External Hard Drives

AkimboEG

So my two hard drives (two internal WD drives, one 80gigs, the other 120) simply won't do anymore.
I'm one of those guys who never delete anything. Add the fact that I backup everything I own (from documents to CDs to DVDs) on the PC, and you can see how I run out of space, fast.

Which is why I'm looking to buy an external hard drive.
I don't want to end up with a piece of noisy crap, so I'm asking for advice.
I want something reliable, durable, quiet, around 1 or 2TB (depends on pricing) and USB2 compatible.
Any advice, or even advice on where to get advice, would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

.kbf?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822324001

or

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822334013

freshmasterfresh

Are there any enclosures that will automatically spin the drive down after a few minutes? I'd like one I could leave connected to my Time Capsule without having to manually turn on and off.

Artreus

I have one of http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136172 these. I already had a Western Digital 250 GB external hard drive and just needed more space. So I got the 1TB one for about $230.

I am pretty happy to it. I have my main laptop hard drive partitioned all to hell, so I install my games to the external, and I have been playing Mass Effect off of it on high settings with little to no lag. It will wind itself down (if it is quiet you are worried about.)

I am not sure about the Time Machine thing. My mac OS X partition offered to use it for time machine but I did not really want to use it for that, so I opted out.

freshmasterfresh

I want one that will shut off the drive when not in use, but turn on automatically when necessary.

.kbf?

I thought HD controls for things like spinning up/down are controlled by the OS. Was I mistaken?

freakish light

I have a 500GB MyBook from Western Digital and it spins up and down on its own automatically.

They sell them in 1TB iterations now, I saw one in Best Buy last time I was there. It's pretty nice, as long as you don't mess up the formatting like I did. >.>

also I think it was $200 for the 1TB.

Jasconius

I swear by Lacie. There are 10 of them under this roof. They are well priced, come with an array of port options (including eSata).

The disks themselves are made by Samsung, Lacie is just a vendor/product designer.

You can get a 1TB Lacie refurbished for 150 dollars these days.

JRosey

I love my little MyBook. Quiet, cute, quick. Looks extra cool with three on top of each other.

wunderbar

the enclosure itself will not physically turn on and off by itself, that just doesn't exist. What happens is that the drive inside will spin down and go into a standby mode. If you turn the whole enclosure off, it couldn't do that.

PeregrineFalcon

Note on spinning down external USB drives - unless your OS is patient enough to handle the spin-up request, it's going to declare the drive not responding and shit itself. Windows/Mac seems to be able to wait for it (in general) but expect Linux or any embedded device based on it to soil itself in a totally ungraceful manner.

freakish light

PeregrineFalcon wrote: »

Note on spinning down external USB drives - unless your OS is patient enough to handle the spin-up request, it's going to declare the drive not responding and shit itself. Windows/Mac seems to be able to wait for it (in general) but expect Linux or any embedded device based on it to soil itself in a totally ungraceful manner.

fwiw my MyBook seems to work perfectly with Ubuntu, at least in Feisty/Gutsy.

blanknogo

I keep a FireWire drive connected to my Macbook Pro running Leopard and it handles the spinning up and down quite well (though sometimes it spins up for no reason at all)...

I kind of like buying a harddrive on its own and throwing it into an enclosure. Vantec makes some nice, well-priced enclosures that I'm a big fan of. They too looks more and more bad ass as you stack them.

Hallucinogen

To save money, go for an internal and an enclosure, that way you also get to pick the exact drive specs you want for much cheaper. For internals I recommend Seagate.
If you do go with a regular external, I second LaCie. I've got one that's be running flawlessly for about 5 years, the other nice thing about LaCie is it's easier to find them with firewire, which is noticeably faster than USB 2 in real-world use, especially if you transfer large files or large amounts of data at a time.

Satan.

WD MyBook, all the way.

Deusfaux

seagate freeagents or WD mybooks. they have differing warranties though

after a horrible experience with seagate freeagent pro eSATA issues, I just yesterday bought an external dockign station and a WD6400AAKS

fairweather

I bought a 750GB WD MyBook (Home version I think) a few months back. I was able to get a bunch of my files backed up to it when I first got it, but when I tried to connect it to my XP machine this last weekend it never showed up in My Computer. I did briefly see an F: drive popup, but it didn't appear to have anything on it, then it disappeared a couple seconds later.

