Photographer's Storage Buying Guide: Protect Your Digital Masterpieces

When it comes to preserving and protecting your digital photographs, choosing the right storage solution is critical. In this guide, we’ll walk you through some of the important factors to consider when shopping for a storage solution, including which specs to focus on and the different storage category types. We’ll also include some of our favorite storage options and explain what makes them so great.

Understanding Your Storage Capacity

A good rule of thumb when it comes to understanding your ideal storage capacity is to measure how many SD cards you use in an average shoot and add up their used capacity. If you have three 256GB SD cards, that comes close to reaching 1TB of data usage, so that is what you would want to have at a minimum. Multiple projects could take up more room or less room depending on your settings.

Once you have an idea of how much space you’ll need for several sessions, then you can measure your options. Some people like to have on-site storage in the form of external storage drives while others like to have storage arrays at their home or office. Your options here are important because no one wants to physically carry more than they necessarily want to, especially for shots in remote locations.  Remember, the more storage you have the more prepared you are for anything!

Portable, Stationary, and Backup Storage

Before we get into which storage is best for each of your scenarios, we should talk about the two categories of storage: portable and stationary. Portable storage is pretty self-explanatory, but despite that there could be a lot of confusion surrounding this platform.

Portable storage usually consists of thumb drives and external HDDs or SSDs. Thumb drives are great for smaller files but wouldn’t be the first go-to solution if you have a large media library. External HDDs are great because they tend to hold a lot and tend to come in at lower prices, but they are quite fragile, so you need to usually have a dedicated carry case or have a rugged exterior that can withstand drops and impacts. Portable SSDs are ideal for the photographer on the move due to their form factor. SSDs don’t have any moving parts and use specialized chipsets to store your data. There are rugged versions of these types of drives that add a layer of protection to your drives which we will get into later.

Stationary storage is equally important when it comes to storing your beloved media. Similar to portable drives, stationary storage drives also come in many different flavors. We have the classic larger external drive which tends to be heavier but holds massive amounts of data as well as external drive bays which can be equipped with multiple drives to save your data. There are even more advanced systems such as NAS arrays which can provide you with even greater utility.

In some cases, users would want to keep their data backed up and safe against any potential failure. Luckily, desktop stationary storage and backup storage have a lot in common. How you backup your data is up to you, but you always want to keep efficiency in mind. Saving important data to multiple external storage drives is not always efficient, especially if one of these small drives gets misplaced. Multi-bay drive arrays use multiple drives to create incredibly large storage pools and can be configured in various RAID formats to prevent major data loss in the event of failure. Then we have Network Attached Storage (NAS) bays which work like a multi-bay drive array but can be attached to a network so multiple computers on a network can access the files.

Key Storage Specifications

When shopping around for a new drive, you need to know what is good and what is greater. Capacity is the easiest spec to understand as higher capacities mean you can hold more. The second most important spec is data transfer speeds. Drives will typically have maximum data transfer speed or read/write speeds. When you see just a single number detailing the maximum data transfer speed, that typically covers both the read and write speed of a particular drive, most common on SATA-based HDDs and SSDs. M.2 SSDs on the other hand offer maximum read and write speeds which could be different depending on the capacity and other integrated components.

Internal drives are quite easy to understand as SATA III drives (both HDDs and SSDs) typically max out at up to 6 Gb/s. M.2 drives operating on the PCIe interface shares a speed with the appropriate generation. Since these operate along with internal “lanes,” which determine how fast the drive operates, the M.2 form factor can change depending on the drive. PCIe 3.0 has a speed of 1 GB/s per lane for x1 and 2 GB/s per lane for x2, PCIe 4.0 has 2GB per lane for x1 and 4 GB/s per lane for x2, and PCIe 5.0 has 4 GB/s per lane for x1 and 8 GB/s per lane for x2.

For external drives, the USB connectivity type depends on the data transfer speeds. For instance, USB 2.0 drives, while rare, can only operate at 480 Mb/s, which isn’t that fast and not suggested for anything above standard documents and files. USB 3.2 Gen 1 and Gen 2 both operate at a maximum data transfer rate of 5 and 10 Gb/s, respectively. Then we have the growing USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 which operates at 20 Gb/s but requires a system that provides that maximum operating speed.

