Can I use a 10m long USB lead?

I want to connect an external drive to a computer to back up to, ideally it would sit in a cupboard on the other side of the room. Can I use a 10m USB lead? Will it upset anything?

The HDD will have an external power supply so doesn’t need to power it over that distance.

Ta!

It should work fine.  Just buy a decent one as the transfer rate will depend on it. Doesn’t need to be expensive, just not crap.  That can be hard to tell though, TBH it’s as easy to just buy a cable and see if it works and if it doesn’t then buy a different/better one.  It’s a digital bus protocol, if the packet doesn’t reach the drive then it just gets re-sent until it does, which slows it down but you can’t corrupt the data with a crap cable.

Just make sure they’re both plugged into the same phase, shouldn’t be a problem at home, would only be an issue in a commercial building with a 3-phase supply.

Give it a try… You might lose a bit of speed but a better quality cable should help.

Shouldn’t be a problem for backups as they are not really relying on going at full speed…

https://www.techreviewer.com/learn-about-tech/usb-cable-max-lengths/

This is what NAS drives are for surely 🤔

Or you could fit an extra drive into the pc case and do it all on board.. Though I suppose it’s not exactly best practice to have a back up drive in the same machine!

This is what NAS drives are for surely

This is what cloud storage is for, surely?

Pic of Phil5556’s hard drive earlier!…

…seriously – how big is this drive!? Even big capacity ones are tiny now. 🙂

You can.

Whether you should is another matter.  What are you gaining by hiding a box the size of a pack of playing cards in a cupboard and stringing a 10m cable to it?  (Also, how big is your room?!)

This is what cloud storage is for, surely?

Also, this.

It’s a bit random whether or not it will work.  I’ve had some stuff work over that distance and some stuff not.  Your problem with a permanently connect external drive is if this is anti ransomware protection as well you are probably stuffed as the external drive will get toasted at the same time as the main one

Cloud storage ≠ backup

Your problem with a permanently connect external drive is

and

Cloud storage ≠ backup

Really, the question should be “recommend me a backup solution” followed by a comprehensive description of what the OP is trying to achieve.

In an ideal world I’d want some form of local storage for convenience, cloud storage for availability, and some form of cold (disconnected) fallback to safeguard against malware.  But that’s overkill if what you’re backing up is an ISO of Office than you can readily just download again anyway, a half-terabyte Sandisk pendrive is 35 quid and can live on your keyring.

I don’t practice what I preach, my backup solution is a USB hard drive that lives at my mum’s.  Periodically I retrieve it, back up photos and documents to it and then return it.  But that works for me, I don’t have anything of value aside from 20 years’ worth of pictures that I’ve never done anything with, and I know full well that if it all goes bang tomorrow I only have myself to blame rather than hitting the Internet going “can anyone help me recover…” because the answer to that question is “no” unless you’ve got a grand or two to spend.

Thanks, I’ll give it a go.

Can’t put one in the case, it’s a Mac, Apple doesn’t like you doing things like that.

I have a NAS but it’s not really big enough, there’s no point in me spending extra on a NAS over just an external drive if the only thing using it is attached to a desk on the other side of the room.

I think my backup is sound… I use the cloud. All my photos live on the Mac (well, on an external SSD attached to it) and in iCloud. Everything else lives on an SSD and Google Drive.

I want to back the Mac up using Time Machine to an external drive, which will back up the entire contents including all my photos & files saved on the external SSD.

I want to put it in a cupboard because the clicks and whirs of an external HDD are a bit annoying compared to the silence of everything else. I always don’t want another thing on the desk!

I’ve give a long cable a go and see if it works OK 🙂

I’ll probably just put it on the desk and put up with the clicks, I’m probably over thinking it.

Yes I could just buy an external SSD I suppose.

I’m off to ride my bike.

As others have said, permanently connected drive isn’t ideal for back up.  My files are local/synced to cloud which gives a decent back up against

1. loss of cloud service
2. local hardware failure

but has some risk of file corruption from a virus/ransomware.

I also do a periodic back up to hard drive that then sits in a cupboard not connected. Of course remembering to do that is the issue so I’d say that’s often a year or more out of date – but that’s better than nothing vs losing ALL of your photos/music/whatever.

What’s sort of router have you got?  I needed some firewall stuff that the standard Sky router didn’t provide so I’ve got a TP Link VR600.  they’re dirt cheap on eBay used.  Will likely have better wifi coverage than your current one and had usb sockets for sharing printers/hard drives etc.  there are likely better, newer models but just a vague suggestion.

My experience of long USB cables (which I’ve used in the distant past!) is that they’re either unreliable, or work fine until they just suddenly stop working! 10m is well outside of any USB specification – you won’t find a quality/branded cable of the length you need – that should tell you something.

Yes I could just buy an external SSD I suppose.

the cost difference of SSD over HDD is very little these days, especially if you factor in having to buy a silly long cable (possible powered) as the alternative!

Also, my home NAS drive is just a R Pi 4 with an ancient external HDD plugged into it, running OpenMediaVault, so doesn’t need to be expensive!

I’d probably just get an external SSD.. Plug it in once a week or whatever to do a backup… Then store it elsewhere.

the cost difference of SSD over HDD is very little these days

Not in larger sizes though. Say 6TB?

Not that I need 6TB now but might as well go big!

6TB is a lot of Time Machine incremental backups though.

I’ve got a USB2 Akasa caddy next to my Mac with a WD HD in it. There’s a bit of whirring when it’s running but TBH you don’t notice it after a bit.

Just some input to the OP.

USB specification is I believe maximum 5m, but ealier I found a long USB cable I used to use to get to a piece of kit on the other side of the office. It is indeed a 10m USB cable, but includes a “repeater” circuit to allow this extend length. No branding on it though.

If you really want to do it reliably, you can use USB to RJ45 converters and run cat5/cat6 cable between them.

E.g.:

https://www.dcdi.co.uk/usb20-over-rj45-extender-pair

There are much cheaper ones on Amazon, but no idea if they work reliably.

Yeah 6tb sounds crazy big just for backups…

I only back up my music and important documents totaling less than 240gb

I have 2 computers in the house and some old drives for external ‘cold storage’ and that covers it all.

I also keep my critical documents and emails backed up additionally on Google drive and Hotmail… So my documents are technically backed up in 5 different locations.

Keeps it simple for my PC’s too as if I have an issue with one of them, I can just flatten them and do a clean install.