In this article, we are going to return to one of our favorite subjects: data storage. We recently purchased a Western Digital Elements 5TB external hard drive and decided to share our experience with this device. We will discuss its features, performance, and how it fits into our revised off-site data backup strategy. We hope this article provides valuable insights for anyone considering a similar purchase or looking to improve their data storage and backup practices.
Western Digital Elements 5TB External Hard Drive: Features and Specifications
The Western Digital Elements 5TB external hard drive we purchased is a 2.5-inch hard drive with a high capacity, making it an attractive option for data storage. This device is available for around $100 in the United States and £99.99 in the United Kingdom.
Western Digital offers several variations of their Elements series, including the WD Elements SE, which is identical internally but features a slightly different case design and comes with different backup and utility software. There are also gaming and “My Passport” versions of these external hard drives, each with their unique features and specifications.
The WD Elements 5TB external hard drive connects via a Micro Super Speed USB connector and includes a small blue indicator LED to show when it is powered on. The drive comes pre-formatted with a single NTFS partition and includes some software, which we chose to delete as it was not necessary for our purposes.
Performance Test
To evaluate the performance of the WD Elements 5TB external hard drive, we used CrystalDiskMark for theoretical tests, followed by real-world file transfer tests. CrystalDiskMark showed read and write speeds of over 100 MB/s, which is quite impressive for a 2.5-inch external hard drive. Our real-world test involved copying 2.28 GB of data to the drive, which completed in 22.1 seconds. This translates to a backup speed of approximately 6 GB of data per minute, which we found satisfactory.
Our Backup Strategy: The 441 Rule
Our backup strategy follows the 441 rule, which entails keeping four copies of all data on four separate media, with at least one copy always held off-site. This enhanced version of the standard 3-2-1 backup rule provides extra security and protection for our data.
We categorize our data into three groups:
- Normal Data: Small-scale data such as documents, spreadsheets, images, and photographs. Backed up on local SSDs, hard drives, and online services like Google Docs, Microsoft, and Amazon Web Services.
- Live or Recent Video Projects: Medium-scale data totaling hundreds of gigabytes. Backed up on local SSDs, hard drives, and on encrypted drives carried on our person when leaving home.
- Archive Video Projects: Large-scale data consisting of multiple terabytes. Backed up on local hard drives, including the Western Digital Elements 5TB external hard drive, and off-site backup using 2.5-inch drives in Pelican cases.
Conclusion
The Western Digital Elements 5TB external hard drive is an excellent option for data storage and backup, offering impressive performance at an affordable price. By incorporating this device into our 441 backup strategy, we can ensure the safety and security of our valuable data.
Remember, it is essential to develop a backup strategy tailored to your specific needs and requirements. By doing so, you can protect your digital data and have peace of mind knowing that your files are secure.
Also, never assume your backups are complete. You should restore completely to a second system from your back ups occasionally to test them. I worked for a company that went bankrupt because a program was keeping a maintenance file open and it was not getting backed up. Test test test!
I’m glad to see you are proponent of backups and a good backup strategy. I used to do backup software development for windows until 4 years ago and was in that position for 22 years. It is amazing how many people are reluctant to do any backups or consider a single backup good enough. I tend to limit how many copies of large files I keep but all of my critical files I keep multiple backups to the cloud and have saved myself much pain several times recovering files I accidentally deleted.
My first hard drive was an ST-225 and it cost a lot, I don’t remember exactly. A few years later a friend got a 600-800MB, something like that for about a buck a meg and we wondered at the fact that he could copy a WHOLE CD to it if he wanted to, it was HUGE! It’s been fun watching the changes over the years. NT 4.0 and Win 2K were so small in hindsight, but so crisp, clean and capable.
Backup strategy is most important. Multiple backups as mentioned is critical for critical files. Speaking from experirnce, USB external drives should be the “extra” backup for lack of a better term. Always connected USB drives have been the ones to fail first. Using a rotating backup is fine for longer life but USB drives should get the backup and then be ejected and disconnected to get the longest life out of them. This is just my opinion from experience.
Nice job as always sir! Stay well and get through the week as best as you can.