I also tried it on my Powerbook which was able to connect fine when I first got the drive, but now it doesn't show up at all.

I'm thinking I'll stay away from Western Digital for a good while. For all I know I might be missing something, but being unable to access all my backups on a fairly new, hardly used drive doesn't strike me as being reliable.

What I'm looking at now is a hard drive docking station I found on newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153066

It looks like you can just take an internal SATA drive, plug it into the top, power up the station, and connect it to your computer using a usb cable.

I'm thinking of buying a 750GB Seagate drive to go with it: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148134

wunderbar

fairweather wrote: »

I bought a 750GB WD MyBook (Home version I think) a few months back. I was able to get a bunch of my files backed up to it when I first got it, but when I tried to connect it to my XP machine this last weekend it never showed up in My Computer. I did briefly see an F: drive popup, but it didn't appear to have anything on it, then it disappeared a couple seconds later.

I also tried it on my Powerbook which was able to connect fine when I first got the drive, but now it doesn't show up at all.

I'm thinking I'll stay away from Western Digital for a good while. For all I know I might be missing something, but being unable to access all my backups on a fairly new, hardly used drive doesn't strike me as being reliable.

What I'm looking at now is a hard drive docking station I found on newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153066

It looks like you can just take an internal SATA drive, plug it into the top, power up the station, and connect it to your computer using a usb cable.

I'm thinking of buying a 750GB Seagate drive to go with it: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148134

did you try troubleshooting it at all, or did you just plug it in, say "oh, I can't see the drive" and throw it out? the drive not showing up in my computer could be any number of things. drive letter conflict, bad connection, dead usb port.

Western digital drives are no better/worse than other brands. the HDD failure rate I've personally seen over the past 5 years has been about equal between WD, Seagate/Maxtor, and the other smaller HDD manufacturers.

fairweather

wunderbar wrote: »

fairweather wrote: »

I bought a 750GB WD MyBook (Home version I think) a few months back. I was able to get a bunch of my files backed up to it when I first got it, but when I tried to connect it to my XP machine this last weekend it never showed up in My Computer. I did briefly see an F: drive popup, but it didn't appear to have anything on it, then it disappeared a couple seconds later.

I also tried it on my Powerbook which was able to connect fine when I first got the drive, but now it doesn't show up at all.

I'm thinking I'll stay away from Western Digital for a good while. For all I know I might be missing something, but being unable to access all my backups on a fairly new, hardly used drive doesn't strike me as being reliable.

What I'm looking at now is a hard drive docking station I found on newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153066

It looks like you can just take an internal SATA drive, plug it into the top, power up the station, and connect it to your computer using a usb cable.

I'm thinking of buying a 750GB Seagate drive to go with it: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148134

did you try troubleshooting it at all, or did you just plug it in, say "oh, I can't see the drive" and throw it out? the drive not showing up in my computer could be any number of things. drive letter conflict, bad connection, dead usb port.

Western digital drives are no better/worse than other brands. the HDD failure rate I've personally seen over the past 5 years has been about equal between WD, Seagate/Maxtor, and the other smaller HDD manufacturers.

I've checked for any information I can find about the drive and haven't really found any solutions for my problem yet. I've seen some stuff where others have had similar problems, but didn't really find any solution yet.

As I said, I've tried it on both my XP desktop computer and my Powerbook. I've tried it using both a firewire connection and USB (switching between different ports as well).

Since I first bought the drive there were occasions where the drive didn't seem to connect until I tried reconnecting / powering it on / off multiple times. It used to connect instantly to my Powerbook, but it's stopped working there as well.

It's pretty apparent it's an issue with the drive.

adam

Hey artreus I just got a laptop but the builder put the OP on my 200gig partition . I was kind of wondering how you partioned it, if you had the same problem and what do you use your laptop for if its partitioned so much?

Satan.

I just picked up a 2.5" WD Passport 160GB drive and couldn't be happier with it.

MichaelLC

Satan. wrote: »

I just picked up a 2.5" WD Passport 160GB drive and couldn't be happier with it.

I got one of those timy Wd drives too for the PS3, and it's been working fine. Seems to get a little warm, though.

For high capacity, LACIE are percieved as better than others, I've had no problems with mine.