Photography News issue 17

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Kit guide

Desktopmass storage devices HARDDRIVE ROUND-UP

Sure, hard drives aren’t the most exciting things on your digital shopping list, but the more you shoot the more important they become. Here are some great options to protect your precious 1s and 0s…

Thunderbolt connection – currently the fastest there is at a theoretical 10 gigabits per second (that’s super-speedy by any one’s standards) – you’ll need a drive with that capability to make the most of it. However, USB 3.0 (at a maximum 5Gbps) is plenty fast enough itself, and that’s now the standard connection found on almost all drives, being backward compatible with 2.0 (480Mbps). Naturally, price is a big factor, and some designs can see you picking up a lot more storage per £ than fancier models. How the drive looks and sounds is also a concern, so all the drives here are good looking, with several offering special features like heat-sinking, fan-less designs.

Broadly, the first concern is capacity, and while the first few 1TB drives blew everyone’s head back, now you’re looking at 3 or 4TB as the standard, which is what we’ve gone for here. Make no mistake, this is A LOT of space – plenty of room for all but the most hardcore enthusiast’s catalogue of precious images. But if you want more, or the ability to easily upgrade, it’s worth thinking about a Network Attached Storage (NAS) drive. These aren’t technically in the same stable as external desktop drives, but we’ve included a couple of nice units in the list, too. Next up, take note of the connections offered by the drives and what’s best for your desktop. If your computer has a

Words by Kingsley Singleton

Once, just the internal drive of your PC or Mac and a pile of blank CD-Rs gave more than enough storage space for your photographic library. But then came the tidal wave of digital photos, music and movies, and now we’re all up to our necks in 1s and 0s. We need more digital storage space than ever, and the easiest way to get it is to grab an external drive. Or better yet, grab two, so that you have a mirrored backup and won’t lose everything if one drive fails. But don’t get three, oh no… for that way lies madness. When you want to make something happen, there’s nothing quite like pressing a large button. Old-fashioned door bells, the knobs on 1980s arcade games, even the symbolic ‘big red buttons’ of the Cold War; they all had that tactile quality. It’s clear, then, that the essential thrill of button pushing prompted Transcend to place the OneTouch auto-backup button on the front of their StoreJet external hard drives. One prod and it instantly synchronises data with your computer and thanks to the USB 3.0 connection, this happens fast. It’s not easy to forget doing it, either, as the button glows at you like a malevolent cyclops. The drive is also eco-friendly with a power-saving sleep mode, giving an energy saving of nearly 70%. There’s also StoreJet Elite software for backup and security, and although the range tops out at 3TB, there’s a good chance you may not need more. And if you do get another you’ll have two buttons. Two buttons! Transcend StoreJet 35T3, 3TB £100 If you’ve got a lot of stuff and not much space to put it in, or you’re planning to squirrel your drive under the TV when streaming pictures and video, it’s well worth looking for units with a small footprint. And although most external drives aren’t exactly large, the Seagate Backup Plus’s compact size and relatively low weight make it a good digital storage solution when actual, physical space is limited. And the 4TB version is great value, too. Despite its affordable price, the Backup Plus has all the features you’d expect in a modern drive, such as automated desktop backup and the ability to save files from mobile devices via the Seagate Dashboard app over Wi-Fi or using sites like Dropbox. The Dashboard also has a Share function, which syncs with social media sites, letting you upload multiple images in one go. Connection is via USB 3.0 and a preloaded driver makes it easy to use the drive on Windows and Mac systems without reformatting. Seagate Backup Plus, 4TB £105

SamsungD3 Station, 4TB £100

If you’re on a budget, or need multiple drives, the subject of £s per TB becomes very important. Offering 1TB/£25, the 4TB Samsung D3 Station is excellent value and also small enough to pack away – not that you’d want to as it has a simple but attractive two-tone black finish. Like many, the sweet spot of price/space falls at the 4TB mark – and that’s a pretty cavernous space for most catalogues and media libraries to fill. The D3 is available in sizes from 2TB to 6TB and though it doesn’t get any smaller or larger, the weight does vary. As you’d expect on a modern unit there’s a USB 3.0 connection for speedy reading from, and writing to, the disk and like many of the other models in this guide, the D3 Station also comes with handy pre-installed software, allowing the drive to run automatic backup and protect your data with password protection as well as encryption if desired. Here’s another small, light external drive, which, while not technically ‘mobile’, can be easily transported or slotted away for a cleaner desk space. The Canvio is also nicely styled for those who want some level of aestheticism, and you can pick a two-tone black-white or black-black finish (although the 4TB and 5TB versions are so hardcore they only come in black-black). The 4TB version works out at a little over £25 per TB, which is still a good deal for the digital acreage and, straight out of the box, it’s set up for Windows systems, but can easily be reformatted for Macs. Toshiba Canvio Desk hard drives also come pre- loaded with NTI Backup Now EZ software (which costs actual money elsewhere), a file-management program offering such features as encryption and compression, automated complete system and file and folder backups, system restore functions and cloud storage, so if the worst happens you’ll have an offsite backup. Toshiba CanvioDesk, 4TB £115

SPECS

SPECS

DIMENSIONS 172x152x44mm WEIGHT 1.04kg

DIMENSIONS 180x129x47mm WEIGHT 836g

CAPACITY 2-3TB INTERFACE USB 3.0

CAPACITY 2-6TB INTERFACE USB 3.0

CONTACT www.transcend-info.com

CONTACT www.samsung.com

SPECS

SPECS

DIMENSIONS 167x129x42mm WEIGHT 1.04kg

DIMENSIONS 179x118x42mm WEIGHT 862g

CAPACITY 1-5TB INTERFACE USB 3.0

CAPACITY 3-8TB INTERFACE USB 3.0

CONTACT www.toshiba.co.uk

CONTACT www.seagate.com

Photography News | Issue 17

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