Brian

"Meh." That drive uses QCL Technology (Quad-Level Cell.) Which means that it's good for read-heavy usage, like having backups, but I wouldn't necessarily be working off it it. There is a reason that it's $643 as compared to a Samsung SSD, which I would work off, for $1450-ish. That drive is fine for archiving. Not working off of. Since you seem to be determined to have a 6TB Drive, and are willing to spend around $650, JUST BUY THIS DRIVE AND BE HAPPY. Trust me, you will be able to work off that drive and Thunderbolt will spoil you. It's that fast. There is limited quantities in stock, so I wouldn't wait too long.

By the way, I also stared in Film and a Darkroom. 1986 is when I first smelled Kodak D76 Developer. First Camera was a Minolta X-370. "Auto Mode," which would become Aperture Priority in today's cameras...was a brand-new thing.

If you can insert an Atari Cartridge into a Console, or a Nintendo Cartridge into a NES in 1986, you can build your own external drive. If you can insert a battery into a camera, or mount the a lens, you can build a EHD. If you can put together a Lego set meant for a 5 year old, you can do this. Seriously. I walked a friend of mine over the phone with two "Helpers" aged 4 and 2 and she was able to do it. Along with a Dog asking for attention / food at the same time. It's a couple of screws, the cover / tray slides off, you mount the HD, usually by sliding it into place...then **GASP!!!** screwing in a couple of screws into the tray so HD doesn't move. Then you slide the outer cover on the enclosure and mount the two case screws that you initially took off, power it up and format / partition it with Disk Utility. Here is a basic video demonstrating the process. External cases can vary, so you might have to remove a few screws here-and-there, but this is the general idea. 7200 RPM Drives really like having their own AC Adapter / Power Source, so the cheapie $15 Enclosures may not be the best option for your Beefy Hard Drive. You'll probably need to spend at least $30 or more; just make sure the specs state that it supports 7200 RPM Drives. If it doesn't, then it's usually 5400RPM Drives or slower, which take less power. I DO NOT TRUST WD ELEMENTS EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES. Manufacturers want to make a profit, so they often use sub-par / cheap components to make the most money. WD External Drives are notorious for having the absolute worst USB connectors and often their drives are built so you can't really remove them from the case if something bad happens and you can't get to the data. At least with some current models that I've seen; people will often "shuck" a HD out of a External Case, to save money. It's sometimes cheaper to do this than purchase a HD out-right. Manufacturers caught on to people doing this, (of course they had to post things on YouTube," and made it so you can't do this anymore. Now for people like yourself that would never attempt such a thing, you really wouldn't care. That said, IF you needed to remove the HD from the case in the even that the USB / Power Connector failed and you wanted to recover the data, it's way more complicated, which then forces you to send the drive out, costing you even more money. See why I like building my own drives? I like buying the "Good Shit." It saves so much hassle in the future when things go sideways or your Cat knocks the EHD off your desk 3 years from now. Anyway, back to your EHD you mentioned. The WD HDs that I like rotate at 7200RPM. The WD Black Series Drives, that I've used for the last 20+ years are 7200 RPM. Those drives you linked to could be a lower-end HD, which rotates at 5400RPM or even a "Green" version, which rotates at 4800RPM. From the Google AI: The problem is, you have NO IDEA which version you are getting. 7200 RPM? 5400RPM? Something Slower/Green? Amazon isn't going out of their way telling you either. You'd think with the second one with WDBWL would indicate a "Black 7200 RPM Drive," but no. Between the two, if you held a loaded gun to my head, I'd go with the second one and buy a couple to have a "Backup for the Backup." What's the difference? Think of a 7200 RPM Drive like a Nikon D850 or Canon 5D Mark IV. The WD "Blue" Drive is like a Nikon D7200 or Canon EOS 80D. The drives that are slower (Green) are like a Nikon D3xxx Series or Canon Rebel Series. Which camera are you reaching for if money were no object? Same thing with a HD, and you have already experienced a failed drive. Want to roll the dice again? Maybe you will hit Blackjack and take home some money. Or not. Yep. It's expensive. I don't fuck around