Suggestions for External HDDs

Posted by: KJ_dragon

Suggestions for External HDDs - 05/11/07 05:42 PM

What is everyone's experience with these?

Western Digital?
Seagate?
Maxtor?
other?

I'm guessing everyone's gonna have some pretty varied experiences with their brand of choice - so lets hear it.
Posted by: Anonymous

Re: Suggestions for External HDDs - 05/11/07 06:58 PM

I've got two Acomdata drives and a Hammer. No complaints with any of them. The Hammer seems to be the best of three. It has a built in cooling fan. Other than that, they all seem decent enough...
Posted by: DocNo

Re: Suggestions for External HDDs - 05/11/07 08:01 PM

Costco. Seagate Free Agent Pro - 750 GB for $200.

Quad interface - USB, Firewire 400 and 800, and eSATA

One is on my Tivo (eSATA), and I use one for backups and general storage (Firewire). They work perfectly - very satisfied. my only complaint, they are designed to stand vertically only - not crazy about that, but for a 750GB external eSATA capable drive, you can't beat 'em.
Posted by: Origami Gangsta

Re: Suggestions for External HDDs - 05/11/07 09:58 PM

I use a 320 GB MyBook, but then again, I don't do anything extraordinary with it. Just pictures, music, etc..
Posted by: RReuscher

Re: Suggestions for External HDDs - 05/11/07 10:48 PM

I've got :

Western Digital 80GB USB 2.0
Home made 200GB USB 2.0 (a scratch drive and an off the shelf enclosure)
Seagate Free Agent 500 GB USB 2.0 These three are connected to my fileserver via USB since that's all it has.

2 Maxstor 500GB USB 2.0/Firewire 400/Firewire 800 - Connected via the Firewire 800
Seagate 750 GB USB 2.0/Firewire 400
Seagate 400GB USB 2.0/Firewire 400
Hitachi 100GB laptop drive in a external Firewire 400/USB 2.0 enclosure
Fujitsu 60GB laptop drive in an external Firewire 400 enclosure. These are connected to my MacBook Pro via it's Firewire 400/800 connections

Some of them are for daily backups, some for offloading all the RAW pictures, some to keep sensitve information on that I don't want on the laptop drive, etc.

Some of them have been running for years (Don't throw an old drive away when I get a bigger, just add it to the chain, or when I replace a internal laptop drive with a bigger one get an external case for it - those make great emergency disks). I don't know that any manufacture is better than any other. I've only had one Maxstor go bad, and driver was about 7 years old. They are on all the time, unless we lose power to the house, and then I gracefully power everything down since the UPS(s) aren't big enough to handle all of that for more than a half hour or so.
Posted by: Mobycat

Re: Suggestions for External HDDs - 06/11/07 03:36 AM

Seagate has the best warranty - 5 years. But let's face it...that five year warranty isn't going to preserve your data any more than a 1 or 2 year warranty.

Personally, I'd avoid Maxtor. I've seen several go bad. I stick to WD and Seagate.
Posted by: Origami Gangsta

Re: Suggestions for External HDDs - 06/11/07 04:33 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by RReuscher:
I've got :

Western Digital 80GB USB 2.0
Home made 200GB USB 2.0 (a scratch drive and an off the shelf enclosure)
Seagate Free Agent 500 GB USB 2.0 These three are connected to my fileserver via USB since that's all it has.

2 Maxstor 500GB USB 2.0/Firewire 400/Firewire 800 - Connected via the Firewire 800
Seagate 750 GB USB 2.0/Firewire 400
Seagate 400GB USB 2.0/Firewire 400
Hitachi 100GB laptop drive in a external Firewire 400/USB 2.0 enclosure
Fujitsu 60GB laptop drive in an external Firewire 400 enclosure. These are connected to my MacBook Pro via it's Firewire 400/800 connections

Some of them are for daily backups, some for offloading all the RAW pictures, some to keep sensitve information on that I don't want on the laptop drive, etc.

Some of them have been running for years (Don't throw an old drive away when I get a bigger, just add it to the chain, or when I replace a internal laptop drive with a bigger one get an external case for it - those make great emergency disks). I don't know that any manufacture is better than any other. I've only had one Maxstor go bad, and driver was about 7 years old. They are on all the time, unless we lose power to the house, and then I gracefully power everything down since the UPS(s) aren't big enough to handle all of that for more than a half hour or so.
Holy crap. I can't imagine having 3+ terabytes laying around.