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If you are considering or have booked an organizing project with Narrative Structure, please wait to purchase a drive until we have discussed your storage needs.
An external hard drive (EHD) is an essential part of an organized photo library. There are two types to consider: a Hard Disk Drive (HDD) and a Solid State Drive (SSD). Here are a few features and pros/cons of each, plus links to drives we use and recommend.
We help answer this question for our photo organizing clients once we’ve had a chance to learn the details of all their photo sources. Generally, a 2TB drive is the right size for most clients. It has enough space for all photos sources and the organizing workflow and leaves some room for the photo library to grow with time. That is why all the drives linked below are 2TB.
Some projects, especially for businesses and organizations, require more space. When in doubt, we always default to having more storage capacity. There are resources such as SpaceSaver or JPEGmini (both optimize JPEG photos, cutting down the storage size, but maintaining quality and resolution) and removing exact duplicates during the organizing process that can be a game changer for maximizing the storage capacity available in a photo library.
The technology of these smaller solid state drives continues to improve and the prices lately have made them even more affordable. They are considerably smaller than an iPhone!
Recommendations:
Professional Drive (Splurge / Investment):
This is the most common external hard drive and the less expensive option, but it’s important to understand what comes with the cost difference.
Recommendations:
It’s not a matter of if, but when a drive will fail. As a general rule of thumb, we suggest replacing external hard drives every 3-5 years, however it greatly varies depending on how you are using the drive. If you ever hear a drive clicking or suddenly making noises, replace it ASAP.
Due to documented issues with sudden data loss, these solid state drives by SanDisk and Western Digital (it’s now the same company with two different brands) are no longer on our primary list of recommended drives. We do own and use some of these drives and have not had a problem (yet) and we hope we don’t. But the lack of clarity from the company regarding the problem concerns us and we don’t want to recommend a product with known problems. Do some research, read reviews. No technology is fail proof, but quality products and good maintenance and care habits will significant improve your experience.
More than anything, this highlights the importance of following the 3-2-1 rule: redundancies are essential. Make sure you can fully recover your data (and file organization) from another source should loss occur.
updated December 10, 2024