with my data. $600 for a Enterprise-Grade HD, or $2000+ for a professional data recovery service in the future if the HD fails and you need to get that Wedding or other important event/session back. How much did your data-recovery cost you? I'm curious to see if I'm in-line or you got it for about $500-ish? Now, until you have experienced the PERFORMANCE of a Thunderbolt 3 Port (or faster,) YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU ARE MISSING. I'd never work off a USB 3.0 Drive, regardless of capacity. Night-and-Day difference. Yes. Prices with Apple tend to be about the same year-after-year, but this is no longer the case with all the stupid AI / Data Center craze. Apple can't secure low pricing, which means extra costs will be passed down to the consumer. I know Apple is about to release the Studio with the M5 chip, so I'd hold off for a few months. If you are going to spend more, might as well get the latest-and-greatest thing that should last you 7-8+ years. That's why my configurations are so expensive. Sure you can cut corners and go with something cheaper, but you will be replacing your computer sooner-rather-than-later, (about every 3-4 years, maybe less.) For a Beefy / "What Would Brian Buy?" Configuration, you are gonna pay more, but your computer should last you 7-8+ years. Hell, I'm working on a 2017 iMac and will likely have it for another few years. That will be 10 years next year, since I bought this iMac in May of 2017. I think, it could have been April 2017. Eh...who cares at this point. Either way, it will be 10 years old by June of next year. It really depends on the whole Eco-System of your camera. More Megapixels means larger Raw files if you don't lower the resolution. I have a Nikon D850 in addition to my Nikon D4s, and when I bought that D850, I found out the hidden costs of data storage. I hate my D850, that stupid camera has costed me so much money in having to buy better lenses and more storage. 100MB Raw Files...each, from that stupid 45.7MP sensor kills me. Of course, I could lower the resolution which would result in smaller files, but there's no fun in that. I paid for 45.7MP, I'm gonna use 45.7MP and all that resolution. Someplace else. A Friend or Relative's house is the usual answers. Or even your day-job if you have one. The point is, things happen. Things go sideways. That Flood could be that "Busted Water Pipe" in the Ceiling over your desk leaking while you are on vacation. Sinkholes and Earthquakes are a thing. Fires can happen. "But I have a Fire-proof Safe!!!" No, you have a Fire-Resistant Safe, meaning it will protect the internal contents for a certain amount of time at a certain temperature from the fire. If you have a safe rated for 2-4 Hrs @ 1000 Degrees Fahrenheit, and your Fire burns your house down and it was 1500+ Fahrenheit that took hours to put out...you are gonna have a puddle of goo inside that HD. Again, it's all about reading the fine-print. People never seem to do that sort of thing and are surprised when shit happens. Cloud storage could be considered the "Second Location / Offsite" but storing that Cloned Drive somewhere else is a good idea. Just remember to clone the main HD at least weekly. It all boils down to how paranoid you are. Your Mileage May Vary, depending on your own personal situation. "So what would Brian do?" That's your real question. Brian would buy that TB 3 G-Drive and get something larger than 6TB in 2026/2027. At least 8TB. Then he would either build an external drive OR just buy that 2nd EHD since you are just going to be cloning the main HD to keep it off site. That said, I'm not sure how "rugged" that WD Elements EHD would survive all that moving. Which is why I'm recommending that External Case and installing your own HD. It seems to have a bit of padding. If you are dead-set on just buying an external drive, I would purchase this WD Black 8TB Gaming Drive. To use it on your Mac, you just need to delete the existing partition and create a Mac OS Extended (Journaled) Partition. Do not pay extra for a "Mac Formatted" Drive. That's just wasting money. Plus, the drives that state they work on both Windows and Macs are usually formatted to the exFAT partition type, which is extremely dangerous, because exFAT is unpredictable and has no "Journaling" whatsoever, NTFS and Mac OS Extended (Journaled) do. Which is a much safer and stable method that the Operating System uses to keep tabs on the location of your data. Glitches happen and exFAT Drives corrupt all the time. I will die on this proverbial hill...I will never recommend exFAT to our Members here. Way too risky.

