Question "Good Enough" External Hard Drives for Seldom Accessed Video Storage

[Davidwa]

I'm looking for external storage for lightly accessed video files, chiefly old movies (plus oddball stuff like "Australian Survivor" and Channel 4's "The Hotel") that I've watched once or twice, will be moving to long-term storage, and might watch a third time on occasion. I'm interested in "good enough" reliability, high simplicity, and good-to-high economy. I'm planning to use paired external hard drives and copy files to them from my SSD once a month. I don't mind having multiple pairs of hard drives. I do not want to put internal hard drives in enclosures. I'm thinking of the USB-powered 4TB Elements/My Passport drives, but there may well be a better solution.

 

[MaikuTech]

https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16822231534?Description=western digital purple&cm_re=western_digital_purple-_-22-231-534-_-Product

https://www.amazon.com/ORICO-Toolfree-External-Enclosure-Support/dp/B00GAML7OK/ref=sr_1_3?crid=1FZC6KRDFYEBA&keywords=3.5+hard+drive+enclosure+usb+3.0&qid=1559226867&s=gateway&sprefix=3.5+hard+drive,aps,156&sr=8-3

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=usb+3.0+cord&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

I suggest you look into the hard drive I posted, as long as it meant for media files only, this will hold out for a very long time.
Yes build your own external storage device, the other 2 links will do fine, long as you don't bother the cords and keep it from damages.

 

[Almighty_Denny]

I've always used Seagate Backup Slim Plus drives for portability and movie watching (I've used it on Roku devices) and to store and backup all my game mod assets (I use to make game mods) and downloads.

Never had a single problem with any of them (The oldest one I have is from 2015 and is working pretty solid up to today)

 

[mindless1]

Yes, WD Elements external desktop (full sized, not USB powered portable) would be your best economical bet.

Why not the tiny USB powered? It has more fragile mechanisms and more platters to achieve the form factor and capacity. If the larger externals were not superior for stationary use, they would not exist.

As far as not being as simple, you can keep the power brick plugged into a surge protector all the time if you want, it is not a big deal to plug in the DC barrel plug when you want to use it, and is a more robust power delivery than relying on the high density USB3 cable itself.

While I do advocate having multiple drives for redundancy, aka multiple backups, at this point in time you will probably find a better price per GB going with a 6TB, maybe even larger, instead of 4TB but of course this is subject to random sales events and I'm thinking of US market prices and don't know your location.

 

[BoomerD]

I have a Samsung 2tb external drive hooked to my Dish Hopper. It's been working for about 5 years.