Recommended External Hard Drives
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and external hard drives are a perfect match for the serious digital photographer. Thanks to the low price of high-quality external hard disks, we now have an inexpensive way to store thousands of digital images and to make redundant backup copies of our precious work.
You can read all about how essential external hard drives are to my Lightroom workflow here but that’s not the purpose of this post. This post is all about which specific external drives are the most appropriate for our primary storage and backup disk needs. If you were to follow the above link, you would see that I use one external hard drive as my primary image storage and a separate pair of external drives for my backup disks. These backup disks is a mirror image of my primary storage drive that my backup software. Click here for more on my Professional-Grade Backup Plans.
While any set of external disks will work in my two drive system, I am recommending specific brands and models based on the following criteria:
1. Capacity: We photographers need drives with lots of storage space because we love to shoot a lot of pictures! Buy big drives because a: sooner or later you will always fill them up, b: a drives actual storage capacity is always smaller then what gets advertised on the box, and c: you always need to leave some empty space–some system headroom– on any drive or its performance will diminish.
2. Connectivity: Here is the list of data transfer speeds from fastest to slowest; eSATA, Firewire 800, Firewire 400, USB 2.0, and finally USB 1.0. Please buy drives that utilize your computer’s fastest port.
“Time is money.” Sitting around waiting for files to transfer over to your external hard drive is not a productive use of your time. In my opinion, external drives that connect only via USB are way too slow for professional digital photography. Most Apple computers, and lots of PC laptops, feature built in Firewire ports. Increasingly, we find eSATA ports being built into PC laptops and desktop towers at the factory. If needed you can easily add an eSATA card
3. Rotational Speed: There is a spinning ceramic platter inside of a most external hard drives. The faster that this magnetic disk rotates the better. Rotational speeds are measured in rpm. If possible, please purchase a 7200rpm disk.
4. Reputable brand with a decent warranty and strong customer service track record: I am completely biased in favor of companies that have treated me well when I needed help in the past. Always remember though that no drive manufacturer will ever compensate you for your lost data when their disk fails. Hard drive warranties cover the hardware only. Their warranties do not cover the information that is stored on the disk hence the need for daily backups no matter what brand or model you purchase for your primary storage disk!
With these criteria in mind, let’s explore some options for our primary storage disk. As I see it, you have two choices for your primary drive. If you are looking for top performance then I strongly recommend purchasing a RAID 0 (Striped) disk system. A RAID 0 system can deliver a huge performance boost to your workflow especially when this drive is connect via eSATA or Firewire 800.
Please understand though that your risk of drive failure doubles with a RAID 0 setup since these systems are built with two separate platters spinning around inside of the same drive casing. If either platter fails then you will lose everything that the drive holds! Please don’t confuse a RAID 0 setup with a mirrored data protection configuration like RAID 1.
Primary (RAID 0):
OWC Mercury Elite Pro Mini RAID External Hard Drive
- OWC Mercury Elite Pro Dual Mini 1.5TB RAID 0 External Hard Drive
- LaCie Little Big Disk Quadra 1 TB eSATA/Firewire400/Firewire800/USB 2.0 7200rpm Portable External Hard Drive 301398U
- LaCie 9000106 DAS Thunderbolt Hard Drive Array (Mac Only)
- OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Performance 7200 RAID Hard Drive
- LaCie 301352U 2TB Quadra 2-Disk RAID Hard Drive
My primary photo storage disk is going to go everywhere that I go. I bring this drive to school with me everyday when I am teaching. I bring my primary disk with me when I am on the road and need access to my Lightroom index and all of my images. For the backup, a pair of high-capacity solid but inexpensive hard drive makes the most sense. The primary goes places with me, but my at least one of my backup disks always stays at home. Since the backup drive will rarely ever leave the house or office I don’t see any reason to use a pocket size disks or fancy redundant drive systems for my backup drives. For more on my primary storage and multiple drive backup system see Professional-Grade Backup Plans.
