External Drive Failed

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Level 4

3,722 points

External Drive Failed

My brother is an advanced amateur photographer, and recently upgraded to a new MacBook Pro. A couple of weeks after getting this new (awesome!) MacBook, he connected his external hard drive with ALL of the photos he's taken over the last 50 years (approx. 2TB worth), and discovered it has failed. Unfortunately, he has no other backup of this drive.

He sent the drive into Secure Data Systems for an estimate on the cost of recovering the data on it, and they sent him an estimate of approximately $2,000.

Has anyone here used a data recovery service they'd recommend that might be more reasonably priced? (My brother's not trying to "lowball" anything, but he's retired and it would be difficult for him to find $2,000 for this).

(He's confirmed it's definitely a drive failure, so no troubleshooting advice is needed).

Posted on Oct 25, 2023 7:50 AM

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Answer 1

Ronasara

Level 6

15,519 points

Oct 25, 2023 9:36 AM in response to MacMikeInOK

As I understand it, all such services are very expensive. I would council him to focus on ensuring that the recovery service is reliable. Since at some point all drives will fail, that is why a backup service is critical. And a lot cheaper than the recovery cost.

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Answer 2

MacMikeInOK Author

Level 4

3,722 points

Oct 25, 2023 11:06 AM in response to Ronasara

Good advice...thank you. Yes, I'm certain that, going forward, he'll subscribe to a cloud backup system.

He did tell me the individual he spoke with at Secure Data Systems said pretty much the same thing about all drives failing eventually, and that Western Digital drives were the most likely to fail. (No idea if this is applies to all WD's drives, or just the model my brother has).

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Answer 3

Ronasara

Level 6

15,519 points

Oct 25, 2023 11:12 AM in response to MacMikeInOK

I have some thoughts to offer. First, he needs to understand that Apple's iCloud is NOT a backup system for Macs. It is designed for cross platform sharing. Microsoft does have a good backup cloud and there are others, but they often have continuing costs. A good backup drive does not. Personally, I use LaCie drives and have no problems with them.

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Answer 4

MacMikeInOK Author

Level 4

3,722 points

Oct 25, 2023 11:18 AM in response to Ronasara

Funny you should mention Lacie, as that's the brand of his new external drive (and the brand I've been using for Time Machine backups for years).

Yes, he knows iCloud is not a total backup system, which is why he's researching services like BackBlaze to back up his Lightroom library. He'll continue using Time Machine for his MacBook Pro backups.

I don't think iCloud would be the ideal solution for his Lightroom/Photoshop files, as I don't know how well it would handle the sidecar files, etc.).

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External Drive Failed

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