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Recommend a new external HD

post #1 of 22
12/20/07 at 1:24pm
Thread Starter 
I'm at the end of my rope with my LaCie Big Disk 500GB, and now I want to replace it. I am thinking of getting something 1TB or either 2TB (I work with video), and most important of all is its reliability.

Is there anything under $1k that anyone here recommends?
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post #2 of 22
12/20/07 at 3:29pm

Re: Recommend a new external HD

Matthew, do yourself a huge favor and visit Other World Computing's external drives page. Bar none, the finest drives out there in terms of price, performance and flexibility (ports.) My boss has bought P.O.S. LaCie drives for years because of their low cost and we've had no fewer than five of them fail. I only use OWC Mercury Elite drives to back up my own machines and for external storage at the office as well and I've never had a single problem. A quick look at their current pricing shows a 2TB drive coming in at well under a grand.
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post #3 of 22
12/20/07 at 5:43pm

Re: Recommend a new external HD

Quote:
Originally Posted by MatthewA
I'm at the end of my rope with my LaCie Big Disk 500GB, and now I want to replace it. I am thinking of getting something 1TB or either 2TB (I work with video), and most important of all is its reliability.
I almost bought a LaCie 250 GB drive on Black Friday last year. Fortunately for me I didn't make it through the doors on time, and they were all gone. I saw fortunately, because a little research online quickly showed how unreliable the brand is.

Instead, I went on Newegg and bought a Western Digital Caviar WD2500KS 250GB 7200RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive /w 16MB Cache that came with a three-year OEM warranty.

To use it as an external, I got a Rosewill [NewEgg's in-house brand]3.5" SATA to USB 2.0 External Enclosure with fan. The pair was offered as a combo deal that only cost $102.00. I've been using it for a year next Tuesday, and it's still running as good as the day I bought it.

Here's the link for the 1 TB model on that same product line:
Newegg.com - Western Digital Caviar GP WD10EACS 1TB 5400 to 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

Here's the link for a Rosewill external SATA to USB 2.0 enclosure that can handle a 1 TB harddrive:
Newegg.com - Rosewill RX-358-S SLV (Silver) 3.5" SATA to USB & eSATA Ext. Enclosure w/Int.80mm fan - Retail

You should probably double-check to make sure they're 100 percent compatible, but the combined cost going that route would be: $259.99 (drive) $44.99 (enclosure) = $304.98
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post #4 of 22
12/20/07 at 6:08pm

Re: Recommend a new external HD

I did the external enclosure as Adam describes for my small 160GB drive. Good solution. I bought a $130 500 GB Seagate drive for my wife. Also a good solution.

You should take note of whether you're getting a true Terabyte drive or a 1TB drive composed of two 500 GB drives. Everything else being equal, there would be a (marginally?) higher risk of drive failure with 2x500 GB solution than a single 1x1000 GB solution.

In my meager opinion, all hard drives are equal. I'd prefer Seagate to Western Digital, as Seagate has a better reputation, but these are commodity devices now.

As for OWC -- as they're certainly buying their drives from the major manufacturers (WD, Seagate, etc.), what makes their products such better quality?
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post #5 of 22
12/20/07 at 7:51pm
Thread Starter 

Re: Recommend a new external HD

Thanks. I'll be out of town until Wednesday so I won't be able to follow up on that until then.

How can I tell if something is a "true Terabyte drive" without buying it first? Will the manufacturer say so on its web page or on the box?
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post #6 of 22
12/20/07 at 8:48pm

Re: Recommend a new external HD

Quote:
As for OWC -- as they're certainly buying their drives from the major manufacturers (WD, Seagate, etc.), what makes their products such better quality?

They consistently update their enclosures with the fastest FireWire chipsets available. I've done a head to head comparison between my two Mercury Elite Aluminum drives and my co-worker's Western Digital MyBook drives and the transfer speeds aren't even close. In addition the information on the units sold through OWC is totally transparent...just click on the enclosure and size you're interested in and it will tell which manufacturer's hard drive(s) are inside. Try finding that info through LaCie. I do prefer the models with the Seagate hard drives...they're the only hard drive manufacturer to provide a five year warranty on the drives...all of the rest are only three years.

Quote:
How can I tell if something is a "true Terabyte drive" without buying it first? Will the manufacturer say so on its web page or on the box?

At OWC at least, you only need to look and see if the drive enclosure is listed as RAID 0 or RAID 1. If so, those enclosures will contain two drives. If they aren't listed as RAID, they have only a single hard drive inside. I do prefer the single drive units...I have a 750GB one and a 1TB one. Currently the largest single hard drive you can get in an enclosure is 1TB. If you want more than that (1.5TB, 2TB, etc) you'll have to go with one of the RAID 0 units.
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post #7 of 22
12/20/07 at 9:34pm

Re: Recommend a new external HD

I have used several OWC Mercury Elite Pro Classic drives and they have all worked great. No problems at all. I would definitely recommend them.

-Keith
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post #8 of 22
12/21/07 at 6:01am

Re: Recommend a new external HD

Seagate FreeAgent Pro

haven't had any worries with it whatsoever.



Has anyone here wanted to try a Drobo?
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post #9 of 22
12/22/07 at 8:46am

Re: Recommend a new external HD

I would love one of these for Christmas... and there's a $50 coupon code at geekbrief.tv currently.

