 years now (it's nearly full)
Read & write speeds are alright on the 24TB I get like 300MB/sec-180MB/sec so it's not constant but fast enough for my needs
Highly highly recommend & never run out of space for years

 

WD Elements-Desktopfestplatte - 8 TB --> 179,99 €
Modellnummer: WDBWLG0080HBK-EESN
www.westerndigital.com/de-de/products/external-drives/wd-elements-desktop-usb-3-0-hdd?sku=WDBWLG0080HBK-EESN

 

check before buying that the drive IS NOT SMR. If you buy a SMR drive, you will curse your life. Usually those cheap Seagate drives are SMR 100%.

 

there isn't much difference, apart from garbage SMR type, make sure disk is CMR (!)
reliability is more a matter of luck, it's usually either dead-on-arrival, dies within 2 weeks, or works fine for 6+ years,
good bang for buck is about capacity, I'd say 8-12TB is the sweetspot nowadays, but always check local deals

 

It's a bit odd that no one suggested portable SSDs (pre-made or not) yet.

 

I recommend to go for an external 3.5" docking station, preferable with 2 slots.
I have several from sabrent, they go by the name "sabrent 2 bay docking station "

 

Samsung - 4TB Portable SSD T7 Shield USB 3.2 Gen 2 Black = 439 €
www.samsung.com/de/memory-storage/portable-ssd/t7-shield-4tb-black-external-storage-nvme-1050-mbs-mu-pe4t0s-eu/

 

anything above 2TB is crazy expensive

 

I see 510,99 € there right now,
I'm pretty sure you can find 24TB Seagate Exos for that price range if lucky

 

The question is how long they last; I'm not a fan of very large hard drives, I prefer several smaller ones.

Toshiba Canvio Partner 4 TB, Portable, 2.5-Inch External HDD, USB 3.2 Gen 1, USB-Powered - 126 EUR
https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Toshiba-...shiba&s=computers&sr=1-3&ts_id=430129031&th=1

 

I live by my WD drives. Price-wise the WD Elements 4-8TB are decently priced for under $200. I tend to try and stay in the $150 range for my drives. I'm not rich . I currently have about 26TBs combined with all the USB drives and internal HDDs. You can find some decent deals for them at Newegg, or sometimes get exclusive discounts direct from Western Digital themselves. Seagate is also very well priced for their same products.

 

I’m still waiting to buy an 8 terabyte drive but I’m not sure what I’m going for next, I could be in need of a faster drive for some libraries but I could actually just use one of my existing drives after moving stuff off of it, plus I have to save more money this year and that might limit the upgrade to 8 terabytes

 

Any large capacity hard drive you choose and buy has one real major issue it can and will eventually fail, the drive itself is unimportant it can be replaced BUT your data might be irreplaceable, if everything is on your one drive you lose everything, you are screwed. I learned this from having this happen to to me. I had a large drive with everything including extremely important irreplaceable files I wanted to add some additional files, but when I plugged it in the light came on flashed and went dead, I thought it was just the circuitry in the LACIE enclosure, took the drive out put it in my HD docking station nothing, no spinning sound or vibrations, just DEAD. Since then I now use smaller capacity 4 tb drives and each one for a specific purpose movies, music, with the most important programs cloned onto an additional second drive as a backup. So far is been several years and everything is still fine, if my important drive fails I have my backup, which I can clone again. Hope this information is useful for you. BTW if you use docking stations and put your drives into Amray hard plastic cases to keep them dust free and secure this can be another option and save you a bit of money.

 

Last edited: Jan 31, 2026

And after putting everything onto that one 24 TB drive when it does crash you lose everything, just think about it, perhaps buy another and clone it or a few smaller drives with specific purposes. One for movies, one for music, and one for your irreplaceable programs and important files (clone a second copy of this one). Docking stations are great and can even clone a drive easily.

 

Burn your most important files to DVD or Blu-ray discs, and be prepared for floods, fires, or theft. A thief will likely steal your laptop first; they won't break into a safe, they'll take everything. A PC can also be stolen quickly. DVDs and Blu-rays are probably the safest storage medium available. If your collection is valuable, buy a fireproof case!

You can get 20 GB of free storage at https://mega.io/de/.
You can get 10 GB of free storage at https://www.mediafire.com.
Do not upload any personal data to these sites.

 

the problem with something as big as 24tb on one drive is trusting one "consumer" device with that much data. I'd rather have two with important data duplicated on each. For working drives my Mac can have 4 ssd installed on sleds and 2 additional in other bays. Otherwise I'd need to do some other upgrades to fit more internal. External SSD via usb-3 ports doesn't make all that much sense speed or $ wise. The external hdds keep up with Falcon, Kontakt, Nexus 5, no problem, but with ssd load times would improve. With 128 gb RAM, it doesn't matter enough to be a hinderance.