Ruggedized hard drives are all the rage for photographers working in the field. I am all for them — they are more durable than plastic encased small form factor drives. The problem is with the thicker 4 terabyte offerings.
In the case
The ruggedized drives from manufacturers like Lacie and G-Tech in the 1 to 2 terabyte size are rugged as advertised, affordable and very portable. Each of these features a single hard drive that appears as a 1 or 2 terabyte volume on the computer.
The 4 terabyte version
Ruggedized drives over 2 terabytes have two hard drives in them. (The largest single 2.5″ internal drive is 2 terabytes.) They are set up for RAID 0. RAID 0 is designed for speed, not for protection. The risk of failure in these drives doubles. If either of them fails, all of the data stored on the drive is lost.
RAID 1 — the safe 2 terabyte solution
Some of these 4 terabyte enclosures offer a RAID 1 option. RAID 1 mirrors the data on one drive to the other, creating automatic protection against the failure of either drive. Set up for RAID 1, the drive is now a single 2 terabyte volume.
JBOD — Just a Bunch Of Drives
Another option on the so-called 4 terabyte drives (it’s marketing, after all, is said and done) is JBOD or Just a Bunch Of Drives where the 4 terabyte drive displays as two 2 terabyte volumes. This is the same amount of storage as if two individual 2 terabyte drives were plugged into the computer. It’s as safe as individual drive and not as protected as the RAID 1 version.
On the bottom line…
Two 2 terabyte drives in a single enclosure that offers either RAID 1 or JBOD is a very good and prudent option. RAID 0 is uber-dangerous. Thing is, the selling point from the manufacturers is capacity, not redundancy. Again, if the 4 terabyte enclosure does not offer RAID 1 or JBOD options take a pass and buy a pair of 2 terabyte rugged drives in their own enclosures instead.
Update: October 28, 2018, 6:46 p.m. EDT
Thanks to everyone who has commented so far on this post. From our readers, I’ve learned, as I often do, that they know more than I do and are willing to share. Thank you. There are 2.5″ internal hard drives up to 5 terabytes in size now available. As a professional photographer, I rely on B&H for not only my gear, but for my storage media as well. This evening I checked their offerings of 2.5″ drives. All of the hard drives I found are 2 terabytes or less. B&H does offer a 5 terabyte SSD drive and it is pricey.
Kevin Ames
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Kevin, it is not true that all 4 terabyte laptop drives consist of two complete hard drives. They may require two platters, but that is within the same drive mechanism. RAID does not apply to a single drive.
For proof, here’s a single 4tb 2.5-inch bate drive you can buy on Amazon today: https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Barracuda-2-5-Inch-Internal-ST4000LM024/dp/B01LZMUNGR/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1540660993&sr=8-2&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=4tb+laptop+drive&dpPl=1&dpID=51nBwfoJxyL&ref=plSrch
Hi JCR,
You are correct that all 4 terabyte enclosures do not contain two 2-terabyte drives. The double thickness enclosures, however, do and they are the topic of my post. Thanks!
Darn. Data loss is a everyday issue for me. Down with drives. Now I save it all on cloud. Solved.
Hi again, Kararyu,
I am very glad the cloud works for you.
Why not saving everything on cloud?
Hi Kararyu,
The cloud is great for small amounts of photos. I have a lot and slow internet upload speeds are my reason for using hard drives. When we get fast uploads I very well might add cloud storage.
Uhm I’m not sure where you are getting your information, but there are plenty of 4TB 2.5″ HDDs. It would actually be more costly to use 2 2TB HDDs than just a single 4TB right now, so I’m curious where you found these portable drives.
Hi Gavin,
I got my information from B&H. Here’s a listing of drives they offer for photographers that I searched to answer these comments. As a working photographer, I rely on them for not only gear but media as well. I did not consider looking elsewhere. I am very grateful for your pointing out that there are larger capacity 2.5″ hard drives available.
While this article does serve as a good PSA regarding single drive vs RAID reliability the statement that “The largest single 2.5″ internal drive is 2 terabytes.” isn’t entirely true. 2.5″ internal drives can range from 7-15mm in thickness with the most common thickness being either 7mm or 9.7mm (the ones typically used in laptops and most portable drives) and in that common range the largest size is 2TB. However there are 2.5″ 15mm drives up to 5TB (made by Seagate in particular) which could be used but (this is where the article has it on point) LaCie has a habit of focusing dual 7mm drives in RAID 0 to push performance metrics and that’s fine for data that is either backed up elsewhere or unimportant. The best option for portable safe and ample storage would be to use a 2.5″ 15mm external RAID enclosure with two 5TB drives in RAID 1, though I am currently unaware of specifically a ruggedized option for this yet there are a handful of well built 15mm portable RAID enclosures.
I was just wondering when the last time you looked for a single laptop drive. They have them in 3, 4, 5 Tb now.
Hi Charles,
Yes. When I checked recently on B&H, I did not see any hard drives larger than 2 terabytes. As always, reading comments on my posts is a learning experience for which I am grateful.
