I have maybe 4 of them, primarily for the read and write speeds for photos. I tend to get whatever is on sale at Costco at the time. Sandisk 1TB was down to $99 at one point, same with the Samsung T7 directly from the Samsung website. I got the Crucial one when it was $124 at Amazon.

They all get hot quickly. But they are fast.

I still back up to a regular spinning drive, 5TB from Costco.

Not to hijack this thread, but what HDD enclosure do you guys recommend?

Back in 2020 I bought a Sabrent EC-DFLT model but while using it a couple weeks ago there was a hiccup either in the power or something else and it quit working. I'm not sure if I over heated it by keeping some extra drives on top of it while using it or what. If there's a 'better' one out there let me know, otherwise I'll just get another and right it off. It wasn't used that much at all which is why I'm hesitant to get another one.

crap only half that posted and delete post not working

on my phone

repost later

Any reco's welcome to my question above.
Thanks.

k so the sabrent is a dock and you say you had drives stacked on it so i assume you swap drives from time to time.

I would suggest one of these, swap in two drives at a time and you also have a drive cloner.

I have this brand. No issues with it to date.

https://www.amazon.com/WAVLINK-Dual-Bay-External-3-5-inch-Duplicator/dp/B07C9RSZFM/ref=sr_1_2_sspa?keywords=hard%2Bdrive%2Bduplicator &qid=1646662097&sr=8-2-spons&smid=A1ZAFAL1WND4H&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlm aWVyPUExUVE1RE05MDhSOUcxJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUExMDI3OT kxMlpaTDhPSjhFNzM0TCZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwNzI5NjI3 NEtVMVJISEQwN0czJndpZGdldE5hbWU9c3BfYXRmJmFjdGlvbj 1jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ&th=1

If you are looking for a good SSD external drive, there are several things to decide up front. The ONLY reason to use an external SSD is speed. So be certain the drive is USB 3.1 don't even bother with USB 2.0 and 3.0. If your computer is so old it does not have USB 3.1, then 3.0 is OK. It is pointless and just wasting money to have a SSD in a USB 2.0 enclosure. eSATA connections are even better if you have that.

What I use for external drives is a USB 3.1 bare drive adapter. Plug in the drive to the adapter, and plug into the computer and get to backing up. The most important thing is to remember to do the backup, and do it regularly. And use two different backup drives stored in a safe place.

For truly critical files, backup just the data to a thumb drive regularly. No need to do a full system backup constantly, just the data files. I have an APP on my phone called Air Disk Pro. It sets up a wireless connection to my computer. I set up the folders and I can back up the data files of the most important programs and entire folders of my business records. Every invoice and the information on insurance and the airplane and all those are backup up to my phone weekly.

And of course they are backed up regularly to my internal 5 drive RAID 5 spinning drive.

Thanks everyone. Lots of good info.

Exactly the type of thing I'm looking for. Thanks. Yes, I do swap some old drives just to access the old files on them.SmileWavy

BTW the ones I got at Costco claim up to 1050Mbps. Don't bother with the 550Mbps, that's only a tad faster than the spinning discs. The ones that claim 2Tbps, or those that utilize Thunderbolt speeds, are too expensive for me.

I’ve never had any brand go bad and it doesn’t matter because I back them all up to the cloud.

Well there was one, it that was because I used the wrong power cable and fried it. $75 mistake.