Yep, you use Disk Utility. No extra fancy software is required. That said, things have changed in recent years. For traditional spinning HDs, you want to use Mac OS Extended (Journaled). For SSD / m.2 / Flash Media Based HDs, you want to use the new APFS Partition Type. APFS is meant for SSD / Flash Based Hard Drives. In either case, use only the straight Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or straight APFS. Do not use any case-sensitive or encrypted mumbo-jumbo. (I realize you probably already know this info; this statement is for future members who come across this thread. I had one person do Case-Sensitive, and talk about a nightmare situation to fix. Here is one of my small transportable HD. It's a Sandisk SSD Drive:

Wow! You must be reading really old threads. Things have changed. That's fine. Carbon Copy / Back Blaze is also "fine." The issue that I have with Cloud Services is people need to read the fine print. At it's core, the "Cloud" is just someone else's computer. They handle A LOT of data, and aren't meant to be dumping grounds. So they tend to "Mirror" what is on your internal HD, and if you go deleting files to make room on your computer, the Cloud Services tend to give you 30 days to copy the files they have on their Server back to your computer. IF you go past that 30 day window, and leave the files deleted, the Cloud Service WILL delete the file(s) on their Servers, and that's what trips people up. Some Cloud Backups can be treated as dumping grounds, you just need to pay for it. The problem is, not all of them do...so you have to shop around. Also, just like the PBS Station lost access to 50TB of data from the last 70-something years, all because the Cloud Service went out of business, so there's that. Nothing is completely Bullet-Proof. Having a Cloud Service should be part of an overall plan, not your sole place to keep everything in a "single proverbial basket." It has it's place. If you have a software package that dumps one EHD to the other, it's fine. Just as long as you do it on a regular basis. Or you can drag-and-drop the files. It's really the same thing. Some software packages will only copy over files that have changed within a certain time-frame, after the 1st full backup / clone. Again, it's paying attention...which people often fail to do. You need to read the instructions. You need to know what is being Mirrored and all the things that go with it. You need to be aware of ALL your settings and not assume anything. If you want instantaneous Mirroring, I'd recommend investing in a 2-Bay NAS, in a RAID 1 Configuration (or ZFS Equivalent.) Better yet, buy a 4 or 5 bay NAS and populate it. But that is expensive to do since HDs and RAM these days are not cheap due to all the stupid Data Center / AI Craze. The downside to RAID 1 is if you delete the file, the "Mirrored" copy on the 2nd HD is also deleted instantaneously. A Hardware RAID1 protects you from a single failed hard drive. Replace the failed drive, rebuild the RAID1 and it's like it never happened. A RAID 1 doesn't protect you from yourself, if the file is deleted or somehow corrupted, it's the exact same way on the "other" HD. Mostly Automation. It also needs to be configured correctly, and you have to know what it's doing, where the files are going and what time-frame it does things. Yep. Out of all the hard drives I've replaced as a IT Professional for the last 33+ years, Seagates are the Hard Drives I've replaced the most. They are also pretty cheap, so manufacturers LOVE using them. I've had Seagate HDs die on me, and one even physically SMOKED in front of my eyes. That goodness I didn't have anything important on that drive. So in a nutshell...yeah, I really do not recommend Seagate HDs. As to what I recommend and use? Western Digital 7200 RPM "Black" Drives for the traditional spinning HDs. Samsung SSD Drives for the other side of the fence. The problem with SSD Drives is the cost per megabyte vs traditional spinning Hard Drives. They also can't be used once and then stored in a closet for a few years. The cells that hold the data NEED an electric charge in order to keep the data intact. Otherwise your data can go "Poof!" People love buying a bunch of EHDs, backing stuff up to them / cloning them, then putting them in a drawer somewhere for years. You can do that with Traditional Spinning HDs, NOT SSD DRIVES or other Flash Media Based Drives. So if you are "Archiving," it's better to go with your typical EHD. But for usage inside your computer or a EHD that is always hooked up? Sure, I love SSD drives, especially the 1TB or 2TB variety, which are affordable. Transferring data is SO much faster. But 4TB and 8TB versions? I have better things to blow my money on. That's what I do. Damien and I have a different opinion about this. He likes working from his internal drive, then backing up, I'm in a similar situation where I like keeping my 1TB in my iMac no more than 75% full, otherwise performance takes a huge hit. Whether that's a Internal HD OR External HD. Macs do not differentiate between the two. If you have a EHD that's 90% full (or more,) your Mac is going to run slower. Now, I am also not the type of person to buy Hard Drives that are the $79.99 Special at some box store. I also DO NOT RECOMMEND ANY "GREEN" OR "ECO FRIENDLY" DRIVES. PERIOD! Those drives drop-like-flies ALL OF THE TIME. Seriously, you aren't saving the planet by buying one, because if it dies, which it will, and it's not recycled properly, it's just going to end up in a damn landfill anyway, polluting what you were trying to protect. I had a customer that had a set of Western Digital Green Drives that were used for backup: They had 7 WD Green External HDs. The five you see in that photo ALL DIED and the remaining two died about 2-3 weeks later. 