External Hard Drive Recommendations

Livin The Dream

Livin The Dream

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Kris
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Please :)

A boring subject but very necessary.

Have been looking at reviews on Amazon and there seems to be far too many failures of most of the popular brands for my liking. Looking for 1TB preferably firewire providing there's no additional plugs etc involved?

Lacie seemed to get a real pasting on most reviews for failures then lack of customer service? What are your experiences?
 
Will watch this thread with interest as will need to purchase a new external drive myself very soon.
 
I've always stuck with Western Digital, both at work and at home. Found them to be very reliable. The My Book range are great drives for a sensible price :)
 
Hi Clive,

I've just had a quick read up on USB 3.0 which i'll admit to not keeoping up with [anyone wants a quick FAQ here's a good link http://www.everythingusb.com/superspeed-usb.html].

Is USB 3.0 now vista compatible?

In theory it looks the new benchmark, 10 times quicker than USB 2.0, 5 times better than firewire. As always in the early days a little aprehensive untill the initial teething problems are ironed out is this still the case?

Regards

Kris
 
I've had two WD MyBooks fail, and one each of Lacie and Freecom usb-powered. Now trying Hitachi usb-powered and Fujitsu mains desktop type.
 
I'm using 2 G-Drives from G-Technology a 1TB and 2TB, not had them long but so far so good. Now they are not cheap by any means, but are now made by Hitachi and I understand they only use enterprise class hard drives, for more reliability.

1x 3Gbit, eSATA
2x FireWire 800 (9-pin)
1x USB2.0
(FireWire 400 via 800 to 400 cable)

Oxford 934 chipset
 
Have two LaCie drives, one over 18 months old, no problems. I also have an Iomega, a Western Digital , and a Freecom. No problems with any of these . Any drive can fail, that's why we have back ups.
 
I have a Buffalo NAS drive which I need to upgrade and will probably go for a 1TB version next...it's a great it of kit and allows me to access files without the PCs being switched on (for my music system)
 
I have had my two 1TB Western Digital Studio drives for almost 18 months now with no problems, apart from one of the power adapters stopped working but this was replaced under warranty. They are excellent drives, I use them via FW800 but they also have USB2 and eSATA, plus have a 5 year warranty.

They replaced two WD MyBook Pro drives (500 & 750GB) which I had for about a year before that and still worked perfectly, I just needed bigger drives!

I also have a WD Elements USB external drive and Samsung 1TB in an Icybox USB enclosure which have been fine for over a year so far.
 
Livin The Dream said:
Hi Clive,

I've just had a quick read up on USB 3.0 which i'll admit to not keeoping up with [anyone wants a quick FAQ here's a good link http://www.everythingusb.com/superspeed-usb.html].

Is USB 3.0 now vista compatible?

In theory it looks the new benchmark, 10 times quicker than USB 2.0, 5 times better than firewire. As always in the early days a little aprehensive untill the initial teething problems are ironed out is this still the case?

Regards

Kris
Click to expand...

Hello Kris,

I think this is the one on Buffalo's website!

http://www.buffalo-technology.com/files/products/HD-HXU3 Drive Station USB 3.0 EN.pdf

From what I understand to get full speed you need usb 3.0 but you can buy a 2 port usb interface card.

The February 2010 of Computer Shopper (page 41) has test on the drive

Clive
 
I have a couple of Western Digital Mybook 1 terabyte drives, one is about 18 months old and the other has reached its first year. I've had no problems with either of them.
 
I have a WD Mybook 1Tb drive - connected to the wifi router. It has been left on for over 18 months now, and never had a problem with it.
 
I have got 2 Maxtor drives a 250 and 500 GB and 1tb Western Digital had not had any problems with any of them, when I get some more think I will get another couple of the Western Digital 1TB drives, don't think Will go for anything bigger than that, I also back up on to DVD as well. I think most makes a reliable but with all these thinjgs they can go wrong so is best to have a back up of some sort or another, be that you have two hard drives and back up everything twice so if one fails you still got all your images on the other, or use another media like CD, DVD, blue ray disks.
 
I use an Akasa integral external HDD caddy which gives me the option of USB/firewire/eSATA connections & simply install whichever HDD I want (e.g. with a Samsung 1Gb F3 should come to about £80)
 
I have new WD MyBook Studio 1TB and a year old Seagate Freagent GO FW 320GB (portable) - both for Mac. I really much prefer the Seagate for portability, faultless and completely silent operation. Finally it doesn't need a power cable. WD is only used for weekly backups. I wish I got another larger Seagate instead.
 
I have a maxtor (320Gb) no problems for about 2 years, also just got a WD mybook 1Tb that is playing up (not impressed).

Comet at the moment are doing a good deal on an Iomega external 500Gb drive for £33.29 (use code 10allhd)
 
The reality is that all makes of drives fails - I've had both WD and Seagates fail and seen Maxtors do the same.
Just got a 1.5tb seagate, ideally a want a NAS enclosure and drive, then configure RAID, but the cost gets a bit vertical when you need > 2tb of space.
 
I just bought a Iomega 1.5tb USB2 job for my backups.... 84 quid from PC World.

Sorted.
 
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