Confused.com - External Hard Drives

Impspeed

Impspeed

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David
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I currently have a lot of Hard Drives, each doing different things and each pretty much full. My Time Capsule backs up my MacBook, My 750GB Seagate backs up all my images, music, videos, documents etc. My Iomega drive is a backup of my photos (which are also on my laptop HDD and Seagate Drive (plus the Time Capsule backup of Laptop HDD)) and finally a small portable drive which I keep movies on when I travel.

I'm now looking to retire the Iomega drive and more than likely the Seagate drive as they're both full. I'll leave all the data on there and store them on the office. I'm now looking to start again with drives and looking for 2x 1TB drives (back up of everything on the two retired drives as well as all new items on one) to act as the new storage and backup (hope you're following me?).

Every manufacturer is likely to have failures. I've heard of Seagate drives failing, Western Digital failing, Lacie etc etc. I am after suggestions of drives that are 1TB and around the £60-70 each budget. FW would be nice however I doubt I will find anything in the budget that will facilitate.

I'm not interested in NAS as I find it too slow on my network at home. Backing up 16GB of images from a days shoot is tiresome and not what I want to spend my evenings doing.

What's the difference between the Western Digital Elements, My Book, Essential etc apart from the case and around £25? Are the My Book's worth the extra?


Answers on a postcard (or reply below ;) )


DB
 
Trappe said:
I had a western digital and it died...I also know of a few others that have done the same to buy with care.
Click to expand...

All hard drives are prone to failure.
The question is whether you get the rogue one that goes before its time

To quote the OP's comment "Every manufacturer is likely to have failures. I've heard of Seagate drives failing, Western Digital failing, Lacie etc etc."
 
Failures can be said for all drives - I've never heard of a manufacturer who's not had a drive fail. Lots of horror stories with Seagate but never had a problem, same with Iomega. I think it's just something you've got to take the risk with - this is why I'm planning on buying two drives so I can keep a backup off site once a week.

Thanks for the comparison chart - I'm sure I should've found that for myself. So essentially the only difference between the Essentials and Elements drive are the backup and encryption software on the drives (as well as the casing)...?

Looks like a no brainer for the cheaper drives then as I don't plan on using their backup software.


Dave
 
I bought one of these last christmas and found it to be very reliable. A bit bigger capacity and more expensive but gets very good reviews.
 
Last edited:
admirable said:
Backing up 16GB of images should only take you about 16 mins.

These are a good price.

Samsung 1TB £42.99 delivered
Click to expand...

Backing up - When I export to Lightroom I either click to backup to my HDD over the network or store it on computer and drag and drop later - seems to be no difference. It always seems to take an age. Not sure if it's a problem with the Time Capsule slowing down the process (I have the Iomega drive attached to this) or the Home Hub that the network runs on?

Would just much rather stick with hard wired kits for when I'm sat at home and at my desk.

What are the Lacie drives like? http://www.amazon.co.uk/LaCie-Hard-...1_1?ie=UTF8&s=computers&qid=1284378707&sr=8-1

Also, looking for a drive in a case rather than buying drives and cases to go with them.


Dave
 
I would suspect your card reader if data is slow to transfer.

Sorry, didn't realise you req complete with case drives.

Here are links to two different sizes, might be prudent not to buy two drives from the same make/batch at the same time.


Buffalo 1TB

Western Digital Elements 2TB
 
admirable said:
I would suspect your card reader if data is slow to transfer.

Sorry, didn't realise you req complete with case drives.

Here are links to two different sizes, might be prudent not to buy two drives from the same make/batch at the same time.


Buffalo 1TB

Western Digital Elements 2TB
Click to expand...

Thanks for the links. May buy a Lacie and a WD.

It's not the Card Reader as they're rapid to transfer to my MBP it just when moving the files from my computer to my Wirelessly connected (through Time Capsule) Hard Drive.

Thanks all for your input.


Dave
 
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