Hello,

Interesting question with no short answer sadly. As you note, we're spoilt
for choice, therefore the best advice is use what you can afford - but in
duplicate or triplicate even. These kind of drives arent built for
physical storage but only for transport and there is no guarantee that it
will last for as long as you need.

In my experience there are 3 failure factors listed in order of stress:
 - disk fault... no fun in recovering from this and thats why there's a
warranty and you run duplicates
 - bus fault... the firewire or usb connection in the old designs used to
fry the link between the computer and the drive, I've noticed it in the
tiny usb 3 cheap drives now too
 - powersupply, shouldn't affect the data on the drive but if you cant turn
it on, no dice

I like to use drives with added power, I dont like bus powered drives, but
I'm a snob. The tiny bus powered drives are very simple for transporting
data and posting, we do buy them all the time because they are so cheap on
the basis its never forever!

If I was you I'd buy one of these
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA1J20UC1404 AS WELL as
something else.

Or as an alternative... how much does 500GB on BackBlaze or Amazon S3
cost?.. the Mp3s will fit on a DVD. Depends how much they want to use the
files too.

Let us know how you get on.
alex.




On 28 November 2013 22:16, Lou Judson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> I am working on project of some 288 hours of transfers from analog tapes
> to digital for the family of the presenter. I'm using 24/96 for the
> original transfers, so will need about 500 gigs of storage for the stereo
> 96k material, plus 44.1 masters, MP3s and so on that they can use...
>
> What sort of drive is now recommended for sending the family their copy of
> the digital material? It seems that there are plenty of USB 1TB drives out
> now, but what is recommended for sending to offsite storage of
> non-technical people? I'm thinking of selecting from this:
> <
> http://www.newegg.com/All-External-Hard-Drives/SubCategory/ID-414?nm_mc=EMCPB-112013&cm_mmc=EMCPB-112013-_-PB-_-TBD-_-TBD&et_cid=3181&et_rid=2464782>
> like perhaps the Seagate Expansion listed at $119, but curious what any
> "digitizers" here would use?
>
> Thanks,
> <L>
> Lou Judson
> Intuitive Audio
> 415-883-2689
>