Any alternatives to an external hard drive?

I’ve got three 1 TB Transcend external hard drives, and things are starting to go south—the first one already bit the dust, and this second one is being super flaky about showing up on my computer. Honestly, I'm pretty sure it's on its last legs too. Does anyone have any advice on what kind of storage I should switch to for all my files? Thanks!

I'm not entirely sure about the current health of your hard drives, but external ones generally tend to be pretty dependable enough.
There’s also the option of backing everything up to a cloud service, like Google Drive for instance.

fadedbear92 said:I’ve got three 1 TB Transcend external hard drives, and things are starting to go south—the first one already bit the dust, and this second one is being super flaky about showing up on my computer. Honestly, I'm pretty sure it's on its last legs too. Does anyone have any advice on what kind of storage I should switch to for all my files? Thanks!

"A lot" is a pretty subjective term.
Maybe something like this?
https://www.wdc.com/products/network...ex2-ultra.html

I don't mean you have to buy that exact model, but look for something similar. You basically get two drives running in a mirror setup, so if one dies, you just swap it out for the other. If both fail at the exact same time, though, then you're just having a really bad day.

wiredcanyon94 said:"A lot" is a pretty subjective term.
Maybe something like this?
https://www.wdc.com/products/network...ex2-ultra.html

I don't mean you have to buy that exact model, but look for something similar. You basically get two drives running in a mirror setup, so if one dies, you just swap it out for the other. If both fail at the exact same time, though, then you're just having a really bad day.

Wait, what's that? Mirroring? I'm not really a tech guy—can you explain that in plain English?😉

Mirroring—this means both drives run simultaneously, recording identical data at the same time.

By the way, you can use tools like CrystalDiskInfo or HD Sentinel to monitor your drive's health and estimate its remaining lifespan.

Check out this thread for more info:

frozenviper13 said:Mirroring—this means both drives run simultaneously, recording identical data at the same time.

By the way, you can use tools like CrystalDiskInfo or HD Sentinel to monitor your drive's health and estimate its remaining lifespan.

Check out this thread for more info:

https://s9.postimg.cc/3p5r79um7/disc_info_1.png

https://s9.postimg.cc/asdmmwfhb/disc_info2.png

https://s9.postimg.cc/w218xqo27/disc_info_3.png

So, what exactly is all this data telling us?🤔

wiredcanyon94 said:"A lot" is a pretty subjective term.
Maybe something like this?
https://www.wdc.com/products/network...ex2-ultra.html

I don't mean you have to buy that exact model, but look for something similar. You basically get two drives running in a mirror setup, so if one dies, you just swap it out for the other. If both fail at the exact same time, though, then you're just having a really bad day.

Thanks!🤣

fadedbear92 said:Wait, what's that? Mirroring? I'm not really a tech guy—can you explain that in plain English?😉

Just stack two identical drives in there—say, 3 TB each, or whatever capacity the manufacturer actually supports.

When you're running a mirror setup, it’s exactly like what the other guy mentioned: it looks to you like you just have one single 3 TB drive, but behind the scenes, it's actually writing everything to both disks simultaneously.
Look, if a drive dies—and let’s be real, it’s usually just one at a time—you just grab another identical one to replace the dead weight. Once you swap it out, the system just replicates all the data onto the new drive. It’s pretty straightforward. Most of the time, you aren't going to deal with both drives kicking the bucket at once.

I only used that one as an example. That’s the one I actually have on hand, but there are plenty of similar devices out there on the market. It doesn't have to be that exact model.

fadedbear92 said:https://s9.postimg.cc/3p5r79um7/disc_info_1.png

https://s9.postimg.cc/asdmmwfhb/disc_info2.png

https://s9.postimg.cc/w218xqo27/disc_info_3.png

So, what exactly is all this data telling us?🤔

You're in luck, 😁
it shows as "Good," which means everything is running smoothly just like a well-tuned engine.👍

I’m always a big advocate for using a paid cloud service for data storage. Honestly, you just never know what kind of chaos life can throw at you—house fires, floods, a break-in... anything can happen. If your files actually matter to you, get them off your local drives and onto the web.

frozenviper13 said:You're in luck, 😁
it shows as "Good," which means everything is running smoothly just like a well-tuned engine.👍

Man, thank goodness! Thanks so much for checking on that for me.👍

I definitely need to run some tests on this other one too.

Kate Martin3 said:I’m always a big advocate for using a paid cloud service for data storage. Honestly, you just never know what kind of chaos life can throw at you—house fires, floods, a break-in... anything can happen. If your files actually matter to you, get them off your local drives and onto the web.

