Best portable, durable, secure external hard drive

[jesp714]

I'm a journalist and producer, and am about to head to Afghanistan for
a brief stint.
Part of my work will entail some radio production, and I usually store
and work off of the audio files
that I save on an external hard drive. (I use a Lacie for audio
editing and a G-Raid for video editing at
my home-office.) Anyway, I'm looking for a solid, durable drive
(again, I'm traveling in Afghanistan),
that's very portable, is plug and play/bus-powered, works well w/
digital audio editing (I use
ProTools for this), and has some kind of security protect, if possible.
I work on lots of sensitive
material, and encrypt data w/ PGP, but want to be especially mindful of
protecting an exposed
external drive. I know this is a tall order, but I'd be grateful for
whatever ideas you could offer.
Thanks very much for all of your help.

Take care,

j

 

[kony]

I'm a journalist and producer, and am about to head to Afghanistan for
a brief stint.
Part of my work will entail some radio production, and I usually store
and work off of the audio files
that I save on an external hard drive. (I use a Lacie for audio
editing and a G-Raid for video editing at
my home-office.) Anyway, I'm looking for a solid, durable drive
(again, I'm traveling in Afghanistan),
that's very portable, is plug and play/bus-powered, works well w/
digital audio editing (I use
ProTools for this), and has some kind of security protect, if possible.
I work on lots of sensitive
material, and encrypt data w/ PGP, but want to be especially mindful of
protecting an exposed
external drive. I know this is a tall order, but I'd be grateful for
whatever ideas you could offer.
Thanks very much for all of your help.

I'd probably go with a pair of high-end flash thumbdrives,
each plugged into a separate system hub so they're not
sharing bandwidth. That will exceed the possible throughput
from any single mechanical HDD on one USB port, and be an
order of magnitude more reliable.

The downside is limited space and high cost per GB. If you
must use a mechanical drive, is there anything in particular
you need to "protect" against? It's not as though any are
meant to survive being thrown on the ground or immersed in
liquid, but most with a low heat laptop drive and closed
metal chassis serving as a heatsink should allow better dust
resistance... but then without a fan, will not be as
suitable for higher heat environments. Go with flash drives
if you can accept their capacity limits, they are
practically invulnerable to these factors if moderate enough
that the human using them can survive it.

 

[paulmd]

I'd probably go with a pair of high-end flash thumbdrives,
each plugged into a separate system hub so they're not
sharing bandwidth. That will exceed the possible throughput
from any single mechanical HDD on one USB port, and be an
order of magnitude more reliable.

The downside is limited space and high cost per GB. If you
must use a mechanical drive, is there anything in particular
you need to "protect" against?

The guys with rocket launchers mounted on jeeps would be my guess.

 

[Joel]

I'm a journalist and producer, and am about to head to Afghanistan for
a brief stint.
Part of my work will entail some radio production, and I usually store
and work off of the audio files
that I save on an external hard drive. (I use a Lacie for audio
editing and a G-Raid for video editing at
my home-office.) Anyway, I'm looking for a solid, durable drive
(again, I'm traveling in Afghanistan),
that's very portable, is plug and play/bus-powered, works well w/
digital audio editing (I use
ProTools for this), and has some kind of security protect, if possible.
I work on lots of sensitive
material, and encrypt data w/ PGP, but want to be especially mindful of
protecting an exposed
external drive. I know this is a tall order, but I'd be grateful for
whatever ideas you could offer.
Thanks very much for all of your help.

Take care,

j

The Best? I haven't heard nor owned one to know what "The Best" may look
like. But as a professional phtographer I don't want to go for the worst
either, so

- I have (2) 2.5" portable storages (1) 40GB and (1) 80GB to store the
photos when I have to shoot thousands of photos (events, sports, or away
from computer/home for days)

- I choose 2.5" because it's small enough to fit in my pocket.

- And I choose speed to save bettery life and time (when sometime on the run
seconds can make a big difference).

"The Best" neither one has failed me once yet to care for any better, if I
need to do again then I may go for either newer/better/prettier/larger
storage etc. so I never can see "The Best" to know what it may look like
<bg>

- BTW, usually one is more than enough to hold days of photographing, but
because of the extra security (like wedding or funeral photos can't be
retaken) so I often save to 2 portable storages for a peace of mind.

 

[Rod Speed]

The guys with rocket launchers mounted on jeeps would be my guess.

They're actually RPGs, and even a basic kalashnikov could be a significant problem.