Backup (Single Disk):
- Western Digital My Book Studio 2 TB FireWire 800 External Hard Drive (Mac Only)
- OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Hard Drive
- LaCie 301500U 2TB D2 Quadra Hard Disk
I hope that you found this advice useful. Remember that every external disk, regardless of brand, must be formatted properly for use with your operating system before you put anything on it. See how to format an external drive and please don’t forget to back everything up.
Filed Under: (04) Computer Hardware Advice
About the Author: David Marx is a digital photography instructor whose engaging teaching style inspires photographers of all skill levels. David is an Adobe Certified Lightroom Expert. To learn more about David's Adobe Photoshop Lightroom software training seminars and digital photography field workshops please visit 
Hi Dave.
I was in your RMSP 2010 class (think Ghandi and clouds!). Is there a portable external hard drive with 1.5 TB and 7200rpm’s? Or do I have to get a slower 1.5TB? I need the extra storage…
Thanks!
Dear Elizabeth Hawkey,
Nice to hear from you! There are all sorts of external hard drives on the market if you are willing to pay the price. For my primary image storage I love the 1.5TB OWC Mercury Elite Pro Dual Mini RAID-0 External Hard Drive. each of the drives in this array spin at 7200 rpm. If I didn’t need such portability but still needed maximum performance then the full-size OWC Mercury Elite Pro Performance 7200RPM RAID-0 drive would be my top choice.
If RAID-o drives exceed your budget, or if you have no need for the enhanced performance, then you shouldn’t have any trouble tracking down one of the high capacity high-rotational speed hard drives listed in the “Single Disk” sections of this article.
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David Marx
Thank you!! You are The BEST!!
Excellent website!
I am using a good laptop with i7 quad core cpu and 16 gigs of RAM, and 500gb 7200rpm HDD.
I am debating whether to get a 120gb SSD for OS booting, scratch disk and LR catalog, and take its regular backups
OR
Get OWC Mercury Elite Pro Dual Mini in RAID 0, and keep the images and catalog on it and work from there.
My question, will the second option be faster than operating from the internal laptop drive as I am doing right now?
Many thanks,
hrishi
Dear Hrishi,
Without actually testing all of the configurations I can only make guesses at your laptop’s performance. My guess is that the SSD would be the fastest option. Read / write speed on an SSD is theoretically higher than what you would get out of an external drive. But SSD speeds drop considerably with increasing file fragmentation. My guess though is that either setup will faster than a single traditional hard drive. You might get a better answer to this question from http://www.macperformanceguide.com…
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David Marx
Dear David,
Thanks for your prompt reply. I did some research regarding this and it seems that drive speed doesn’t matter much while importing, rendering previews and while working in the Develop module. So while I would benefit from a SSD, I guess I should stick with my current internal HDD for now. As I work on a single computer (unlike you), and don’t take much photos, I think simply backing up from the internal HDD will be the most hassle free, and zero expense way.
I performed some (software) tweaks to my laptop and now it is running much faster and is a lot snappier, and more importantly, I am content with it.
Thanks again,
hrishi
I’m new at photography. I have a Gateway desktop that’s a few yrs old. How do I know or how can I find out what the fastest input is? I am not certain what you speak of when you talk about SATA, etc. I am trying to find out what the best brand, type etc of external hard drive I need, as my Lightroom 3 is coming in just a few days. I just purchased it yesterday, and I also purchased Scott Kelby’s book on LR3. I have gone through my computer hard drive, and reorganized and tidied up the picture file folders, so that it is like I want it when I move it to the external hard drive… are your recommendations the same today November 2011 as they were several months back in 2010? thanks
Dear Melinda Richardson,
Two ways to figure out the fastest ports on your Gateway. 1. Find the original system specs. These might be listed on your sales receipt, on Gateway’s Web site, or in the product literature that came in the box. 2. Identify every port on the computer. Look closely at each ports shape, symbol, or label and do a little Wikipedia research when needed.
