Recommended Product: Safe, Reliable Storage and Backup Options for your Precious Data for 2017
For in-office data storage for startups and small businesses, we use and recommend the WD MyBook series of USB hard drives with RAID. This article will explain which to choose, why and how to use them correctly in your small business.
What is it?
If you’re like me, you have large audio and video files from seminars, massive numbers of emails, graphic files, documents and drafts, etc. And you can’t afford to lose your laptop data. I don’t know about you, but I’d be sunk!
There are lots of great, free backup programs out there for making a local backup of your files or drive – more on that another time – but you still need to put the stuff somewhere!
In addition, while there are great online services for doing continuous and incremental backups, and lots of ways to structure your backup strategy these days, having a solid local backup, that you know is secure and that you can lay your hands on in seconds, is hard to beat. I always have one.
And backing up to a local storage device via USB or local network is fast, done correctly. It can take minutes, depending on what you’re doing.
So, local hard drive storage – in large amounts! – is important for doing local backups of your critical data, storing large files.
The Products
There are two types of local storage we’re going to explain today and provide you with specific examples you can purchase right now.
The first is a good USB drive. First step: Check your laptop or desktop and be sure you’ve got a USB 3.0 or USB 3.1 port. They’re both fast and all modern laptops sold in the last few years have one. 99% likely you’ve got one. Good. (If not, check out this quick solution.)
What does this do for you? It is a box with two hard drives in it which provides you with protection in the event that one of the drives fails. The drives constantly mirror one another in the background, so you have two copies of all of your backup data, without doing anything special. And one of the drives will eventually fail, if you keep the device long enough. That’s the nature of mechanical hard drives: They don’t last forever. But, by having a box with two drives in what is called an “array,” you replace the bad drive, it copies your data over, and you go on down the road without loss.
So, which box do we recommend?
If you’re going USB 3.0 – again, about 99% of you will do this – here is the product we recommend:
Western Digital MyBook
It is ready to go out of the box, simple to use, reliable and relatively inexpensive versus the value of what it does for you and your business. It is kind of a “no brainer.”
How do you use it?
Just set the switches on the back to “RAID 1,” which tells the box to mirror the drives, attach it to your laptop or desktop, and your operating systems should see it and assign it a drive number automatically. It will see your new box as a single drive, even though you have two hard drives inside. Fire up your favorite backup software, find the new drive letter and do your backup. You’ll sleep better at night knowing you’ve got this solution in place. I know I do.
In addition, I use this drive to store large files that I want to keep, but not on my laptop. Old videos, accounting document archives, files and document scans for old projects, and other critical files that I only need to touch every few months, go on this drive. And I know they’re both safe and quickly accessible.
What’s our experience?
We’ve used these products for years and had great experience with them. On the few occasion when we’ve actually had a drive fail, we’ve done a quick backup to another drive, just for safety, and then mail-ordered a replacement drive. Installation is a snap using the instructions that came with the drive and then the drives sync back up automatically in the background. It really couldn’t be easier.
(Finally, if you’re backing up multiple computers over a network, we’ll have a new post about NAS drives soon.)
WD 8TB My Book Duo Desktop RAID External Hard Drive - USB 3.0 - WDBLWE0080JCH-NESN
$319.00
3 used from $271.15
Free shipping
Amazon.com
Features
- 2-Bay, 8TB Personal Cloud Storage includes 2 x 4TB HDD
- User-selectable RAID 0/1 or JBOD lets you configure your drive for more speed (default setting: RAID 0), data protection (drive mirroring: RAID 1) or operate as two independent drives (JBOD)
- High-capacity external storage and backup. Ultra-fast, optimized data transfer speeds. Protecting your data with multiple backup options
- Complete backup solutions to secure your data from loss - Integrated backup software, Cloud backup with Dropbox, System-level backup
- Speed and security with hardware encrypted RAID
WD 12TB My Book Duo Desktop RAID External Hard Drive - USB 3.0 - WDBLWE0120JCH-NESN
Free shipping
Features
- 2-Bay, 12TB Personal Cloud Storage includes 2 x 6TB HDD
- User-selectable RAID 0/1 or JBOD lets you configure your drive for more speed (default setting: RAID 0), data protection (drive mirroring: RAID 1) or operate as two independent drives (JBOD)
- High-capacity external storage and backup. Ultra-fast, optimized data transfer speeds. Protecting your data with multiple backup options
- Complete backup solutions to secure your data from loss - Integrated backup software, Cloud backup with Dropbox, System-level backup
- Speed and security with hardware encrypted RAID
WD My Book Live Duo 8TB Personal Cloud Storage NAS Share Files and Photos
Features
- Dual-drive shared storage and wireless backup for PC and Mac computers
- Secure remote access over the Internet from any computer
- Dual-safe data protection with RAID 1 mirroring
- WD 2go and WD Photos mobile apps for smartphones and tablets
WD My Book Thunderbolt Duo 4TB External Dual Hard Drive Storage with RAID
1 used from $450.00
Features
- Revolutionary Thunderbolt technology
- Two Thunderbolt ports for high-speed multi-tasking
- Dual-drive storage system with user serviceable drives
- User-selectable RAID 0/1
- Thunderbolt cable included
WD My Book Thunderbolt Duo 6TB External Dual Hard Drive Storage with RAID includes Thunderbolt cable WDBUSK0060JSL-NESN
Free shipping
Features
- Revolutionary Thunderbolt technology
- Two Thunderbolt ports for high-speed multi-tasking
- Dual-drive storage system with user serviceable drives
- User-selectable RAID 0/1
- Thunderbolt cable included
WD My Book Thunderbolt Duo 8TB External Dual Hard Drive Storage with RAID includes Thunderbolt cable WDBUSK0080JSL-NESN
1 used from 699.99
Features
- Revolutionary Thunderbolt technology
- Two Thunderbolt ports for high-speed multi-tasking
- Dual-drive storage system with user serviceable drives
- User-selectable RAID 0/1
- Thunderbolt cable included
WD My Book Live Duo 4TB Personal Cloud Storage NAS Share Files and Photos
2 used from $279.00
Features
- Centralizing and wirelessly backing up data from all the PC and Mac computers on your network
- Protecting your data with double-safe RAID 1 mirroring and dual-drives
- Viewing photos, videos and other files with free apps for your Apple, Android, BlackBerry, and Windows mobile devices
- Securely accessing your stored digital content via the Internet from any computer
- Sharing photos, videos, music, and files on your wired or wireless network
