i made a video recently where i talked
about how much hard drive space you
should pay for when buying a new mac
link to that in the description of this
video but what if you're in a situation
where you already own a computer a mac
or a pc and you need more hard drive
space but you can't or don't want to
shell out for a whole new computer you
need external storage but if you've
tried buying an external hard drive
recently you might have realized that
things aren't as simple as they once
were do you go desktop or portable hard
drive or solid state drive and why does
this drive with a whopping four
terabytes of space cost less than this
one terabyte drive
these are all things that i'm going to
talk about in this video
before i explain the differences in the
various types of hard drives available
the first thing that you need to do is
establish why you're buying a new hard
drive in the first place and what do you
plan on using it for because the answers
to these questions will determine what's
most important to you in a hard drive
and that will help steer you towards or
away from certain items for example if
you're looking at storing thousands of
old family photos on a drive as an
archive where you might want to access
them from time to time but not have
constant access to them then storage and
cost might be the most important factors
to you if on the other hand you're
looking for some spillover drive space
for things like editing 4k videos
without using the internal drive of your
computer then read write speed is going
to be more important to you
so what i would suggest you do is take a
moment now and be absolutely clear about
what all of this extra space is going to
be used for write it down if you need to
and then let's move on to the next
points
something i do want to make clear is
that all drives do eventually die
they're no different to any other
computer component in that respect so if
your plan is to store something on a
drive and then forget about it and be
able to access it many years later you
might be able to do that but there is an
element of risk involved if you've got
digital content that's important to you
you need to be regularly assessing how
you're storing that content and ensuring
that you've got multiple versions of it
in other words more than one backup
cloud storage is my honest
recommendation for things like photos
videos documents or anything else of
financial or sentimental value but if
you don't want to go down the cloud
storage route ensure that you've got at
least two backups because if your sole
backup were to crash and fail on you
you'd be screwed
so for example i've got tons of music
production content that i've collected
over the past decade on this drive drum
loops virtual instruments all that kind
of stuff and this is the drive that i
plug in when i'm doing music production
but i also have the entirety of this
drive backed up onto this drive which is
much slower than this one but it exists
simply as a backup if this one fails i
should be able to buy a new drive and
drag everything over from this one to
this one
now i keep using the term hard drive in
this video and that's because hard drive
has become a generic term for computer
storage in general because in actuality
there's two main types of external
computer storage that we want to look at
here hard drives and solid state drives
this is a hard drive it's a four
terabyte drive by toshiba that i picked
up recently it cost me about 80 pounds
or around 100
a hard drive is essentially a disk or a
platter housed within an enclosure with
a moving read write head that's used to
access data each time you drag a file
onto a hard drive the head moves to a
point on the platter and writes the data
and each time you open a file the head
has to locate the correct part of the
platter spin it up and then read the
data the biggest pro of a hard disk
drive or hdd as i'll call them from now
on is the price of them right now in
early 2022 you can pick up something
like this a four terabyte hdd for about
80 pounds that's a lot of storage and
this drive isn't too big it weighs about
200 grams and it's powered entirely by
usb so no need to carry anything other
than this drive with a suitable cable in
this case i've got a cable that connects
the drive directly to my computer via
usbc so i don't need any adapters or
anything like that
but there are cons associated with this
kind of drive otherwise this video would
be dead easy i'd tell you to just go out
and buy drives like this in every
eventuality and that's not what i'm
gonna do
because this is a mechanical drive it's
not particularly rugged a hard enough
drop say out of a bag and onto a
concrete floor could cause permanent
irreparable damage to the internal
workings of this drive rendering it
essentially useless you might be able to
get a data recovery specialist to
retrieve the data for you but the key
word here is might no guarantee and
that's going to cost you even if it does
work drives like this are also more
susceptible to extremes in weather
conditions heat cold humidity all of
these have the potential to essentially
wipe a drive like this out and so if
you're looking for something that you
can throw in a rucksack and hike with to
the top of a mountain this might not be
the best option for you
a significant drawback of hdds is their
read write speed to give you an idea
i've opened up the blackmagic disk speed
test app on my m1 pro macbook pro
running that on the internal drive of
the computer which is an ssd you can see
we're getting blisteringly quick speeds
about four gigabits per second right and
five and a half gigabits per second read
which is really really fast compare that
