Which External Hard Drive

jamesward93

jamesward93

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James
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I need to get an external drive to store my images on. I was very tempted by the Lacie 500GB drive from Amazon @ £66, but after reading the reviews i am not sure i trust this model. Can anyone recommend a good reliable drive (preferably in silver) :)

James
 
I use a Lacie 500GB hard drive and have every confidence in it. Sounds like a good price that you have sourced at £66, so might be in idea to reconsider.

Have a 2008.

John C
 
No suggestions other than get 2 drives not 1 and use one as a backup (unless this is just for backup of course)
 
I've got a Maxtor 320gb that I use for storing general rubbish, it's forever creating errors and losing files so stay away from them :(
 
After a lengthy debate on TP regarding this very subject about six months ago, I went for the highly recommended Western Digital 500gb from Amazon. Brilliant and easy to use.
 
Gilly B said:
After a lengthy debate on TP regarding this very subject about six months ago, I went for the highly recommended Western Digital 500gb from Amazon. Brilliant and easy to use.
Click to expand...

I use the same, very reliable to date. I've actually changed how I store/archive my photos and now use two of the above, the first as my principal storage area and the second as my backup, I do not keep any on my main machine so I'm not clogging it up.

When they get full I'll buy another two, I'm even considering doing this for every year so all my images are kept in an easy to use chronological format.
 
Gee Colin that sounds like a 'plan'. I might consider the same. Thanks (y)
 
I've got a seagate one, and touch wood have not had any problems or issues with it, but am thinking about getting another one - as my back up.
 
Scan are doing a decent Seagate 500GB for £65 inc delivery. The only thing is, it's e-SATA and not USB, so you'll need an e-SATA port (or a normal SATA port and a bracket), and you can only use it on other PCs with e-SATA. Upside is, e-SATA is BLOODY FAST!

I'm just about to buy the Samsung HD501LJ (Spinpoint T166 series) for its quietness, and a very cool-looking enclosure for it to go in called X-Rev. It's aluminium, fanless, has USB and e-SATA out, AND an integrated card reader. Go it!:banana:

It's gonna come to £93 inc delivery, though :(
 
I have been looking at the Western Digital drives mentioned above, and after reading a bit more about them i have decided to go for one of the 500GB Studio Edition My Books, its got 400/800 firewire, eSATA and USB2 connectivity, and it is designed especially for Macs. At £109 its a bit more than the Lacie i was originally looking at, but i think it will be worth the extra after reading the spec (and it matches my macbook pro :geek:)

Thanks for all your advice
 
Seagate External FreeAgent Drives have 5 year warranty, in my mind that makes Seagate a no-brainer choice. 500Gb £70 from Amazon inc VAT and eligible for free delivery. I have had one of these for a few months and it's worked just fine.

Note that Maplin are lso doing the Segate 120Gb FreeAgent 2.5Gb external laptop drive (only needs power from USB cable) for £49 (also eligible for free delivery). I have the 80Gb version of this drive (last 6 months) and it's worked faultlessly.

Hope that helps

Mr Perceptive
 
my external backup is sooo external it's out in the ether somewhere
www.carbonite.com
$50 for the year subs @ £25 in todays money
got 43 Gb uploaded
works a treat..
there are only 2 kinds of hard drive in this world, ones that have crashed, and the ones that are about to crash...

Dave
 
As with Gilly and Hacker Western digital 500gb My book.

Try this link http://www.overclockers.co.uk/thisweek.php.
(although there are none listed this week).

I paid £74 inc vat deliverd. Gilly's £66 from Amazon looks to be a good price.:canon:
 
I got one of the maplin 500gig ones too for £74. Been brilliant so far and nice having the 5yr warrenty. Its got a quality feel too it and isnt too noisy
 
I have the Lacie and I've had no problems with it.

I'm slightly nervous having all of my photos, mp3s, etc. on one hard drive, so I intend to either buy another one on my next trip back to the US - I think I'll get the Lacie again.
 
A slightly more complex (well actually just expensive) solution but one I have been using since spring 2007 is a Lacie Biggest unit. I have 2Tb storage in a 5 disk Raid array. It cost me £795 but that money will buy a larger capacity unit today. It doesn't save me from fire/total loss of unit but is peace of mind regarding individual drive failure and I won't use that space for another 2-3 years by which time an upgrade will probably be advised anyway.

Got mine from www.jigsaw24.com

Gary
 
I've got a 500Gb Maxtor external. Works fine at home, but I needed to take some files of my work pc and it wouldn't recognise my work Dell (or any of my colleagues identical Dell's) Eventually plugged it into the office server (also a Dell) and it recognised it fine, so just clogged up the office bandwidth for a bit.
 
I use an Apple Xserve, Ciprico Huge Systems Raid Arrays and Lacie firewire / sata drives if needed and Lacie USB for laptop.
 
i always buy Western Digital Drives. Personally seem the most reliable. had my Rapters inthe PC on raidfor 2 years no issues. Plus the MyBook i got youu can access is via secure login anywhere in the world (as long as you have internet :))
 
I have a couple of western digital mybook 250 gig drives. one to backup my photos to and one to mirror the backup.
 
Bo2007 said:
http://www.dabs.com/productview.asp...orySelectedId=11157&NavigationKey=11157,50473
Click to expand...

What's that like to use in terms of speed?

USB2 - 480mps
Firewire - 400mps
Ethernet 10/100/1000

I think my router is 10/100 even thou my mobo is 10/100/1000 so it'll definitely run at 100mps. But count into the fact that USB2 doesn't run at a constant 480mps peak. Anyone had any real world experience of using it?

And how do you access it away from home? Do you need to use any software or use IE to access your own IP address ?
 
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