Data Robotics, Inc.
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post #10 of 22
12/23/07 at 10:12am

Re: Recommend a new external HD

Quote:
Originally Posted by MatthewA
I'm at the end of my rope with my LaCie Big Disk 500GB, and now I want to replace it. I am thinking of getting something 1TB or either 2TB (I work with video), and most important of all is its reliability.

Is there anything under $1k that anyone here recommends?

Another vote for the OWC drives. Very reliable and the speed is hard to beat.

Generally, on the Mac there is nothing that beats the transfer speeds of FW800. Even when only FW400 is available, it will beat the transfer speeds of USB2.0 every time. E-SATA is not readily available for the Mac (no drivers built-in), but real-world speeds wouldn't best the tried and true performance of FW800 anyway, so my recommendation is to go with that.

-Christian
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post #11 of 22
1/1/08 at 2:45pm
Thread Starter 

Re: Recommend a new external HD

The Drobo looks great, and the price is right for something expandable, but their website is confusing as to whether or not it comes with actual hard drives.
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post #12 of 22
1/10/08 at 11:24am

Re: Recommend a new external HD

Quote:
Originally Posted by MatthewA
The Drobo looks great, and the price is right for something expandable, but their website is confusing as to whether or not it comes with actual hard drives.

It does not, but I still think it is a pretty good solution. I have not purchased one yet because I am hoping that they come out with a Firewire option.

The LaCie bashing always makes me smile and not because I doubt anyone's experiences (I have heard the same thing from lots of different people over the years), but they have been great for me. I have only had one go down over the years and it was under warranty. LaCie was easy to work with on the service too. All of my other LaCie drives just seem to run and run without any problem. I push them pretty hard in a professional video capacity and they keep up well. I have a few other production companies and friends that feel the same way. I always look at other options, but most of my external drives are LaCie (just got another one last week). I guess I have just been lucky. Keep in mind I am not recommending them for critical data backup where something like the Drobo is more useful.
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post #13 of 22
1/10/08 at 12:11pm

Re: Recommend a new external HD

I'm in the market for a 500GB backup drive for my new iMac. Any opinions of the Iomega Ultramax series?

Iomega external hard drives: network storage: rev: zip: dvd: cdrw: managed services

Seems to be geared towards Mac (HFS+ preformatted, and has FW800).
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post #14 of 22
1/10/08 at 2:39pm

Re: Recommend a new external HD

Yet another vote for OWC Mercury Elite. I have a bunch of them -- fast, zero problems.

Ted
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post #15 of 22
1/15/08 at 11:02am

Re: Recommend a new external HD

I guess we can add Apple's new Time Capsule to the list for those so inclined.
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post #16 of 22
1/15/08 at 11:08am

Re: Recommend a new external HD

Quote:
Originally Posted by GlennH
I guess we can add Apple's new Time Capsule to the list for those so inclined.

It seems like a decent option for backup purposes. I'm thinking about getting one to back up my MacBook. Using it with Time Machine should be about as simple as it gets.

I'm still thinking about a a Drobo for my PC that I use for my photo editing.
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post #17 of 22
1/15/08 at 12:59pm

Re: Recommend a new external HD

Seems like the best deal right now is 500g drives and cheap fire cases. Around 160-180 set up. 750 & 1TB would be nice, but the drives are so much more expensive.

350-400 range for a dual set that formats to just over 900g (depends on the need for a better combo case with SATA, FW800, etc)

Once you look at the higher quality 2-4 drive cases with hot plug sata, etc, you reach 650-700 for 1TB
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post #18 of 22
1/17/08 at 2:57am

Re: Recommend a new external HD

Quote:
Originally Posted by DavidJ
It does not, but I still think it is a pretty good solution. I have not purchased one yet because I am hoping that they come out with a Firewire option.

I spent the better part of yesterday researching the Drobo, and came to the same conclusion...I'll hold out on Drobo until FW800/400 is added. It's an expensive startup cost, but worth it in the long run, since you just swap out your smallest drive (or your dead drive!) for a bigger, cheaper one. Also check out the "DroboShare", which allows you to add two Drobo's to your network...that's cool. I'd still prefer FW for my needs.

In the meantime, I've almost decided on the Iomega UltraMax 1TB ($344 for us Canadians), just trying to find some reviews of it first.
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post #19 of 22
1/17/08 at 9:33am

Re: Recommend a new external HD

I use an OWC external for Time Machine.
Maxtor or Seagate.

Time Capsule is for backup only.
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post #20 of 22
1/17/08 at 9:31pm

Re: Recommend a new external HD

Quote:
Originally Posted by Yumbo
Time Capsule is for backup only.

Really? That's not the impression that I got from reading about Time Capsule. Could you elaborate?

Ross, I'll have to check out DroboShare. That sounds interesting.
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post #21 of 22
1/17/08 at 10:06pm

Re: Recommend a new external HD

Other use would take up space. Like sharing an iPod between music and data.
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post #22 of 22
1/18/08 at 1:30pm

Re: Recommend a new external HD

Quote:
Originally Posted by Yumbo
Time Capsule is for backup only.

This is wrong. Time Capsule can be mounted as a hard disk (AirDisk) and can be used for both Time Machine (backup) and file storage. Due to its reliance on Wi-Fi and ethernet, it may not be suitable for high-speed access (e.g., DV editing/importing). Although via Gigabit, perhaps it'll be fast enough. As for it taking up space, 1 TB should be enough for most users (at least for the time being).
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