with my sandisk ultra ssd this is
capable of about 800 megabits per second
read and write much slower than the
internal drive on my mac but still quick
enough to comfortably edit 4k video all
day long without any major drawbacks the
toshiba hdd on the other hand connected
via the same usbc port is only capable
of anywhere between 100 and 150 megabits
per second read and write so
significantly slower than the ssd and
not even in the same ballpark as the
internal ssd of my mac
so you might be wondering why would i
purchase an hdd what value would it have
to me when i've got storage that's much
quicker available to me and the answer
is that this can hold four times the
amount of data as this and still manage
to be less expensive
if i go to the apple website and i find
this exact spec of computer and add a
four terabyte internal ssd it would cost
an additional 1 200 pounds this cost me
80 pounds and the way that i'm using
this is i'm storing product footage on
it so for example if i want to talk
about my apollo twin audio interface in
a video it doesn't make sense for me to
have to film it each and every time when
i could capture maybe 10 different shots
of it and then just store those on a
hard drive like this and then access the
files when i need them each time i'm
making a video i'm less precious about
read write speeds because i'm going to
transfer the files over to my ssd and
the video on here is obviously valuable
to me but it's not the end of the world
if this dies on me
the final con with regard to these is
both the movement and the noise of the
drive itself for many this won't be a
big deal at all but some hard drives can
be pretty noisy when you use them
because the platter is being spun up
each time what i'll do is i'll connect
this hdd to my mac and then use my
shotgun mic to record the noise to give
you an idea of how it sounds
so the alternative then is to go for
something like this which you can see
physically is way smaller and lighter
than the toshiba hdd
this is an ssd or solid-state drive and
this is essentially a plastic case
housing a load of transistors and other
components not dissimilar from any
regular computer chip and so there are
no moving parts inside of this it's why
if i very delicately shake the hdd you
can feel that there's multiple moving
components inside of it versus this
which just feels like a small dense
piece of plastic
the most obvious advantage to an ssd
then is the speed at which they can read
and write data i already mentioned that
this is capable of about 850 megabits
per second read and write versus the 100
megabits per second or so of this hdd
but speed actually extends beyond simple
read and write
this hdd if not used for a period of
time will enter a low power mode where
the disk stops spinning it's why with a
drive like this if you click to access
it for the first time in a while it
takes a good few seconds for the drive
to spin up and start feeding data to
your computer not so with an ssd there's
nothing to spin up and so the reading
and writing of this drive begins
immediately it really does feel like
it's an extension of the storage that's
already contained within the mac itself
ssds are also more rugged sandisk
actually sell this as being the kind of
ultra portable solution that you can
throw in a bag and take with you
anywhere if i were to drop both of these
from waist height onto a concrete floor
this with no moving parts and a rubber
exterior i reckon would be absolutely
fine this made a brittle plastic and
full of moving parts would likely smash
to pieces
this even comes with a clip built into
it designed to clip to your bag which is
exactly what i do with one of my spare
ones it's there so that when i'm away
from home if i need to do anything that
uses a lot of space i've always got a
drive available to me even if i forget
to pack one
okay so all very positive when it comes
to ssds but we do need to discuss some
cons and the most obvious con is the
price this is a one terabyte drive and
yet it's 20 pounds more expensive than
this a four terabyte drive if i wanted
to match the storage of this and buy a
four terabyte version of this drive i'd
have to spend
572 pounds that's a lot of money is it
worth it maybe this is small light
portable less prone to damage and
significantly faster but i guess you'd
have to decide whether all of that truly
matters to you or not
oh one last thing to point out is that
this drive is also water and dust
resistant something that this and pretty
much all hdds simply aren't
one thing that these two drives do have
in common however is their portability
they're both bus powered meaning that
they don't need connecting to power they
draw their power from the usb connection
and they're both pretty small this isn't
going to be too much of an issue for you
to carry in a travel bag for example but
what about if you don't require
portability could opting for a desktop
drive save you money and or get you
additional space the simple answer is
yes but as with all things computer
related it's not always that simple so
let's take a look
first of all there isn't really such a
thing as a desktop ssd drive there kind
of technically is before you flame me in
the comments but we'll look at that in
just a second let's focus first on a
desktop hdd because yes if you're happy
to purchase an optical drive that's
going to sit on your desktop or be
tucked away somewhere in your office you
can purchase a ton of storage for very
little money for example this western
digital drive offers eight terabytes of
hard drive space for a mere 159 pounds
and 99 pence and an absolutely whopping
18 terabytes of space is yours for the
very reasonable price of 379 pounds 50.