“(The largest single 2.5″ internal drive is 2 terabytes.)”
Stopped reading right here. It takes all of 3 seconds to research, and I hope for your sake that you learn how to do so before your next article.
Seagate 5TB Barracuda SATA 6Gb/s 128MB Cache 2.5-Inch 15mm Internal Hard Drive (ST5000LM000) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01M0AADIX/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_jSo1BbR3Y4Y7X
Hi Trent,
Yup! My mistake. You are absolutely right and I am wrong. The best part of writing is learning from the comments. I’d checked for larger than 2 terabyte 2.5″ internal drives on my favorite photo website and did not find any. Your help is appreciated.
https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Inch-Internal-MZ-76E4T0B-AM/dp/B07864XY8B
And a waterproof enclosure and a cheap fireproof bag and your problem’s solved for under 1K.
If you really want coverage off site a copy as well to cloud for cheap.
Hi Big Bird,
Yes! A large capacity SSD drive would be a good solution and at a high price, as you say. The dual 2-terabyte enclosures that state their capacity as 4 terabytes are much, much less expensive and therefore very attractive — high capacity, low price. This problem is the RAID 0 configuration to get to a 4 terabyte volume.
Dome false info here, Seagate’s 4tb and 5tb portables aren’t a raid array
Hi Amy,
You are correct. Single drives are not a RAID array. The article you’ve replied to concerns enclosures with two drives.
Thanks for the information!
I’d just like to add that it would be prudent for anyone who values their photos to take some time to develop a backup strategy.
If you don’t have one, I’d be happy to offer some tips (I’ve been developing and implementing backup, disaster recovery, and business continuity strategies for the last 10 years for medium sized businesses to very large enterprises).
Anyone serious about their photos should consider RAID, an on-site backup, and an off-site backup. RAID is not backup. Either is Dropbox (though the premium plans have some 30 days recovery options, but space is a premium $). Having those three elements can be very costly, so at least look at an offsite backup like BackBlaze (no affiliation). $50 a year can save you an awful lot of pain…that’s basically one visit to Starbucks a month if you grab a Grande.
If you can afford RAID and even an entry level NAS as well…all the better. I usually go with RAID 5 when dealing with few disks bc you get some speed, most of your space, and 1 drive can drop without losing data. If you can afford bested RAID levels, all the better (like 1+0).
You can back up to even an entry-level NAS, and you can pick one up for a few hundred (US) dollars. If all the time and care you spent on your images is worth more than $2-400 bucks, then your business case is made.
Hi David,
I agree. A digital asset management system using a local working drive, an onsite backup, and an offsite backup is ideal. Moving from Just a Bunch of Discs can be a challenge. Here’s a guide for getting started with my favorite RAID storage, Drobo. As a point of full disclosure, I am currently a Drobo Pro Ambassador. At the time of the writing of the article, I was only a customer.
Regarding storage in the cloud no matter what the service or cost, the barrier to usability is the upload speed of an internet connection. Most photographers and consumers have slightly more than 1 megabyte per second upload speed. A terabyte of data is a million megabytes. At 1 megabyte per second, a terabyte would take 11 days to upload. This is not practical for high volume photographers. Maybe more “Grande” visits per month might be needed.
They make hard drives much larger than 2tb in 2.5in form factor. So not all external drives would need 2 disks in them.
Hi Gavin,
You are absolutely correct. Thank you for commenting!
This is blatantly incorrect. There are 2.5” drives more than 2TB, not sure where you got your information.
Hi Noah,
Yes. There are 2.5″ internal drives larger than two terabytes. There are also drive enclosures containing a pair of 2-terabyte drives that claim their capacity is 4 terabytes. If they mount on the desktop as two separate 2-terabyte volumes there is no worry regarding the RAID 0 danger I discussed. When the volume on the desktop is 4 terabytes from two drives, it has to be in RAID 0 which means that if either drive in the enclosure fails, all of the data stored in it is lost.
As an IT professional I can say that you are probably wrong. It’s still one disc it might have multiple platters but it’s one hard drive. Furthermore, if I were to accept your viewpoint on hard drives then an 8tb hard drive would be four hard drives? And what a 12 terabyte hard drive be 6 hard drives? This is misinformation and you should really take this article down.
Hi Robert,
I am not talking about single drives in this post. The double thick enclosures with two drives in them are the subject of the discussion. An 8 terabyte 3.5-inch drive is not 4-2 terabyte drives. My concern is that photographers who make their living from photos saved initially on external portable drives deserve to understand where reliability might be compromised. Nowhere in the article did I suggest that any single sized drive was made from multiple drives. What I explained was there are double thickness 4 terabyte capacity enclosures containing two 2-terabyte drives formatted as a RAID 0 volume.
This is false, there are 4 and even 5 TB drives in 2.5″ format, internal and portable, for example from Seagate.
Hi SS,
No argument from me on the availability of 4 or 5 terabyte 2.5″ drives! This post concerned enclosures holding two 2-terabyte drives stating they have 4 terabytes of capacity. The only way this is possible in a single volume is with a RAID 0 configuration which adds another point of failure for all of the data on the device.
