Best Hard Drive For Storage

Many SSDs come in a 2.5-inch form factor and communicate with PCs via the same SATA ports used by traditional hard drives. But out on the bleeding-edge of NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express) drives. Best gaming hard drive: Crucial X8 1TB Modern games take up more space than ever. Onboard storage might not be sufficient if you're a regular gamer who enjoys keeping with the latest video games.

1. Best Portable Storage Drives
2. Best Hard Drives For Pc
3. Best External Hard Drive For Storage

Why Use a Portable Hard Drive for DJing

I've recently been thinking about my days as a mobile DJ. This was some time ago now and back then it was all CD's (and those embarrassing moments a track starts to skip due to scratches on the disk) but of course technology moves on. This got me thinking about what I'd need if I were to start up again. A laptop, sure, but what about where I'd store all the music. The other thing to bear in mind is it's not just laptops that can be used for playback. Some DJ's use decks like the Pioneer XDJ range, which allow for USB storage to be connected.

This got me thinking about portable storage solutions. In this article, I'm going to talk about the best portable drives for DJing, talk about why I feel they make the grade and what I'd be thinking if I were to do gigs again.

Modern portable hard drives and flash drives are extremely lightweight, most are wallet size (2.5 inch) and they can hold enormous amounts of data 'music' in our case. They are also easy to transfer to and from taking just seconds to connect and add the most recent music too. There are of course USB flash drives too which are extremely small, lightweight, cheap and still hold impressive amounts of data.

Things to consider

These are my top things to consider when making a purchase the perfect DJ hard drive:

Robust

Ok, so this hard drive is obviously going to be on the move all the time. We need something that is going to be robust enough and stand the test of time. Some drives actually come already in a rubber-like case which would allow the drive to be dropped and still be operational. But what about those drivers that don't come with a nice protective rubber case, or, what if you've only just bought a new hard drive. That's ok, we can still protect our drive by purchasing a silicon protective case. These cases are usually good for a drop from 2 meters and will fit most 2.5- inch portable drives.

Warranty

This drive is our life right? Well, not literally but it's pretty important. It goes without saying then that I'd definitely be thinking about the warranty side of things. Some drives will come with an extended warranty as standard, however, some won't. Most drives are pretty cheap so what you could do is purchase two of the same drive, have a copy of all your music on both and keep them with you wherever you go. That way, if 1 fails you've got a backup right there should you need it. The reality is portable hard drives do fail sometimes so maybe it is best to have two anyway so you know you've got it covered. This is definitely something I'd do.

Solid State or HDD

This might be slightly confusing to some but it's actually quite an easy one to answer. I wouldn't bother with an SSD for storing music and here's why. SSD drives are best for the performance of speed and loading times, so you are not going to see much benefit in keeping a load of music on one. If anything you want an SSD drive in your laptop and this I would definitely recommend, a big boots to your laptop boot times etc. But back to storing music, no, I wouldn't bother with an SSD. The other reason is the price per TB is hugely different as SSD's are more expensive and HDD's. So it's just not worth it, I'd stick with a good brand HDD and you won't go far wrong.

Capacity

Let's talk about capacity. You will get a lot of music on a 1TB drive and probably more than you'll ever need on a 4TB. So what capacity would I go for if I was starting up as a DJ again tomorrow? I'm currently using just under 70GB and I have about 100 albums in mp3 format and some other audio files. The songs in my library are approximately 4.5Mb each. So doing some maths you are going to get approximately 200,000 mp3s on a 1TB hard drive. This is worked out as 4.5MB x 200,000 = 900GB. So on that basis, I would go with a 2TB drive as there is going to be enough for 400,000 songs comfortably. If the average song is 3 minutes then that gives us 1,200,000 minutes of music.

Here are some options

Option 1. LaCie 2TB Rugged 2.5-Inch External Hard Drive.

This is by far my favorite pick while doing my research. This drive has the external protection from drops and it's even ok in the rain. Adding to that, LaCie is a very well known brand and this comes with a 2-year data recovery plan.

Option 2. Transcend 2TB 2.5-Inch Shock Resistance External Drive.

My second pick has to be this offering from Transcend. It has a 3-year warranty and is very tough indeed. Wrapped in a silicone shell and meeting military grade shock protection this is definitely a drive to seriously consider.

Option 3. ADATA 2TB Waterproof/Shock-Proof Hard Drive

Here we have another strong contender as this drive also offers that much needed external protection. This one is designed to work with Mac's though.

Option 4. WD 2TB Elements External Hard Drive

I am a very big fan of Western Digital and owned lots of their products over the years. It's no wonder then that this 2TB USB 3 portable HDD is on the list. There is no rubber/silicon protection like the other options above but what you are getting is a very good brand that's capable of the job at hand. I would recommend a protective outer shell for this option.

Option 5. Seagate Expansion 2TB 2.5 Inch External Hard Drive

Emule for ipad download. I also love this option from Seagate. Again it's a simple hard drive from a well-known manufacturer. It comes with a 2-year warranty and it's USB 3 so data transfer speeds are are going to be good. As with the WD above, don't forget a protective case.