100% failure rate with "Green" HDs for this former customer of mine. (New Office Manager, she brought in her own people, but I'm digressing...) My Main External HDs are Big / Beefy / Suck up Power and are "Enterprise Grade" which are Thunderbolt Based; my 2017 27" Intel iMac computer is 40Gbps, since my iMac has Thunderbolt 3. This way my 12TB External 7200 RPM G-Drive acts like an Internal HD. The drive NEVER moves on my Desk and it's powered off when not in use. I would never-ever-ever use a cheap USB 3.0 External Drive to work off of. Too risky. Oh, don't think you are saving THAT much power with "Green" HDs, that's just marketing. I do have a smaller 4TB G-Drive that is USB 3.0, which is dedicated for Time Machine Backups ONLY. Speaking of which... You do not want to share your Time Machine Drive with any other data. Keep your Data / Photos / .psd files, whatever on a SEPARATE LARGE EXTERNAL DRIVE. It is QUITE DANGEROUS to have a Time Machine Drive Backup files that are on itself, even if they are on another partition. Just don't do it. Here is what my computer looks like, well this is a VERY OLD Photo and I have a different desk at this point. But you get the idea. My 4TB USB 3.0 G-Drive that is used for Time Machine only is on the right, and the 12TB G-Drive is on the left. (They don't make my G-Drive any more, here is the modern G-DRIVE 12TB G-DRIVE PROJECT Thunderbolt 3 External Hard Drive equivalent.) Not pictured is the drive I dump stuff to from the 12TB. As to what I use, they don't make my drive anymore so here is the modern equivalent: WD 10TB Black Gaming Drive that I installed in an external case. They don't make my case anymore, but here is one that I would use if I were buying it today: Oyen Digital Novus USB Type-C Rugged 3.5" HDD Enclosure. See a theme here? They don't make the stuff I use anymore, and my stuff WORKS FINE all these years later. Why do I not just buy an off-the-shelf External HD? Because often, you have no idea what type of drive you are getting, and I'm a bit paranoid on what my data is stored on. So I build my own external drives. This way I'm guaranteed to know that I'm not buying a stupid cheap Green / Eco-friendly drive that's gonna die on me. It takes about 10 Minutes or so for me to open the external case, mount the hard drive, put everything back together, and then partition / format the drive on my iMac. Before you ask, why only 10TB with a 12TB Main Backup Drive? Because I only have about 6TBs of Data on that drive and if I do use more, I will just buy a 2nd 10TB Drive and split the main 12TB G-Drive in half. I have a "Business" Folder (For when I shot Weddings and such,) and a "Personal Folder" for my Vacation Photos and other "Personal Things." I've gotten over the whole "Photographer" thing and quite frankly, sick of cameras and editing the stupid photos. I HATE-HATE-HATE editing. So now I just photograph things while on Vacation, and my wife bugs me over the years to edit the damn photos so I can make her photo books each year for Christmas. Speaking of which, I really need to work on 2022's photos. (I think, or is it 2021?) The 3-2-1 Backup Method. 3 Copies of your important files on 2 different storage mediums and 1 kept off-site / cloud. The storage mediums can be two different hard drives. Basically, you want a data-loss situation being more of a time-suck and PITA than anything, NOT SOMETHING THAT IS EARTH-SHATTERING OR GETS YOU IN A LAWSUIT. If things were to go completely sideways / Ka-Plooey, you should be fully up and running within 24-48 hours. If you are losing months / years of data that you will never get back, or can't get a good working backup, you are screwed. Speaking of which, it is also EXTREMELY IMPORTANT TO TEST YOUR BACKUPS!! I can't tell you how many times I've had to perform voodoo-chants and other incantations on customer's servers with backups that have failed and they didn't know about it. They just assumed that since they were getting "The Nightly Backup was Successful" messages that everything was good. Turns out it wasn't. One customer lost about a 10 months or so of data, maybe it was a year? Anyway, they had to re-input all their lost data by hand, which took months and they had to hire a temp to do it, which cost even more money. Talk about a nightmare. Other customers went out of business in this situation. Why? People / Business that you owe money to have no problem re-invoicing you. But if you can't do the same for clients that OWE YOU MONEY, well...you aren't getting paid. In addition, DIGITAL ROT IS A VERY REAL THING, and those CDs / DVDs that you made 20 years ago...the data could have gone "Poof" and there isn't anything there. Same thing with SSD Drives, you need to plug them in at least once a month, and use them, even if it's just poking around. Those data cells need power to keep retaining data.