You can get 5TB 2.5″ laptop drives and 4TB 2.5″ ssd so you should be able to get a single drive rugged, or get the small one and put your own in.
Hi Disappointed,
And I am so sorry that you are. You are absolutely correct that 5 terabyte drives are available as are 4 terabyte SSDs. This article is strictly for the dual drive units ruggedized or not.
Any single HDD without raid is Not safe of any brand.. Seagate, WD or any other
Hi Yaseen,
True. The issue with dual 2 terabyte drives in a single enclosure as a RAID 0 is that the rise of losing everything is doubled. If one drive fails, all of the data goes away.
So, can we change rakd 0 to jbod? Hpw?
Hi Dody,
RAID 0 can only be changed to JBOD or RAID 1 if there is a switch for those options on the drive.
A point of clarification, 4T 2.5” drives do exist. https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Barracuda-2-5-Inch-Internal-ST4000LM024/dp/B01LZMUNGR
Generally though the cheaper or less well known brands of portable 2.5” 4tb enclosed drives are likely to be 2x 2T.
i feel a little click baited. based on the title, I thought it was a specific 4tb drive that has a defect, or the ruggedness is not as great for 4tb drives. instead it is a warning about dual drives in raid 0 in case something happens. size and ruggedness has almost nothing to do with the content of the article other than the specific drives being called out.
Hi Ken,
It is never my intention to click bait anyone. The 4 Tb ruggedized drives are the ones that I have found to be the ones that contain a pair of drives rather than a single one. The easiest way to tell is to compare their thickness to one of the single drive units (1 or 2 terabyte capacity). In order for dual 2 terabyte drives to reach a capacity of 4tb in a single volume on a computer is if they are configured for RAID 0. RAID 0 stripes data across the two drives. This form of storing data is used for speed, usually in video editing where a complete backup on another type of protected storage device is maintained. RAID 0 is dangerous because if either drive fails, all of the data on both drives is lost.
I think that your reasoning is flawed. When you are comparing raid configurations then sure, raid0 is the worst, and would then not be recommended. But when compared to a single drive, the outcome is the same, and it makes no difference on the reliably, but increases the speed. If you are going to say that having two drives reduces the reliability, compared to one, then you need to demonstrate how you got to that conclusion. Comparing it to other raid configurations is not it.
Hi Cyberdog,
If I understand your comment, I am not comparing RAID configurations to a single drive. This post is concerning double thick enclosures that do contain a pair of 2-terabyte hard drives and state their capacity is 4 terabytes. If the double thick enclosure mounts on the computer as a single volume it almost certainly is configured as RAID 0.
Kevin, please know that I mean the best when I say this. I understand that you’re trying to help people here but you’re simply wrong about pretty much everything in this article.
Seagate sells up to 5TB 2.5″ hard drives (cheap, too.) I was looking to buy one just yesterday. I have a link at the bottom of my comment.
Also, the reason they use RAID 0 on this drive you’re talking about is if they used any other form of RAID, one of the drives would be relegated to backup. So yes, RAID 0 significantly increases speed, but in this case it’s literally the only way they could get the two drives to function as one.
Seagate 5TB Barracuda SATA 6Gb/s 128MB Cache 2.5-Inch 15mm Internal Hard Drive (ST5000LM000) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01M0AADIX/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_ysD1Bb24D4BAM
Hi Liam,
I understand you mean well and you are right about the Seagate 5Tb drives. I am talking about the enclosures that hold two drives, not one that is single drive thick. The photos on the post are of the thicker form factor.
Thank you for the link that you have shared.
Kevin
I wouldn’t say that Raid 0 is “uber-dangerous” but it certainly isn’t as safe as the other solutions you mentioned. Thank you for the article Kevin.
You are wrong that these drives are 2x riskier due to raid 0, in either instance weather your faux 2 x2tb drivers or a single 4tb drive have the same risk factor, this article is therfore pointless.
In either instance a single drive failure causes all your data loss.
This is Assuming catastrophic failure and not just a bad sector.
Plus anybody without a backup is an idiot anyways
Hi Michael,
In the spirit of clarification, if a RAID 0 has two hard drives in it, and either on fails all of the data on both are lost. So, there are two catastrophic failure points possible in a two 2-terabyte RAID 0 device whereas a single drive only has one point of failure. As you point out, either one has the same result. Your point about backups is a bit harsh. I would use the word foolish.
Well enough people have addressed larger than 2TB so I’ll leave that one be. However, are people really relying on keeping all their eggs in one basket? Redundancy is critical when working with a client. Now granted I do video work and record onto SSD, but I still make sure those files are in one of 3 places at any given time. If a drive fails it is elsewhere. I have mine setup to transfer to both desktop and server from an external drive.
Hi Michael,
Yes, sadly, some people are keeping all of their digital asset eggs in a single and frankly fragile basket. I cannot possibly agree with you more on the importance of backing up digital files. Thanks for the comment!