Western Digital 2TB Hard Drive

(click the photo for more pictures on amazon.com)

One of the most critical aspects of using a computer is having a regular, stable, and secure backup solution, such as the Western Digital 2TB Hard Drive.  One of the best quotes I’ve ever heard regarding an effective backup solution is, “if you don’t have your data in 2 places, you don’t have it.”  I heard the quote several years ago by David Prager on the TWIT (This Week in Tech) Podcast, hosted by Leo Laporte.  With our wedding videography business, we’ve tested several AVCHD backup solutions as small as Iomega portable laptop drives, all the way up to higher end multi-drive solutions such as the DROBO.  The fastest, most reliable, most affordable AVCHD backup solution we have found is the Western Digital 2TB Hard drive.

The Western Digital 2TB Hard drive is widely available at nearly all retail stores and online stores, but it’s cheapest on Amazon.  As of this writing the 2TB model is about $135, which comes out to 6.7 cents / GB.  This is insanely cheap for a backup and storage solution.  The drive is fast, it’s clean, and it quite simply just works.  This drive comes bundled with windows backup software and seamlessly integrates into our recommended Quad core i7 Macbook pro with Time Machine on every mac.

Backup Stability

I’m almost embarrassed to admit that from time to time we’ve dropped this backup drive, and the case has snapped open, and my heart just skips a beat.  This is an unfortunate reality in the fast paced world of computers that we live in today.  Fortunately I learned that inside the housing of this drive, there are four large rubber grips that are tightly holding onto this drive at all four corners, that protect the drive from unfortunate drops.  I think that’s why of all of the backup solutions that we have used or tested out, I would recommend this drive more than any other solution.

Secure Backups

Another sensitive thing that can be done using nearly any AVCHD backup solution, is creating a secure or encrypted backup.  This can easily be done by purchasing the drive, then using Disk Utility, which is built into every mac, to Encrypt the file system, so that if anyone walks away with your external backup hard drive, they can’t just simply plug the drive into another computer without having the password to unlock its contents.

Backups with Speed

One aspect of a good backup solution that I considered recommending was a network based backup, which could operate over 802.11n or even a wired Gigabit connection, but the problem that I found with this solution is that the lag time when pulling video files back and forth over the network took too long, especially if your fighting with other wireless or wired hosts on your home or business LAN for the spectrum in order to pull files down fast enough.  If this idea sounds too complicated or over your head, don’t worry about it, just focus on using a  good hard drive backup solution that works for you.  In terms of a good regular, stable, secure, fast backup solution, I recommend the Western Digital 2TB USB drive, click the button below to purchase this drive on Amazon.