Best External Drive
SAMSUNG T7 Portable SSD 1TB
This is the best.
I have USB 3.1, not USB 3.2, so i don't have the 1050MB/s speed. However, this is cheaper than the previous Samsung version for USB 3. Some say this gets hot. Maybe so when used on USB 3.2. But not when used on USB 3.1 on my machine.
alternative:
Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Touch
Bought this at Costco around 2019-12-24.
It's smaller than a iphone and less heavy than a iphone.
It uses a standard USB cable. (included) USB 3.0 SuperSpeed Micro-B Type A-Male to Micro B Male
Not sure i can recommend it. I didn't reformat the drive. It is exFAT. works perfectly on a Mac. But then i got a gaming machine running Microsoft Windows 10, pluggin it cause system to not start up.
Reformatting the disk to NTFS will probably solve the problem.
Disk Speed Comparison
(from Xah's Gaming Machine, 2021) Buy at amazon
Up to 1050MB/s - USB 3.2 External Solid State Drive, (MU-PC500H/AM)
Used via usb 3.1
Buy at amazon
Seagate BarraCuda 1TB Internal Hard Drive HDD – 3.5 Inch SATA 6 Gb/s 7200 RPM 64MB Cache for Computer Desktop PC Buy at amazon
Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Touch 2TB HDD
Why is it Called Drive?
Now, what's the etymology of drive in hard drive?
In the 1990s we have have floppy disks, because it is disk shape and it is floppy. Then, the reader device is a drive, as in drive mechanism, because it needs to spin the disk. Then, comes hard disk, hard cuz it's not floppy. Then, abridgment, we got just hard drive. Then, just drive, as in, external drive. But, today's external drive don't really have spinning disk so actually no drive mechanism. More fitting term today is storage device, and external storage device.
Flash Drive vs Spinning Harddisk. Which is Better? Which Store Data Longer?
Am thinking getting a backup drive that won't lose data after 2 years non-use.
After some research on flash drive vs hard disk, for small backup expecting to last at least 3 years, it's kinda mixed bag. No absolute say which is better. Rather, you want to shop for expensive high quality ones, either tech.
Reformat Drive, and Which File System to Use
For a technology nerd, I recommend to always to reformat your drive after you bought it.
As of 2021, i recommend:
- NTFS → if you use it on Windows machines only.
- exFAT → if you need to use the device on macOS or Linux.
- If you only use on Mac, then format it with APFS.
- If you only use on Linux, then format it with whatever is current linux default.