Large backup - suitable way to connect the drive?

B0bbyEwing

I think one of my drives is failing so picked up a 4TB HDD to copy everything across.

Opening my PC up, disconnecting drives & connecting up this drive to the motherboard is one option & probably the obvious one. 

Actually ended up losing a lot of files doing that once. 

I have one of these and also one of these. And in case it matters I've linked you to the exact ones I've got.

I'm guessing putting it in the PC & connecting to motherboard will result in fastest speeds but tbh I don't really NEED to do much on the PC during the week as I only get a small window with work hours & just life so if one of the other links takes say 3 days for 4TB whereas direct to motherboard would be say 2 days then I'm not bothered for the sake of 1 day.

My main concern is dropouts. I may be worried over something that wouldn't / shouldn't happen but I'm here asking about whether connecting the drive using one of those links & going via USB3 port would be fine for such a large amount of backup or not?

GDB2222

If these are really HDDs, rather than SSDs, then I don’t think USB 3 will be the limiting factor. 

B0bbyEwing

GDB2222 said:

If these are really HDDs, rather than SSDs, then I don’t think USB 3 will be the limiting factor. 

I don't fancy shelling out on a 4TB SSD. I didn't think those would exist but it's been ages since I looked so maybe they do now. Regardless, I said HDD & not SSD so that's what we're working with - HDDs. 

So as far as connection issues, dropouts etc, you wouldn't expect an issue, be it connecting via either the enclosure or docking station? Either would be just as good as the other? 

I've no idea how long to expect 4TB worth of stuff to take but so long as we're talking days and not weeks then I can live with that. 

forgotmyname

The price you paid for those + the cost of a 4TB drive is likely to exceed just buying a ready build
brand name external drive.

Just be careful to backup to another device or online also.  Years back when 1TB drives dropped in price
I backed up all my personal photo's and videos to the new drive and it failed within 48 hours.

No problem sending it back but I had to do a massive data recovery mission to get the pictures back
from old computers I had started to strip after saving the data.

B0bbyEwing

forgotmyname said:

The price you paid for those + the cost of a 4TB drive is likely to exceed just buying a ready build
brand name external drive.

Yes except there's more to the post than that and while a moneysaving forum, that's not where my question is coming from. I was specifically asking about the reliability of the connection - connecting an external drive via USB, be it D.S. or enclosure, for such a volume of data. If it was just a few text files I wouldn't ask this question & just immediately go for the via USB route.

A "ready build brand name external drive" is much larger, so takes up significantly more space. I have 3 of these. 2 are full, the 3rd might be I can't remember.

I have a number of internal drives. I have a docking station & an enclosure (because I couldn't find where I'd put the docking station & later on found it) so easily connect up these drives when needed without the need to open up the PC each time.

I've just never copied such a volume of data via that method before, which is why I wanted to ask the question rather than just do it & find out 3 days in to an 8 day transfer* that it's the cause of the backup going wrong.


* I talk about days when in reality I have NO idea how long this backup will take. I remember having a data recovery program run on an 8TB drive which took days, hence why I just say days.

GDB2222

I think a day should do it, provided that the drive you are copying from works flawlessly. However, you said that it is dodgy, so ….?

What software do you use? I don’t think that you should just use the OS copy and paste. 

forgotmyname

With USB it's a little random.  99% of the time if it's plugged in and works for a few minutes then it should
be stable but with unknown brands who knows what the connection will be like?

Saying that I have issues connecting Samsung phones to the PC's. Copy and Paste a load of images from a holiday
and it mid way it says the phone is not connected.  Several different Samsungs and several computers and they
have all done it to some degree.

Not sure why you think external drives are much larger than a bare drive. Barely anything in it.

I have a pile of external enclosures after finding out they had much dearer NAS drives in them so removed them
for my NAS boxes. Now those are larger.

Newcad

The one thing that you haven't said is how much data there is to be copied/backed up from the 'possibly failing'drive?

You say that you've bought a 4TB HDD, but it won't be 4TB of data to be backed up will it? (If it is then you should have bought a larger capacity drive to put it on).
So what capacity is the older drive and what is the 'Used Space' on the old drive?

B0bbyEwing

I "think" that with the external drives having bought external drives and can see the sizing with my eyes. 

For how much, I haven't totted it up exactly but it'll be about 3TB worth coming from a 6TB drive. The 6TB drive is almost full but I'd already transferred the 3TB of ripped movies from there. 

Funny you mention that about Samsung phones. I have the same experience. 

And as for software, I wasn't wanting to go the copy & paste route as I've found it randomly throws up issues. 

I have Acronis TI Home. I forget the year. 2011 possibly.
I did have Macrium once upon a time but don't think I do any more & I believe it's not free these days (or at least some sort of change since the days where everyone used to use it) 

So probably Acronis. 

Heedtheadvice

Not a lot to choose between Acronis and Macrium.

Macrium still has a free version but with some reduced functionality.

I would stick with Acronis if you are familiar. I use Macrium.

I have found the Seagate usb backup drives ( as sold) to be reliable but have not done a backup of the size you are considering.

Surely one of the best options is to just go ahead and do more than one backup, verify they are ok(!) before changing the duff drive ( if it actually is , maybe test first?).

Bothering over a day or two time to do it, or repeat, is surely not worth it  compared to a few pounds?

B0bbyEwing

Out of curiosity is it possible to get the 'old' useful Macrium still or is it too late for any of that?