Which online service though? Those cloud things? I don't really know much about them, unfortunately. I skimmed an article once, but it all seemed way too small for the massive amount of stuff I have (it's that struggle when you work in education😛 )

With any paid service, you basically get as much space as you need. Take Amazon, for example—they offer virtually unlimited storage, and you just pay for what you actually use plus data transfer fees. For about 40 gigabytes, you’re looking at $6.75. If there's something specific you're curious about, let me know and I'll walk you through the details.

Kate Martin3 said:With any paid service, you basically get as much space as you need. Take Amazon, for example—they offer virtually unlimited storage, and you just pay for what you actually use plus data transfer fees. For about 40 gigabytes, you’re looking at $6.75. If there's something specific you're curious about, let me know and I'll walk you through the details.

Does that depend on which provider I'm using? (like Xfinity)
Are those $6.75 monthly fees? Honestly, 40 GB feels pretty small to me.

Why worry so much about it? 🙂
Think of it this way: keeping your data on an external drive is often the smartest move. With prices being so reasonable right now, picking up a 2TB drive gives you plenty of breathing room for any files you might have. Plus, it’s just more efficient—it’s usually much faster to drag and drop files onto a physical drive than waiting on a slow upload to a cloud server.
If you want total peace of mind, you could always grab two drives and follow our previous suggestion of keeping a secondary backup on the second one..

fadedbear92 said:Does that depend on which provider I'm using? (like Xfinity)
Are those $6.75 monthly fees? Honestly, 40 GB feels pretty small to me.

I was just using that as an example. You get unlimited storage there—even if you need something massive like 1,000 terabytes. It’s a monthly fee, and it doesn't matter which provider you use.

wiredcanyon94 said:Just stack two identical drives in there—say, 3 TB each, or whatever capacity the manufacturer actually supports.

When you're running a mirror setup, it’s exactly like what the other guy mentioned: it looks to you like you just have one single 3 TB drive, but behind the scenes, it's actually writing everything to both disks simultaneously.
Look, if a drive dies—and let’s be real, it’s usually just one at a time—you just grab another identical one to replace the dead weight. Once you swap it out, the system just replicates all the data onto the new drive. It’s pretty straightforward. Most of the time, you aren't going to deal with both drives kicking the bucket at once.

I only used that one as an example. That’s the one I actually have on hand, but there are plenty of similar devices out there on the market. It doesn't have to be that exact model.

Sorry to bother you all, but is there any software out there that lets me link two different external drives so they serve the same purpose—essentially mirroring the data to both?

bluecyclist64 said:Sorry to bother you all, but is there any software out there that lets me link two different external drives so they serve the same purpose—essentially mirroring the data to both?

You aren't bugging anyone. If I'm understanding you right, you want to hook up two separate USB drives to your PC and use them for mirrored backups? Honestly, just try asking Google something like "how to mirror 2 usb drives?" or a similar phrase. There should be plenty of ways to do it. I haven't messed around with that myself since I just rely on my Western Digital setup.
Give it a shot and let us know which option works best for you.

bluecyclist64 said:Sorry to bother you all, but is there any software out there that lets me link two different external drives so they serve the same purpose—essentially mirroring the data to both?

Honestly, pretty much any decent new backup tool handles this nowadays. Personally, I'm a huge fan of SyncBackPro, though—fair warning, though—it can be a total headache for a regular user because the "expert mode" is just loaded with a mountain of settings, and it's way too easy to mess something up if you aren't careful.
But if you stick to the easy mode, it's a breeze:
you just pick your source file, folder, partition, or drive
then add your backup destination (could be disk 1, disk 2, a USB, an FTP server, or even the cloud...)
set the type of backup you want and decide when you want it to run

and voila...

wiredcanyon94 said:You aren't bugging anyone. If I'm understanding you right, you want to hook up two separate USB drives to your PC and use them for mirrored backups? Honestly, just try asking Google something like "how to mirror 2 usb drives?" or a similar phrase. There should be plenty of ways to do it. I haven't messed around with that myself since I just rely on my Western Digital setup.
Give it a shot and let us know which option works best for you.

Karen Doyle72 said:Honestly, pretty much any decent new backup tool handles this nowadays. Personally, I'm a huge fan of SyncBackPro, though—fair warning, though—it can be a total headache for a regular user because the "expert mode" is just loaded with a mountain of settings, and it's way too easy to mess something up if you aren't careful.
But if you stick to the easy mode, it's a breeze:
you just pick your source file, folder, partition, or drive
then add your backup destination (could be disk 1, disk 2, a USB, an FTP server, or even the cloud...)
set the type of backup you want and decide when you want it to run

and voila...

Thanks, everyone! 👍