It could just be a lens that needs to be repaired or wasn't refurbished that well. Often when you see a price that's "too good to be true," it often is. That said, I re-read your comment about the cat photo, and even though your back was against the wall, 1/13 shutter speed is not a speed that can not be hand-held. You might be able to get away with 1/30th of a second that way, but certainly not anything slower hand-held without VR is not going to be sharp. The reason is, your Heart. Each time your Heart pumps, your hands move ever-so-slightly. So if you are wanting a very slow shutter speed, you are going to have to use a tripod. Yes, I know a tripod isn't ideal with shooting animals. I guess the next step is to use the lens in question outside in good light. Shoot at a ISO of 100-200, and use f/8. Keep that Shutter Speed of at least 1/250 or faster. Then try 1/500 and f/4. Fiddle. If it's still not sharp, try the same procedure with another lens, like your 50mm. If the results improve, you have your answer...you purchased a "Bum Lens."

Also, if you don't have a brand new camera, no use the fancy AI Crap that PS offers, you technically do not "need" to upgrade Photoshop. At its core, Photoshop is still Photoshop. Layers are Layers, Masks are Masks, Levels is still Levels. It's all the fancy tools like lens correction and other things like AI generative stuff that is what makes newest versions of PS special. If your whole world / ecosystem is still around 2023...then you are fine. Resist the FOMO!! I promise, it's not the end of the world if you don't have the most recent version of PS.

That should work. Though the 5060 video card concerns me a little, I like 5070's and 5080's, at least it's a "Ti" Version. Basically, that computer in 2026 was the "$999 Special" 10 years ago. Give it a shot. I'm also curious if 32GB of RAM is enough; you may want to increase that to 64GB if you can. Oh, that $1789 Price seems to be ending soon. Hopefully you will see this message.

The sneaky thing that Apple does is only certain Thunderbolt Ports are the "fast" ones. It's similar to a computer that has USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports, only one gives you the "fast" speed. If you use the wrong port, you are gonna slow down during data transfers. I think the left TB Ports are the "fast" ones? Something like that.

Current / Upgraded Versions of Photoshop WILL REALLY START BITCHING AND GIVE YOU ERROR MESSAGE AFTER ERROR MESSAGE. Photoshop HATES-HATES-HATES that Video Card. Intel UHD Graphics in ANY form, Desktop or Laptop aren't designed for today's "Modern Photoshop." That laptop's specs are meant for "General Computing;" watching Netflix on the plane, checking e-mail, watching YouTube, wasting time on FB, stuff like that. If you do decide to take that laptop, I would just use it to dump photos to it, and maybe use Bridge to cull / rate things. No editing really.

You are going to need a new laptop. Period. Do not upgrade Photoshop. You can upgrade to Ventura, but honestly? I wouldn't. If you do upgrade, you are on your own and I would expect problems. For you, and your current laptop, you have to pretend it's 2022, maybe 2023 at the latest. We are headed into 2027, and that will be 9 years for that laptop which is a good run as most computers usually last about 7 years or so. Believe me, I know it sucks, I know that it's expensive, but technology moves forward and sooner or later the current software will not install on a computer that is almost a decade old. Apple has completely abandoned computers / laptops that were released in 2020 and earlier. Hell, I think the ones for 2022 are now orphaned. I am in the same boat as I'm still on my 2017 iMac and can't upgrade. I need a new computer, but I have my money tied up in something else. Oh, to add misery...Apple's prices are going to increase for the soon-to-be-released M5 models, on both Mac Minis, Mac Laptops and Mac Studios. The Data Center / AI Craze that has CEO's convinced that we NEED these things have hit Apple prices that they get for purchasing components, like memory chips. Western Digital is sold out of HDs until 2028. So any stock that is on the current shelves is what is there and prices HAVE INCREASED DRAMATICALLY. So since Apple's COGS have increased, so will the prices to offset those increased costs. Start saving. Plan on $4000+ for a new MBP.

Keep your monitor and only replace it if you absolutely need to. Prices are crazy expensive as it is with all this AI / Data Center Crap, and $782 is not going to cut it for a computer in 2026. Those Days are LONG GONE.

I agree with Damien. If you can afford the Asus ProArt, I'd get that one. A 27" IPS Display with 2560 x 1440 is really what you want and it looks like it is on sale as I type this.

I don’t know what happened. Weird. Anyway… Now before you do any of this, I'd recommend doing some house-keeping, running CleanMyMac X, repair permissions, etc. Maybe clear out some space out of your downloads folder. The more space you have to download and install the OS, the better. Go here: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/macos-ventura/id1638787999?mt=12 Click View in Mac App Store Tell it to Open Link. (This pop-up box shouldn't appear if you are working in Safari, only Firefox or Chrome.) Click GET.