The bigger question though is why are you thinking of moving your images to an external disk? Using external drives for a backup makes sense for everyone. For some photographers external photo storage also makes sense but it may not make sense for you right now. See:
Getting Started: Where Should I Store My Photos?
Getting Started: Where Should I Keep My Lightroom Catalog?
Archives and Backup Copies
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David Marx
Have you read the reviews on Amazon from the hot link on your article….I was surprised to see so many poor reviews of late. this one; LaCie 301352U 2TB Quadra 2-Disk RAID Hard Drive
Anyway, I am shopping for backup solution for my MacBookPro 2010 model. Thank you for the time you give for helping us out.
Do more reviews, we like them.
Dear William,
I don’t particularly like the LaCie Quadra 2-Disk RAID drives either. I much prefer the OWC Mercury Elite -AL RAID disks from Other World Computing. I found the LaCie Quadra 2-Disk to be way too noisy for use in my little office but the LaCie drives are built like a tank and they deliver top-notch performance when connected to the right port.
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David Marx
David,
Just recently found your site. Thanks for the extensive advice on storage, backups, etc. I am in the market for additional hard drives for my PC system. Given that these recommendations are from 2009 are there more current products I should be looking at? Can you advise? Thanks.
Theresa
Dear Theresa H,
Good question. I think that my advice on external hard drives is still applicable. My favorite hard drive is still theLaCie 301352U 2TB Quadra 2-Disk RAID Hard Drive
OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Performance 7200 RAID Hard Drive. It’s noisy but so fast and well built.
If your computer has a eSATA port then I would make getting a drive that can use this blazing fast connector a priority. Likewise, if you have FireWire but no eSATA then make this connector the priority. Finally, I would avoid anything from Western Digital right now. I have no complaints about the quality of their external hard drives but they have chosen to lock some really annoying software into the drives core. Their firmware / software package does not harm your data but the very idea of it annoys me.
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David Marx
Thank you so much for all the information. I wish I had read this a couple of years ago. I have done partial step one and moved all my photos and library to a second internal drive on my MacPro tower. I will now purchase an external drive and at this point back up that drive to the external FW800.
I also have a Superduper bootable external backup of my HD1 drive, with all the programs and other files on it. I back this up weekly.
I would do this with a laptop as well just in case.
I carry a nexto into the field also as a secondary backup when I travel. Then if the computer or hardrive fail I still have a secondary backup for travel. Trips are expensive and HD inexpensive.
I have a G4 laptop so can no longer view photos from my new camera on it. Any laptop recommendations and configuration recommendations. I plan on keeping it a long time so will likely wait for Sandy Bridge at this point.
Thanks so much,
Tom
Dear Tom,
It sounds like you have a good system in place. If I had a Mac Pro tower like yours then I would probably store my photos on an internal disk and back them up to an external. I might also consider replacing the boot drive on the MacPro with a solid state drive (SSD) for even more performance on startup. Lloyd Chambers has some great advice on how to pump even more performance out your system over at macperformanceguide.com. Keep making those backups!
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David Marx
I have moved my main image/lightrooom storage to a CalDigit external. This was recommended to me by a member of the Lightroom team, they are pretty bulletproof. I have a 2TB version at RAID 1, attached via Firewire 800 to my MBP. Pretty fast and bulletproof. Considering a drobo for backup, right now it’s an older WD MyBook backed up via Time Machine…
Dear Andy Wallace,
I have never seen a CalDigit Raid Drive but their website and products look good. Thanks! A Drobo would be a nice way to backup that disk but with any RAID system what matters most is that you have a Plan B. RAID 1 (Mirroring) is a great way to protect yourself against drive failure, but it is useless if the whole box gets fried in a thunderstorm or stolen off your desk. Even with a mirrored RAID system I would still make a backup everyday and would love to have a second backup off-site. See The American Society of Media Photographer’s 3-2-1 backup advice for more details.