Various Thunderbolt technologies which can produce high speeds depending on the generation. Thunderbolt technology is typically found in a few storage arrays. Thunderbolt 3 and 4 both operate with up to 40 Gb/s with the newly adopted Thunderbolt 5 operating up to 80 Gb/s. Now, there is a rather big notation that needs to be pointed out and that is how some external drives will be Thunderbolt compatible. While a lot of drives are compatible, they do not operate at the maximum efficiency as something that is Thunderbolt dedicated.

RAID Storage

RAID, or Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks, is a storage virtualization technology that combines and configures multiple disk drives. There are multiple levels of RAID configurations, but the most common are RAID 0 and RAID 1. RAID 0 takes the information you save and spreads the data evenly across multiple discs while RAID 1 creates an exact copy of a set of data on two or more disks. There are other RAID levels that can be handy, but in most cases, these are the most common.

There is also JBOD, which stands for “Just a Bunch of Disks” which takes multiple drives and treats them each independently. They can be combined using a volume manager in advanced cases. Since there is no redundancy with JBOD, if a disk fails, all of your data is lost as opposed to RAID configurations which hold entire or partial data for retrieval.

Portable Storage Options

Portable HDDs are fairly popular despite their size and fragility. Luckily, LaCie has a range of rugged SSDs with storage capacities from 1TB to 5TB! These drives are powered by USB-C connection and do not require an external power source which is great for offloading photos from your system’s internal storage or even an SD card. Additionally, the external casing keeps the drive safe with enhanced durability withstanding drops up to 4’, crush resistance up to 1 ton, and resistance to rain, ideal for tough terrain.

If you are looking for something more lightweight, compact, and faster, you can’t go wrong with the Samsung T7 Shield Portable SSD. This drive is great for travelers and remote shooting due to their size and weight. They can also withstand rougher terrain. While these drives aren’t impervious to damage completely, they are much more reliable than any HDD. The trade-off here is the cost and capacities as these drives tend to come at a premium price with a maximum of 4TB for this particular model.

SanDisk also has their own Extreme Portable SSD V2 which features a similar interior design as the Samsung T7 with an exterior designed for more intense environments. With IP65 water and dust resistance, the Extreme can withstand the outdoors and even features a built-in carabiner loop for easy transport and security.

Stationary Storage Options

If you would like to bring your work from the site to your office, a stationary storage solution is more suited for you. Coming in various form factors that we have spoken about previously, stationary options are great for workstations and, in some cases, usage for multiple users.

First, we have the WD Elements Desktop External Hard Drive. This singular drive is ideal for those just starting out in the world of photography who prefer to edit and save their files at their workstation. This stationary design offers capacities up to 24TB which is ample room for multiple projects. It also has dedicated AC power which means it is not relying on your PC for the necessary power.

For seasoned photographers, a hard-drive array might be the best answer for you. Usually featuring multiple drive bays, these arrays hold multiple HDDs. Not only can you choose the capacity to best fit your workload, but you can also set it in various RAID configurations to help manage information in more efficient means.

For example, the OWC Gemini is a 2-bay RAID array that connects to your system and operates on the Thunderbolt 3 interface, giving you fast read and write speeds so you can store your files quickly. There are multiple configurations available to best scale to your needs. Additionally, you have the option to remove the internal drives and place your own in which is great if your work begins to grow. Larger multi-bay arrays are also available with as many as 8-bays for even larger workloads.

Users looking for something more flexible can peer at the Buffalo TeraStation which takes your storage solution to new heights. It offers some of the same basic functions as a standard RAID array but can be connected to your home or company’s network so multiple users can access whatever is saved or operate remotely with appropriate permissions.

With so many options out there, this guide should have pointed you in the right direction for your storage needs. Whether you are out in the field or at home, there is something out there that meets your needs. If you’re interested in these storage drives, take a look at each of the product pages. Have any questions? Then leave one below and we’ll do our best to answer them!