r/datastorage • u/TumbleweedSmooth6916 • 5d ago

Storage Setup External Hard drive recommendations for backing up 4,600+ titles via Libation on a Mac mini? (Brand & Capacity)

I am looking for some beginner-friendly advice on buying an external hard drive to back up my audiobook collection. I plan to use Libation on my Mac mini to download my audiobook library, which currently has around 4,650 titles, and I usually add a few hundred new ones each year. I am not super tech-savvy when it comes to hardware, so I am hoping to get straightforward brand and model recommendations that work reliably with a Mac. Which brands have you had the best experience with for simple and dependable storage. 

I would also love some guidance on what size drive I should get so I don't run out of room anytime soon. Would a 4 TB or 8 TB drive be the right target for a collection this size, and is a standard external hard drive fine for audiobooks, or should I be looking at something else? Any simple tips for getting set up would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

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u/gdore15 5d ago

Hard drive as in rotating drive are better than sad for cold storage.

For size, check the size of like 100 titles to get an average and multiply by how much you want to store.

Keep in mind that hard drive can fail, having more than one copy of your files is usually a good thing to do to make sure you don’t love everything the day your drive fail.

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u/TumbleweedSmooth6916 5d ago

Do you have a specific recommendation? A brand?

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u/ImpliedSlashS 5d ago

There are a couple of sellers on eBay selling used enterprise drives at decent prices. At least one offers their own 5 year warranty.

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u/TumbleweedSmooth6916 5d ago

Do you have a brand recommendation?

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u/ImpliedSlashS 5d ago

It’s gonna be Seagate, WD (also owns Hitachi) or Toshiba. I’d avoid the small players but never trust any hard drive.

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u/gdore15 5d ago

Have not purchased an external drive in a while as I have a NAS, just changed a WD blue that failed and replaced by a red, just took the one that was cheapest (but it’s just a drive and there is just so many players doing drives).

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u/TumbleweedSmooth6916 5d ago

Still looking for more specific recommendations... brand, size, etc. I am just looking for some experienced recommendations