–
David
Thanks for all your great tutorials! I know you recommend storing photos on an external hard drive, but all external hard drives will fail. So, what do you think about online backup?? For example I saw an ad on TV for http://www.carbonitetv.com, and for $55/yr they give you unlimited storage space. You can access files backed up with Carbonite from any computer in the world. So what do you think?? Thank you!
Ken,
Good questions. SSDs (Solid State Drives) are certainly more able to withstand the shock of transport than are traditional spindle hard drives. I am convinced that most drives will move to SSD technology within the next few years. That being said, the cost/benefit ratio doesn’t work out in a way that makes it worth purchasing SSDs yet.
I do own a number of the LaCie 500 GB 7200 RPM Rugged All-Terrain FireWire 800/ FireWire 400/USB 2.0 Portable Hard Drives and have been happy with their performance. Are they that much more rugged than other portable hard drives? Got me. I haven’t really tested. I’ll just say that I haven’t had any problems with them.
Regarding your speed question (#2), I believe that the FireWire 800 interface is your speed limiter.
“Short stroking” the drive (limiting access to only a small physical portion of the drive, thus greatly lessening capacity, and reducing the data access times by reducing the distance that the drive “stylus” has to travel) can indeed speed things up.
Here’s the deal, though. None of those items are worth it in the real world. While one can achieve theoretically higher drive speeds through “short stroking” and other techniques, there always seems to be “one more thing” slowing down access.
In your situation, it’ll probably all come back to the computer. If you want the fastest speeds possible today, you’ll need to drop $20K or more on a decked out Mac Pro with RAID and Fibre Channel cards. Even if you did that, I’m certain that I can edit images on my stock Mac Book Pro much faster than someone else on a $20K video-editing super-station.
Spend your time and effort learning how to be more efficient on the setup you have. Get the best computer you can afford. Use FireWire 800 connectivity with 7200 RPM drives. You’ll be just fine.
-Scott
Ed,
Your Iomega MiniMax Hard Drives are not, by default, set up in any sort of RAID configuration. Each unit has a single physical hard drive inside.
It’s possible to set up the two units in a RAID (1 or 0) configuration using a software solution (i.e. – Disk Utility on the Mac) but software RAIDs lack the performance and durability of a dedicated hardware RAID.
Those drives, or one of those drives, could certainly be used as a Time Machine drive, if you desire. Just go to your Time Machine settings in the System Preferences and select one of those drives for use with Time Machine. You’ll want to dedicate that drive solely to Time Machine, though. (Don’t try to store other files on it.)
-Scott
First off, I very much enjoy reading this site!
Couple of questions for you on this topic:
1. What are you thoughts on SSD, particularly for portable drives into the field? I’m currently using G-Tech mini’s (HDD) as portable field units that back up the cards immediately. But I’ve always been concerned about drive durability. Admittedly, I haven’t looked much in the LaCie rugged drives (are they really that much more rugged?) Certainly the non-mechanical nature of SSD’s is intriguing, albeit, the $/GB goes up tremendously….
2. Once I’m home, I edit on an external drive – a OWC Mercury Elite (same one you recommended above) via FW800. Works decently. Am considering getting a RAID 0 device, though I’m curious if you think the bottleneck is the interface (FW800) or the drive speed (7.2k rpm drive). On that note, what are your thoughts on short-stroking hard drives? Silly? Noticeably faster? Be interesting if it were faster to determine the real bang for the buck . . . a) faster drive speeds, b) faster interface (maybe get an eSATA card for the MBP….) or c) RAID 0 drive?
Hi David,
I must say i have just found out your blog. It’s the answers to all my questions regarding lightroom workflow, backups and etc.
I’ve canceled appointments and gonna be reading it for the rest of the afternoon.
Here it goes, the first question:
I’ve got 2 iomega minimax 1TB external hard drives. i might sound stupied but, are they RAID 0 ? How can i found Out?
