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External Hard Drive - Suggestions?
_J_
PedantRegistered User, __BANNED USERS regular
PedantRegistered User, __BANNED USERS regular
I find myself in the market for an external hard drive. I think that I shall be in the market for the 100-150 Gig variety.
Does anyone have any suggestions for which brands are most reliable / functional / useful? I will probably get one that is USB 2.0. Price really doesn't matter.
I would appareciate any suggestions or information. Thanks!
Does anyone have any suggestions for which brands are most reliable / functional / useful? I will probably get one that is USB 2.0. Price really doesn't matter.
I would appareciate any suggestions or information. Thanks!
_J_ on
0
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http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822101032 I don't know this brand, so I'd suggest looking up some customer reviews ... but I link it because if you can use Firewire, then get a drive that supports both USB 2.0 and firewire (IEEE1394). Even though technically USB should be fast enough, my experience is almost double the performance under Firewire 400 due to lower latency.
That's entirely anecdotal though. I only got it because it was miss-priced on amazon, got it under half price
I personally would recommend an enclosure that supports both USB 2.0 (for wide compatibility with other peoples' computers) and eSATA, which is far faster even than Firewire for external drives.
It's 250GB. I have it and it is reliable, durable, and, honestly, having a drive that big for me means that my multimedia storage is set for the next 3 years, even as media becomes larger with the jump in quality. but that's just me
Theres even a $20 rebate with that HD you just linked.
I've never even heard of Fantom Drives. I'm going to assume that drive brand is going to be about as important for the reliability of an external drive as it is for an internal drive.
My sister has that exact drive and she's never had a problem with it. My dad also has a Fantom which has been running without a hitch
i dont think you have to worry about usb 2.0, as anything reasonably current should have usb 2.0 support, maybe firewire
you said you're looking for a 100-150gb drive, then you should have a really easy time finding anything with at least that much storage
A) Huge
If those two factors don't bother you, then some of the above drives are great.... however....
If you're looking for something small and portable, I highly suggest the Western Digital Passport series. 160gig, 2.5" drive (5400rpm) in enclosure, USB 2.0, no external power necessary. They're currently $105 at Costco. Small enough to fit in a pocket, and crazy durable. We've got 4 at work that we've put through their paces, and haven't had so much as a hiccup yet.
320GB for $119. Meh.
I would have personally recommended the WD portable/external drives as many people from work have them and they are really nice. They even make a 1TB version, which is ridiculous. Or a 500GB with eSATA.
Hrm...
Firewire vs. USB is always a hot topic, but in general USB2.0 and standard Firewire400 are about the same speed. (480Mbps USB2 vs 400Mbps IEEE1394)
If you have Firewire800 though, you'll get twice the speed. (800Mbps)
Or eSATA you can get up to 3Gbps (if I read the datasheets correctly)
I just have Firewire 400. If they are roughly the same speed then I may just stick with this.
I just don't want to dump over 90+ gigs of files and then change my mind.
and This.
Your motherboard has SATA ports, right? Then you just use the eSATA bracket that comes with this enclosure. Not sure if it needs power though...
You can also buy a 3.5" enclosure and a regular drive (more space for less $$.) And get one with eSATA if you have a mobo with SATA support - super fast. This will require external power though.
a regular 3.5 drive has much better prices, much more space, and faster speeds (7200) on the whole
I know that Firewire 400 and USB 2.0 are supposed to be in the same speed ballpark, but in my experience my external drive on Firewire 400 runs far better than when I run it on USB 2.0.
I know that theoretically that shouldn't happen, but that's what I get.
This is the drive I bought tonight: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822144080
I haven't found a bad review, so if things work out for now i'll probably keep it.
Edit: 3 minutes to move 4 gigs of data. Yey?
theoretic speeds and actual speeds are never close
They are firewire, usb and eSATA enabled.
I found a chart somewhere stating that Firewire400 had more consistent throughput than usb2.0 making it overall faster.
The MyBook I bought has a capacity ring (showing how full the drive is) and it's really quiet. It can lay vertically or horizontally which is kinda nice. It's 500GB and I got it for $159 at Best Buy.
I'll probably buy a couple more until I can afford the Drobo.
Do the Mybooks do anything special? Or are they just hard drives in plastic cased with a slightly more elaborate frontplate?
edit: also they look really cool stacked on a bookshelf
This one is working fine right now. I can transfer files to it quickly (1 gig per minute, or so it seems).
The most important part is that it not break...but the only way to test that is to just keep using it.
Is it better to leave the hard drive connected to power or not connected to power when not in use?
mine has an auto off, so if it detects no connection it enters standby mode. I assume because that was an advertised feature, some don't have this feature. In those cases you should almost certainly disconnect it when out of use.
Mine has a fan in it that's always on, unless you turn it off with the hard switch in back. I'm guessing that, with the fan cooling it, nothing bad will happen if I leave it on, but the noise can get annoying.