Ventura is fine and is a mature operating system. Ventura 13.7.8 is what I'm running on my 2017 Intel iMac. I'm also running PS CC 2023. No issues other than Adobe bugging me to upgrade...which I won't until I get a new computer. The latest version of PS will kill my computer.

According to Apple's Website, you should be able to. Would I personally? "Meh." It's one of those things..."Just because you can, doesn't mean you should." 2018 is really pushing it. You really need to start saving for a new computer. Your Graphics Card is severely under-powered for the modern versions of PS, so there's that. If you do upgrade, that's fine. Just keep in mind there are no take-backsies, meaning you can't downgrade. If you upgrade to Sequoia, you are stuck with it; unless you create a Ventura bootable thumb-drive, then NUKE your MBP and then reinstall everything from scratch. A trip to the Apple Store would be in your future to do this; this process is way too involved for me to help in this forum. So it were me, I'd upgrade to Ventura 13.7.8 instead of Sequoia and see how that goes. Here is the link to Ventura. If you are using Safari, it will take you where you need to go. If you are using Chrome or Firefox, just click the "Open Link" when it prompts you and will take you to the App Store:

Oh, one more thing... $225 Canadian is a lot cheaper than Forensic Data Recovery. You would have probably forked out $1500 or more for that service.

Very cool. Thanks for letting us know. Disk Drill, I have heard of that program, glad it worked well for you.

Find a .NEF File, right click and select "Get Info" then look towards the bottom. MacPaw did a pretty decent set of instructions: Look for "Open with," under "Get Info," set the program in the drop down menu, then click "Change All."

The biggest thing you can do at this point, and it's not something you want to hear, is to leave the EHD alone until you can afford such funds. The more you mess with it, as tempting as it is, the greater the chance of you really screwing up the drive. Mac computers are a real Royal PITA to recover data from. It's messy. If you still are determined, just try recovering a small insignificant folder first and see how it goes. The gradually ramp things up.

Phew!!! I'm not trying to be an ass, but I'm genuinely concerned about your files. As for a Canadian Data Recovery, I'm not sure. You could try and find some place local. This is what the Google AI Bot came back with:

That's what I do. Keep it simple. Theft, Fire and Floods are all possible. Even if that "Flood" is the busted water pipe in the ceiling that's over your computer. That's why having a simple off-site backup is part of the 3-2-1 Rule. 3 Copies of your extremely valuable files, backed up on 2 different mediums and 1 is kept off site. The Cloud is great for convenience, but that only works when the internet is running and you have power with working hardware. What happens when a Tornado rips through your neighborhood? Sure your house might be standing, but you have no power for the next 3 months. Just having a simple large EHD can really help. Just make sure it is not a Flash Media Based EHD. You want a large spinning HD. SSD Drives and the like, need to be powered on, at least monthly, to keep the memory cells intact. Traditional Spinning HDs store data magnetically. You can still do your home server and OneDrive stuff...that's fine. I've also heard of good things with BackBlaze, but read the fine-print with them. They don't want to be dumping grounds, and if you delete the file(s) locally on your computer, they are also deleted on their Servers within 30 Days. I like the redundancy of RAID, so keep doing that. The extra EHD is just an extra insurance policy if things go sideways at the worst possible time. Disaster Recovery should just be a PITA/Time-Suck, but you should be able to fully recover within a day or two. Not weeks.

I SAID TO COPY THE FILES!!! NOT "CUT." THE REASON IS, YOU ARE DELETING THE SOURCE MATERIAL WHEN YOU "CUT." IF SOMETHING WERE TO HAPPEN DURING THE DATA TRANSFER, YOU COULD LOSE EVERY FILE. Copying the files keeps the source intact, so if something screws up, you can try copying again. At this point, I'm thinking you might want to reach out to Gillware Data Recovery Services. The drive inside could be fine, but Western Digital uses the cheapest USB interfaces / enclousres and that's where the problem could lie. I'd send the EHD to them and get a quote, especially if the images are that important.

YIPPPEEEEE!!! There is hope. Phew!! I love it when I am wrong in situations like this. First, let's try something simple, like those .jpg files and two .pdf files that I see in your screen shot. Copy them over. Do not drag / cut the files. Copy only. Then paste. If that works, then we step things up to the next level by trying to copy the folders that you can not live without. Copy / Paste these folders over to the new EHD. Then let your computer run overnight. Hopefully things will work. This will probably be slow, just let it run.

Check this thread, I just answered this question after yours