Option 6. Toshiba Canvio 2TB Portable Hard Drive

This Toshiba is a fine fit for the job too. It's USB 3 and built by a trusted brand. I have found this drive slightly cheaper than the competitors so it might be worth checking on this.

Option 7. Corsair Survivor 128GB Rugged Flash Storage Drive

Moving away now from 2.5-inch drives, the other options are flash drives. The Corsair offers a robust, waterproof design, however, the cost for the 128GB model is almost as much as a 2TB 2.5 Inch drive. Still, if you are looking for something very small, this might be worth considering.

Option 8. SanDisk 128GB Cruzer Blade Flash Drive

Continuing with flash storage, this offering from SanDisk offers 128GB for less than half the price of the HDD's and on some a third of the price. Still, this tiny thumb drive is able to store approximately 20,000 mp3s. It's much cheaper than the option above too.

Final conclusion

It will all come down to what suits you and the setup you have. Most people will go with the larger drives simply because they hold so much more than a flash drive, but like I've said before, if you are looking for something very compact, especially using decks with USB ports, it might be worth seriously considering the flash storage route. Whatever you do though, double up on your chosen solution as that last thing you want is to have a drive failure right before a gig.

With HD footage and 4K video, film and video editors need more hard drive space than ever. The good news is, storage space is cheaper than it ever has been before, but there are also more external hard drives and RAID systems available for sale today than ever before. We've put together the following list of some of the best external hard drives for video editing and RAID systems for filmmakers.

The Best External Hard Drives for Video Editing

Not every hard drive is created equal. Everyone looks at price and storage capacity when they're comparing external hard drives but video editors need to have an additional factor in mind when they're choosing which hard drive to buy. That factor is speed. Both the speed of the drive itself and the speed of the interface with which it's connected to their computer. Most consumer hard drives have a rotational speed rated at 5400 RPM which isn't particularly fast when you're editing large video files. So editors that don't want their editing programs to be super slow when exporting and rendering footage with effects will want to stick to the faster (though more expensive) 7200 RPM hard drives. In order of fastest to slowest, today's fastest external hard drive connection interfaces are:

As you can see, Thunderbolt (available on Macs and a few PCs) is by far the fastest protocol available today for external hard drives and RAID systems (more on RAIDs a bit later). The next fastest available is eSATA which is a somewhat obscure format that is available on a few Windows PCs but never really gained much ground (and never made it to the Mac). Closely behind is USB 3 which is pretty ubiquitous these days and is far faster than its USB 2.0 predecessor. After that comes Firewire 800, a mostly Mac interface that was about twice as fast as USB 2.0.

Today if you're going to be editing video on a Mac we'd recommend getting an external hard drive that uses Thunderbolt to connect to your computer. If you have a PC, USB 3 is probably going to be your best option. Here are some of the best hard drives with both of these interfaces for video editing:

Just about every experienced film and video editor is familiar with LaCie hard drives: they're known for their good quality components and generally rock-solid reliability, which is exactly what you want when you're editing video. LaCie makes a range of speedy 7200RPM hard drives that use Thunderbolt and USB 3.1 (USB C) both to connect to your computer. We have no qualms about recommending the LaCie d2 Thunderbolt + USB C hard drive to video editors whether they're editing 4K video or just regular old HD video. This is a desktop class external hard drive for video editing, meaning it isn't bus-powered (you'll need to plug it into the wall for power in addition to plugging it into your computer).

One nice advantage of this external hard drive for video editors is that it has two Thunderbolt ports. Like its older predecessor Firewire, Thunderbolt is a daisy-chainable system, meaning that you can string together multiple hard drives and connect them all to your computer using a single Thunderbolt port. This can be especially handy if you're ports-constrained or editing using a lot of hard drives at once.

Also be sure to check out the mini orange rugged drives that LaCie makes for on-set usage or for ferrying footage from one computer to another.

For years Hitachi was known for making some of the best professional grade video editing hard drives around. When they sold their business the drive portion became G-Technology which has continued the Hitachi legacy of making excellent external hard drives for video editors. This G-Tech hard drive features a USB C port, allowing you connect with newer computers at blazingly fast speeds. Works with both Macs and Windows PCs.

The G-Drive spins at 7200RPM and weighs about three pounds and feels hefty in your hand– not like a cheap plastic hard drive that will topple on your desk. It also features an on/off switch, which some video editors prefer to have on their external hard drives. Available in sizes from 4 terabytes all the way up to 10 terabytes at a price so reasonable we suggest buying two of them (one to backup the first).

The Best RAID Systems for Video Editing

RAID systems consist of multiple hard drives bundled together. Because your computer can only read data off of a hard drive so fast, splitting a single file across two hard drives can mean your computer can read data twice as quickly. This can make the difference between unbearable sluggishness and silky smooth video playback when you're editing 4K video. Keep in mind though that for editors, even though some RAID systems might duplicate your files for performance reasons, RAID is not a backup. So you'll want to also have your footage backed up on a different system– perhaps a cheap but large external hard drive (consider something like this). With all that said, here are some of the best, high-performance RAID hard drive arrays for video editing:

Although RAID systems can be configured in several different ways, we recommend using them set to 'RAID 0' which allows for maximum read/write speed that editors demand when they're dealing with huge 4K and HD video files. This RAID array has two 6TB hard drives meaning its total capacity is 12TB of lightning fast storage. And you can connect it via either Thunderbolt ports (of which it sports two for daisy chaining purposes), or USB 3.0 ports.

