I'm looking for an external drive to do Time Machine backup duties. The Western Digital 2TB My Passport has been recommended as well as the Seagate 2TB One Touch.

From a technical standpoint, is there any appreciable difference between the two?

Thanks!

Over my many years in IT ~ I have always preferred WD.
Seagate is a decent product.
However, you need to dig deeper and compare the product you are considering for it's intended purpose.
You cannot judge simply on the "brand" name.
Additionally, both have versions from light-use/inexpensive to heavy-duty/expensive and many in between.
I always preferred WD but never liked the lowest end (BLUE for example).
But the main reason is that IF I ever had a failure the replacement process was solid.

FWIW, I never supplied the externals but rather would insert a desktop (2.5 or 3.5 or SSD) into an enclosure.
Molded plastic and a power supply are just additional problems to deal with in troubleshooting albeit convenient.

^^^^

The WD model which was recommended is WDBA2D0020BBL-WESN. The Seagate is STGX2000400. Unfortunately, the specs associated with these mean nothing to me.

Putting an internal drive into a case makes sense in case of failure but again, I have no idea what sort of drive to get. I'm reasonably confident I could manage getting the drive into an enclosure.

I just got a new MacBook Pro and am looking for an external drive setup to do periodic backups with Time Machine.

I see that the WD I mentioned looks to be a BLUE. Would something like the WD2003FAEX or WD2003FZEX be better?

Yes the Black is the least I would do for a backup drive.
Anything more RED/GOLD would be overkill and not necessary.
There are also other versions to save power for DVR's (PURPLE) but I do no recommend those for a backup.

Backblaze publishes regular reports on drive failure rates. https://www.backblaze.com/blog...e-stats-for-q3-2021/

Seagates seem to consistently have more failures.

quote:

Originally posted by mark123:
Backblaze publishes regular reports on drive failure rates. https://www.backblaze.com/blog...e-stats-for-q3-2021/

Seagates seem to consistently have more failures.

It's been quite a few years since I was in IT, and almost as many since I used to build all of my own personal computers, so products could have changed since then.

However, the most failures that I personally experienced were Seagate drives. In all of that time, I only had one WD drive fail, and that was within 24 hours after being installed and formatted! Give me a WD any day over Seagate!!!

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:
Over my many years in IT ~ I have always preferred WD.

Of the four drive manufacturers I used most, I used to prefer WD and Fujitsu. I always experienced higher failure rates with Seagate and IBM.

(Since then: I believe the Fujitsu hard drive business was acquired by Toshiba and the IBM hard drive business was acquired by Hitachi.)

It looks like Western Digital BLACK gets the nod for the drive.

Does anyone have any preferences for external enclosures? Is there anything more to consider besides drive size and type of interface?

quote:

Originally posted by FiveFiveSixFan:
It looks like Western Digital BLACK gets the nod for the drive.

Does anyone have any preferences for external enclosures? Is there anything more to consider besides drive size and type of interface?

Not really, I have used many brands of enclosures.
If you get a 3.5" drive this will need an enclosure with a power supply and I always tried to find a unit with a built in fan as well.
If you get a 2.5" spinner (get one with 7200rpm) or a SSD the requirements are less.
The power can be done by the USB bus.
At least 3.0 USB would be best but even the slower 2.0 USB will work but not ideal especially for large data transfer.

I use WD red in both my NAS. In almost a decade I have not had a failure.

I own a mix but tend to prefer WD.

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:

Of the four drive manufacturers I used most, I used to prefer WD and Fujitsu. I always experienced higher failure rates with Seagate and IBM.

(Since then: I believe the Fujitsu hard drive business was acquired by Toshiba and the IBM hard drive business was acquired by Hitachi.)

And WD owns Hitachi now.

quote:

Originally posted by FiveFiveSixFan:

Does anyone have any preferences for external enclosures? Is there anything more to consider besides drive size and type of interface?

I'm a fan of external drive enclosures from MacSales.com (link). I have one of their two-bay external drives with two 4TB WD drives in a RAID 1 configuration. I have my Mac's Time Machine app running it. It's been running flawlessly for at least 2 years now.

Thanks for the replies. I've learned from them and hopefully will end up with a more reliable setup as a result.

A WD drive and an enclosure (with fan and power supply - thanks, smschulz) have been ordered.

I do like those enclosure from MacSales (OWC) simply because they are aluminum, well built, and match the Apple look. I like to buy the empty enclosure and add a WD Red Plus or Seagate Ironwolf. Rock solid. It's not so much the brand, but the class of drive that matters.

You can't have overkill when it comes to the durability of your backup drive. WD Black is a good drive. They are a fast drive, for spinning platters.

The Seagate 2TB drive in my iMac 27 and the Seagate 3TB drive in my Time Capsule both died this year within a short time of each other.

I'm running the iMac on two 2TB external USB-C SSD's now. One is the main drive, the other is a clone that is updated daily using Carbon Copy Cloner. To me, this is the best backup strategy. If I get around the replacing the iMac internal drive with an SSD (not an easy job) I'll still keep an external clone drive.

I replaced the drive in the Time Capsule with a 4TB SSD and a 3.5" to 2.5" adapter bracket. I bought a new Netgear WiFi router, so the Time Capsule is now just for Time Machine backups and printing.

The failing drive on the iMac caused severe problems with an OS update and my home account would barely function. And then I found my Time Machine backup on the Time Capsule was not readable either. So I am pretty much staying away from spinning drives from now on.