external hard drives..recomendations?

Ayrotollah77

Looking to back up my digi music library..Any suggestions on whats good/decent priced?thanks homies

Saracenus

Some things I would consider before pricing a drive.

1) Connection type (USB 2.0, Firewire, Ethernet, eSATA, etc.). Some will have multiple types, others only one. Make sure it will connect to what ya got.

2) Make sure the case has a fan. If you have the drive on for an extended period of time you risk overheating and frying the drive. I had this happen to 3 out of 4 Wester Digital World Book external drives... Lousy crap drives just don't deal with heat well.

3) Capacity. How much do you need and how much room for expansion do you need? Right now I wouldn't get anything less than 750 GB. If the Terabyte price is right go for that. If you have video, try and get more than that.

My local hardware provider sells shells that you can stick any eSATA hard drive that would fit into a desktop (and there are others that can fit a laptop drive).

My two cents.

Saracenus

On a side note, I am a fan of NTI Shadow for automatic archiving of my HD.

http://www.ntius.com/en/us/home/default.asp

The beauty of this system is that it automatically copies any files that are added to or changed in designated folders to a backup location in real time.

Basically it means you don't have to remember to archive it, it does it as you go. Also, when you an afford it get a second drive that you keep offsite so if the onsite computer and back up are stolen or destroyed you still have your files.

Ayrotollah77

Gracias amigo..

Swayze

http://www.lacie.com/

dreskieboogie

I have heard some people saying good things about http://www.glyphtech.com/

Peace,

Dress

mordecai

http://www.lacie.com/

Aser

it's a crapshoot w/ all drives, I've had pretty bad experiences with Western Digital's mybook series. If you google, someone will have had a bad experience w/ every brand under the sun. I've learned the most important criteria to judge is the level of warranty coverage.

Best bet? Buy your own case and slap in a drive. Most pre-built externals have much shorter warranties than uncased hd's. You're looking at 1 yr vs 3-5 yrs for buying a sata drive and slapping it in a case.

pcmr

http://www.lacie.com/

it is a crapshoot so you need to have a backup drive at all times

i have a lacie 50MB0 that i back up on my lacie 1TB

both were cheap

my friend has had beef with western digital including a new one he bought
lacie uis supposed tp suck but it has travelled and held up for about 2 years

i just gpt the terabyte after being recommended

basically buy a 2 decent quality drives and backupbackupbackup then in a couple of years buy a bigger one??rinse repeat
the only way to avoid the catastrophe which would be losing all files

Reynaldo

My 500GB Lacie external crapped out after about a year, while my 250GB Seagate is still going strong after 5 years.

PABLO

There really is no rhyme or reason.
I have WD MyBook here that's been rock solid for 3 years now.

onetet

My 500GB Lacie external crapped out after about a year, while my 250GB Seagate is still going strong after 5 years.

I own two 500gb LaCies, and while both are still functional, one had problems out of the box, and LaCie's customer support was surprisingly dickish when it came to standing behind their product and helping me troubleshoot. maybe a fluke experience, but I'll probably go with another brand next time.

That said, these were bought to replace a Western Digital 250gb which not only died too young (froze forever during a file search), but died in such a way as to make any information retrieval, even when attempted by the nerdiest nerds I know, impossible.

so I guess you can't really win with these things -- or at least I can't. If you can afford it, I'd buy two and keep everything backed up in multiple places.

willie_fugal

I've now used a Simpletech, Western Digital, and Seagate, in that order as I outgrew each one, and I've never had any problems with any of them. Been completely 100% satisfied with each purchase.

Just buy whatever's cheapest for the connection and size you want. And don't bother getting anything less than a 1TB, they're so cheap these days you'd only be saving like $50 to get something half the size.

karlophone

cosign on the 500GB Lacie - have had one for 4+ years no problems, but the identical one i bought about 1.5 years ago suddenly flatlined w/o warning a while back. (had unique files on it too, still have to do data recovery on it)

have a 500GB maxtor thats been great, i just dont like their proprietary b/u software, a bit invasive. (i just like to drag and drop, no automatic shit) but build and reliability are great.

my most reliable to date are these little Wiebietech's that have been going strong for 5+ years. but theyre small (pack of cards, 80GB). maybe their new ones are kick ass.

and i really really like the iomega eGo's, though they are small (320GB). the eGo Rugged models are the ones where they dropped it 15 feet onto a concrete floor, ran over it with a suburban, and it still booted up fine.

in general i always avoid the USB ones, my pcs tend to dislike the whole power and data at once thing. firewire seems to be the safest bet for me, but an ac adaptor is key in that case.

fauxteur

don't bother getting anything less than a 1TB

although keep in mind if a 1-2 TB drive dies, it's that much more data lost

bull_ox

don't bother getting anything less than a 1TB

although keep in mind if a 1-2 TB drive dies, it's that much more data lost

Its already been made abundantly clear that you gotta have at least 2 copies of everything.

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The funny thing is, I remember this thread was posted a year or two ago and that Lacie was the one brand that was completely hated on at that point.