but what are the cons well firstly this
is a desktop drive it's going to be
pretty hefty in size and definitely not
portable although that's less about the
weight and more to do with needing a
power supply a cable will be included
with it but you've essentially got to
plug this into the mains as well as
connect it via usb it's also going to be
slow the data transfer rate is listed at
480 megabits per second but the reality
is probably going to be slower than that
so we're back to regular optical hard
drive speeds here you definitely
wouldn't want to be editing video off of
something like this
it's also at least in this configuration
one drive and so one single point of
failure in other words if the disk
becomes corrupted or just breaks one day
as all drives eventually will that's it
your data is gone potentially all 18
terabytes of it and that's gonna hurt
but there is an alternative and this is
where we begin to discuss raid storage
raid stands for redundant array of
independent disks and a raid unit might
look something like this now these look
mighty impressive and possibly a bit
daunting they are essentially smaller
versions of the kind of storage that you
would see in the server room of a
company but the consumer facing
technology available nowadays is pretty
easy to work with if we take a product
like this you can see that there are two
slots on the front you can buy versions
with 4 5 6 8 12 slots a number of
different configurations actually each
slot is designed to house an hdd so
let's say for example that we choose a
12 terabyte configuration this would
most likely be formed from two six
terabyte drives one in each slot that's
important because one of the key
advantages of something like this is
that the system can automatically mirror
the data from one drive to another in
real time in other words your 12
terabytes of storage becomes six
terabytes twice because the same data
exists across two drives
so if one day one of the drives fails
you simply remove it and swap it with a
brand new drive that drive is then
mirrored from the existing working drive
and your data is safe this does mean
that you're paying for 12 terabytes but
only getting six terabytes of space but
it's a much more secure six terabytes
raid storage is pretty expensive and
physically quite large it has to be
plugged into the mains and you're
definitely not going to take it with you
although many do give you the ability to
access your data via the cloud allowing
you to create your own personal dropbox
and because many of these enclosures
allow you to connect various types of
sata drives you could install ssds
rather than hdds and benefit from a lot
of secure storage with much quicker read
and write speeds than a conventional hdd
but a raid configuration made up of ssds
is going to be pretty expensive
so there you go hopefully that's helped
clear things up a bit there's a lot to
consider here and it's almost impossible
to be able to give a definitive answer
as to what kind of drive you should buy
your needs your priorities and your
budget all play an important role in
deciding that but hopefully the things
i've talked about in this video will
help make your decision making that bit
easier what about you are you in the
market for a new hard drive at the
moment if yes what do you think you're
gonna buy or are you all about maxing
out your internal storage or relying on
the cloud drop me a comment and let's
talk about it and as ever if you found
this video useful do please consider
leaving me a like and subscribing to my
channel for more content like this in
the future see you on the next video