I’m planning on setting up your system, however, i was wondering if i can have them been used set for time machine as well?
Cheers!
Ed
[...] I have come to the conclusion that you want to use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom with external hard drives from day one. I have reached this conclusion both from personal experience as a professional photographer and from my years of experience as an Adobe Certified Expert teaching this software program. In my opinion, storing both your digital images and your Lightroom index on an external hard drive is the best way to get long-term value out of this program. If you need the additional background information then please click here for more on why Lightroom is best used with external drives and then click here for more information on my favorite external disks. [...]
Dear Katy,
I think that your fears of desktop drives are somewhat unfounded and I don’t think that a portable drive like the LaCie Rugged is anymore or less trustworthy. They are all made of the same parts just in larger or smaller sizes.
Like Scott, I too have had drives from every brand die suddenly and other’s that last for years. I have never seen any reliable statistics that show any one brand to be more trustworthy or longer lasting than another but certain brands like LaCie, Other World Computing, and G-Technology have longer warranties and much better customer service.
Since portability is not your main concern I would suggest purchasing a desktop size drive, like the LaCie Quadra, for use as your primary disk. Connect this to your computer via your fastest input and then use your existing Simple Tech for a backup. If I were you I would ignore all of the software that comes with these disks and use Acronis True Image Home 2010 for my backup software. See http://thelightroomlab.com/2010/03/backing-up-windows-computers-using-acronis-true-image/ for more details. The most important thing though is that you make backups regularly and that you never trust your files to just a single disk.
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David
I am the family photographer and need to back up. I have Vista and and currently 2 and 4 gb memory cards. I was considering using my cheapy Simple Tech spu25 100gb portable hard drive as my primary drive to work with and purchase the LaCie Rugged All Terrain 500 gb (that you recommend) as my backup—until I approach 100 gb of photos— then switch to the Lacie Rugged All Terrain as my primary and get a desktop external drive at that time. I am not comfortable with most of the desktop drives right now based on reliability issues in user comments. Any thoughts? I will keep my backup in another location in my house each time I update so portability is not necessarily an issue. But again, I will probably wait until there are better choices in desktop drives. I’m not sure if transfer speeds will make a difference for me. Would the Seagate Freeagent Go or the Lacie Rugged All Terrain be best as my backup for now. Is either one’s software better? Or do you have other suggestions? Your recommendations in your articles seem to be right along my line of thinking. I usually keep things a long time though. Sorry for the long comment and thanks for your input.
Katy,
I’ve been through a number of drives and had many fail for many different reasons. In my experience, the least reliable drives for me have been those from Western Digital. That being said, I’ve had drives from both Western Digital and LaCie fail.
Here’s my words of advice: Hard drives have a 100% failure rate. ALL hard drives will fail at some point. It’s just a question of when. Make sure that no piece of data ever exists on only one drive at any moment in time. That will go a long way in helping you mitigate data loss.
-Scott
Carol,
I’ve used a Drobo for quite a while and have been happy with it as a backup drive. It’s not the fastest drive available, so it doesn’t make the best working drive. I have really enjoyed the peace of mind using it as one link in my backup chain, however.
-Scott
Dear Katy,
I haven’t had any problems with the power supply on my LaCie drives and their customer service has been reliable when called. Maybe I have been lucky but I give this drives two thumbs up.
David
Thank you for the very comprehensive, well laid out articles!
I am interested in the Lacie d2 Quadra but have read many consumer reviews concerned with defective power supplies. Can you help me on this?
Thanks!
Do you have an opinion on the Drobo System for backup? I use Dell with Win. XP. LR2.6 and Cs4
[...] last forever. Plan and prepare daily for disk failure! Please click here for my recommendations on brands and models of external hard drive. You might also want to read this article that I wrote on the difference between a backup and an [...]
I commend you on an excellent article with great referencing.Much appreciated.
OFO