It even sports two front-facing USB 3.0 ports so you can even hook up additional peripherals like other hard drives or a USB 3.0 memory card reader. WD also sells smaller RAID arrays with less capacity and a bigger brother 16TB version for a bit more.

This G-Technology RAID system features two 6TB hard drives allowing for a total of 12 terabytes of storage in RAID 0 ('striped') mode. It's capable of blazingly high speeds when connected either with the included USB 3.0 cable or Thunderbolt 2 cable.

Its internal hard drives are enterprise class and rated at 7200 RPM and like all hard drives and RAID systems in this article it works with either a Mac or a PC (though you may need to format it initially using the included software). G data download kostenlos. It's also whisper-quiet so you can have it on your desk as you edit without the noise bothering you.

LaCie has been making professional grade external storage and RAID systems for years, and the one of their latest RAID systems is the 2big dual disk RAID system. It sports two 6TB hard drives which can be formatted either as a RAID 0 for 12 terabytes of fast storage, or a redundant RAID level such as RAID 1 which makes an exact copy of all data for a usable size of 4TB. This particular RAID system offers a USB 3.0 port for Macs or PCs as well as two Thunderbolt 2.0 ports for Macs to connect with. Both drives that this system comes with are 7200 RPM, so they're fast enough to read multiple uncompressed 2K 10-bit streams or a single 4K compressed video stream if you're not doing multi-cam editing. Offers sustained read speeds of 420MB/s, enough to edit or play back several streams of normal HD video at once.

Weighing 27 pounds (!) the LaCie 6big is truly a heavy duty RAID system for video editors. It features six hard drive bays, and ships with six four TB drives at 7200 RPM (depending on how you configure the RAID setup that gives you up to 24 TBs of storage to work with).

For connectivity, the LaCie 6big has two Thunderbolt 3 ports and one USB Type C port. Works with RAID level 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, and 50.

The G-SPEED Shuttle line of high performance RAIDs for video editing is the top of the line that G-Technology offers. It comes with eight hard drive bays (!) and is available with the following storage capacities:

• 24TB
• 32TB
• 48TB
• 64TB
• 80TB

This high capacity, high-speed RAID system provides you with a ton of storage available at high speeds with RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 6, RAID 10, or RAID 50 configurations. Comes with dual Thunderbolt 2 ports for ultra high-speed transfers.

Best Portable Storage Drives

Frequently Asked Questions About External Hard Drives for Video Editing

Is a USB 3.0 External Drive Fast Enough for Full HD Editing?

There are several factors that influence the speed of an external hard drive. What port it uses (USB or otherwise) is certainly one factor. The speed of the storage is another (i.e. whether it's a slow 5400 RPM hard drive, a faster 7200 RPM hard drive or an even faster solid state drive). Generally speaking, USB 3.0 hard drives are usually fast enough to edit 1080p HD video. If they're solid state drives (SSDs), they'll almost certainly be fast enough for 4K media as well.

What are the best backup procedures for external hard drives?

For video editors, even though an external hard drive might cost only a few hundred dollars, its true value is the amount of money which it would cost to re-create the footage that's stored upon it. So if a hard drive contains footage that cost you $10,000 to shoot in the first place, think about the value of the hard drive as being $10,000 or more, not just the couple of hundred dollars that the hard drive cost you. Backing up your external editing hard drives is extremely important, and failing to do so can be a costly mistake.

We recommend purchasing hard drives and RAID systems for editing in sets of two: if you buy one 2TB hard drive to store your footage on, buy a second 2TB hard drive to store a complete backup of your footage as well. If your footage grows over time, make sure you either manually copy over additional footage from one hard drive to the other, or use automated drive cloning software like Super Duper to make sure both drives remain up to date. In cases where your editing system also stores render files, keeping these up to date across hard drives is generally less essential since if data loss on one hard drive occurs, you may have to re-render in your NLE no matter what.

Be sure to also back up your editing project file, be it a Final Cut Pro file, an Adobe Premiere Pro file, an Avid Media Composer file, Sony Vegas file or other project file type. For large projects, we recommend copying your project file and renaming it with the file date before each editing session, so you have a folder with all your old project files from previous days' editing sessions backed up just in case you ever need to access them– either because you accidentally deleted an important sequence/timeline from last week, or because the project file got corrupted and is no longer usable.

What is the best peripheral interface to connect an external hard drive using?

Right now the computer industry is slowly shifting port types as part of these transitions that seem to happen every few years. Here are some of the most common professional ports used by external hard drives for editing video:

Best Hard Drives For Pc

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Best External Hard Drive For Storage