Affordable External Storage

[Akira Shimazu]

Im looking for an affordable external storage for backup file. assuming that it'll not going to be an Active daily transfer i'm going for HDD because  it's cheaper than ssd.

• Budget around USD 35  or 500K IDR. 
• HDD 
• 500GB at minimum
• Black / grey color. ( not necessary)
• USB type A and C ( have to A-type slot )

 

this is the site which im going to buy storage from Tokopedia

any other suggestion  is welcome.

[manikyath]

go to external hard drives, sort by price, scroll down until you find the first device that's big enough.

 

if the reviews arent absolutely horrid, you have your pick.

[Weezy]

I'm sure some may have their picks, but Western Digital Passport is a solid and simple HDD for storage. I've never had one go bad on me. I don't know about IDR cost, but USD under $45 for 1 TB on Amazon, a little more than your budget

[Bombastinator]

So you want an external usb device that backs things up.
One format option you may not be interested in:

Spoiler

 For really massive amounts of archival data (you never throw it away.  It piles up like old newspapers.  Companies do this) there are tape drives.  The drive itself is fairly expensive but the tapes themselves are wildly cheap even though they’re ver very slow

I know of three ways to do this:

 

1: an external usb with a drive in it (so an appliance sort of.  A reallly large usb key sort of)

2: an external drive enclosure (so without the drive but easy to get apart.  You can often use #1 as #2 in a pinch.  Depends on how it’s made.

3: a usb removable bay.  These are not the cheapest.  It’s basically a box on the end of a USB cable with a slot on it you slap a SATA drive into like a game cartridge and boom. It’s connected.  Handy if you are using multiples.  These can be bought very cheap IF you are only ever going to use small drives in it.  Old used (and therefore) cheap ones will sometimes be  limited in capacity.  I bought one off eBay for $5, but it’s max was 3tb (I had 4tb drives)  I keep meaning to put the damn thing in the classifieds but I don’t seem to get around to it. 
 

places I might look for something cheap for this:

fleabay

pcpartpicker

microcenter walk-in (so only if one is nearby) 

amazon

 

there are also used hard drives on fleabay. Thay can be very very cheap.  You want to crystaldiskinfo them and use PayPal to make sure the thing isn’t mostly dead or something and you wind up getting hosed. One other thing: HDDs need power AND sata generally.  If there’s no additional wall wart involved there a really good chance that whatever it is will only work with sata SSDs or sometimes laptop drives.  Not enough amps in usb3.0 to run one.

Edited February 20, 2023 by Bombastinator

[Blue4130]

1 hour ago, Bombastinator said:

So you want an external usb device that backs things up.
One format option you may not be interested in:

  Hide contents

 For really massive amounts of archival data (you never throw it away.  It piles up like old newspapers.  Companies do this) there are tape drives.  The drive itself is fairly expensive but the tapes themselves are wildly cheap even though they’re ver very slow

 

Haha the cheapest tape drive (new) is about 100x his budget and the tape is double his budget. Way beyond the scope of his requirements.

[Bombastinator]

53 minutes ago, Blue4130 said:

Haha the cheapest tape drive (new) is about 100x his budget and the tape is double his budget. Way beyond the scope of his requirements.

True.  Those tapes are above 30tb though.  If the scale is big enough it’s cheaper.  I’m not big enough for that so i use a removable bay.  I don’t know what his use case is though.  If it’s “I’ll never use more than a terabyte, and I’ll keep on erasing” it’s likely 1 with an eye to 2.  The ISBcircuitry lasts longer than HDDs though, and I’ve got a 40mb syquest cartridge in my basement.  Drives get larger over time.

[Blue4130]

13 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

True.  Those tapes are above 30tb though.  If the scale is big enough it’s cheaper.  I’m not big enough for that so i use a removable bay.  I don’t know what his use case is though.  If it’s “I’ll never use more than a terabyte, and I’ll keep on erasing” it’s likely 1 with an eye to 2.  The ISBcircuitry lasts longer than HDDs though, and I’ve got a 40mb syquest cartridge in my basement.  Drives get larger over time.

Syquest drives are over 20 years old. Antique Tech is not valid as a backup medium. The only valid current tape drives are well beyond the budget.

 

For this case, I'd get a 1tb 3.5 drive and a sata to usb cable.

[Bombastinator]

5 minutes ago, Blue4130 said:

Syquest drives are over 20 years old. Antique Tech is not valid as a backup medium. The only valid current tape drives are well beyond the budget.

 

For this case, I'd get a 1tb 3.5 drive and a sata to usb cable.

Yeah.  It’s the reason it’s still there.  I don’t have anything to read it with but I also don’t want to throw away the data. It will probably get tossed one of these days.  Good chance it’s blank by now anyway.   It was just used as an example of the March of time.  It was mostly .jpgs though and MBR is still a thing.  

Edited February 20, 2023 by Bombastinator