External Hard Drives

[visualpoetry]

I need to purchase one! Any brand suggestions? I dont want to risk it croaking on me and loosing work (which I know they all COULD do.. just looking for reputable one!).

Thanks in advance!!

 

[Chris Stegner]

LaCie, Maxtor, Western Digital.

Stay away from "Big Bob's Hard Drives" or "My Local Computer Store's Stock Hard Drives".

Stick with the big names.

And yes... never... ever... kid yourself into thinking your data is safe on an external HD... (been there, done that)

 

[Ls3D]

I'm seeing a lot of this one particular brand now, it has orange silicon or rubbery covering,.. even the local camera shop has them.. any know what up with these?

Nice galleries poet. :thumbup:

-Shea

 

[MikeBcos]

In my experience building and repairing computers for work and home I have found that Maxtor hard drives die far more often than Western Digital, I've never used a LaCie so I can't comment on that.

I tend to buy cases on Ebay then buy the hard drives separately locally, that way I can be sure I get a brand of drive I trust.

 

[cereal83]

Working with harddrives everyday, I suggest anything Seagate. There drives don't blown often and have a 5 year warranty and are good drives.

I am sure you could get a Seagate 1 TB external HD for about $120. Check out stores like newegg.com or tigerdirect.com

 

[visualpoetry]

Thanks for the helpful information everyone!

I ALWAYS back up my files on DVDR's but would like them to be easily accessible on a hard drive instead of having to ravage through customer files.

Thanks, LS3D! I really appreciate it!

 

[Ls3D]

BTW - Having the data on two hard drives is the first tier of safe, so two 250 or 500 Gb drives might be wiser than stuffing everything on a huge drive and praying.

-Shea

 

[phoenix_rising]

I bought a Western Digital 250GB Mybook for like $80 like 2 years ago and use it everyday. I love it! I will probably invest in another one when I fill this one (Only about 1/2 capacity with 40 GB of music + 5 years of photos + all my schoolwork.

 

[PatrickHMS]

I build PC's, always use Seagate, never have had a Seagate hard drive fail on me.

 

[usayit]

I like LaCie drives.... a bit expensive and I'm not sure what drive is actually inside. Seems to get good reports of reliability.
For something a bit cheaper, I have a couple Acomdata drives that work well too... although their history of reliability is less.

So far, the only harddrive that has failed on me prematurely was a Samsung.


FYI: be mindful of DVD-Rs. Depending on brand of media, some are not ideal for archival.

 

[usayit]

I'm seeing a lot of this one particular brand now, it has orange silicon or rubbery covering,.. even the local camera shop has them.. any know what up with these?

Is this the drive you were seeing?:
http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10995

 

[Ls3D]

Yeah that's it... all my media heads are sporting this unit, thanks. I notice it is powered by the USB bus (cable). Only 5400 rpm though.

In addition to quality DVD media brands, I have found that slowing the burner down a bit will produce a more reliable disc, one that can be read on another drive and not only by the authoring drive as can sometimes be the case.

-S

 

[usayit]

Its a LaCie rugged. Supposedly beefed up to withstand daily on the go business. I have one but I purchased it mainly because of:
1) Bus power
2) USB
3) and Firewire 800

and it was a left over 160GB version at a $50 dollar discount. I have it in two partitions; FAT and Apple. Those two partitions plus the USB and firewire ports on the back make it ideal in a Windows/Unix/MAC mix environment. Not to mention not having to carry a power adapter around.

It is marketed as being rugged but honestly I can't see how it is anymore than the typical external out there (other than the rubber bumper that can be easily removed). It has survived "rugged" use over the last year so I guess that's a good thing.


In regards to DVD-R, I've had readable disks sit on a shelf for a few years and end up unreadable. I have to admit, they were cheap non-branded DVD-R disks though...

 

[IvyJade]

I have 2 250gig western digitals... They are AWESOME, hold A LOT and even light up~!

EDIT: www.newegg.com has good prices when i bought them

 

[cereal83]

I stgill suggest Seagate.

I have 2 400 GB and they are full from 3-4 months of shooting so I will be getting 2 1 TB drives very soon but they won't be external as its too slow for me plus I have the space in my comp. Woot