external hard drives

[BOORADLEY]

i need one for my mac. but im fucking going insane researching what brands are the best and most reliable. need firewire 400.

thoughts on western digital, IOmega, lacie, maxtor etc?

[phen3N]

seems like the most trusted brand among nerds is western digital

[poopie boy]

yeah get a western digital mybooks and shut the fuck up.

thats what i'm gonna do.

[BOORADLEY]

well heres the real story. i had decided on a western digital. i get it home, factory sealed and they included the wrong power adaptor... what the fuck? so anyways im exchanging it tommorow for another one. i decide to double check again some more reviews and i stuble upon this:

http://www.tomrafteryit.net/western-digital-my-book-pro-edition-ii-sucks/

after reading that, i decided to maybe research a little harder.

why cant shit work? seriously...

[Analog]

LaCie do not make their own mechanism. They purchase drives from OEMs (WD, Maxtor [now owned by Seagate], Hitachi, Samsung, etc.) and put them in LaCie-branded enclosures.

What kind of Mac do you have? If portability isn't an issue and your Mac is upgradeable your much better off getting a bare internal drive IMHO.

Having said that, make sure to look for the longest warranty possible, although most externals seem to come with only 1 year last I checked. Cooling is also a significant factor, especially in a RAID setup - active cooling is ideal, albeit noisier.

[ericdw]

kinda OT, but if you're lookin for that kinda stuff, check out http://www.edealinfo.com/ updated daily with a lot of deals on tech stuff.

[ayn]

i have a WD MyBook Pro Edition with triple interface, it works well... 500GB... I absolutely need FW800... before this one I had a LaCie and it worked okay, the enclosure is definitely solid, but I guess it was kindda old technology and the cache isn't large enough and seek speed was slow so my lossless music skipped at times... with the MyBook it never skips... it also had to do with the fact that the LaCie was 95% full while the MyBook is not even half full...

[fadingblue]

go to new egg and get the highest rated one that meets your price range/memory requirements

[BOORADLEY]

im using a macbook pro... so internal is out. i just dont want to lose all my fucking music. i think i would shit the bed. scrape the shit up and mail to to western digital head office.

[poopie boy]

same here man.. just get another my book.. how much are the 500gb? like around 180usd right?

[Cynlix]

I have a maxtor. Stable and good.

[notesee]

I had a 160 GB Western Digital for 3 years, didn't have any problems with it.

Over the summer, I got a 500 GB Western Digital Mybook, works great. I recommend you pick one up too.

[London]

Hammer Storage 160 GB

[Tarmac]

is there technology within the enclosure? because I have been getting bare drives and installing them into fanless enclosures myself.

[drapygo]

Buying external enclosures would save you money. If you buy a external hard drive it's basically a case with a hard drive in it.

Personally, I would just buy a external, cause they were made for external use. But doing it the external enclosure way would be the smart way.

For brands, Seagate seems to be best, but Western Digital is as well good, so far I havn't had any problems with, any of these brands.

[mlproject]

WESTERN DIGITIAL if you're going to go straight up. i have heard nightmares about lacie's catching on fire and shit from people i know who do a lot of video (aka daisychaining together like 3 terabyte drives and working off of them).

otherwise buying an enclosure and a drive will save you $$.

[drapygo]

Next thing is, researching on which enclosure is good and which are bad. I would buy enclosure that is compact, and has a fan in it, and it's sturdy, cheap, but don't be the shitty cheap. Then you should go for "Seagate" internal harddrives for it. You should also keep all the internal hdds in a safe place, so your data doesn't get fucked.

[mlproject]

the only thing i'd consider relying on for storing client jobs and stuff is if i set up a raid (which i don't have) or burn DVDs.

i've had too many hard drives crap out on me.

[drapygo]

Well, there's no way around it. I wouldn't buy a high capacity hdd, (at least not over 400GB). Because, it is better to loose say 300GB of data versus 500GB of data.

DVDs, also die out after quite a while I hear, but they, I think, last longer, but pain in the ass.

Setting up a raid is good too, but that's a shitload of harddrives and money... I currently have 3 hdds in this computer (300, 200, 320). One Seagate and two Western Digital. Maybe Seagate is just overated, cause everyone's saying Seagate is the shit... don't believe that.

[mlproject]

i just bought a new 250 which will hold me over until flash memory gets big enough.

[ally fu]

Just bought a Lacie 500gig external drive (the 'Porsche' one) - seems good so far ....

[Ryan]

Just bought a Lacie 500gig external drive (the 'Porsche' one) - seems good so far ....

i have a 250gb, prolly gonna pick up another one or a mybook. the lacie isnt the best by far, but its been reliable, and i like that its fairly compact..

[emaze]

G-Tech is the best, nuff said...

http://www.g-technology.com/Products/Products.cfm

[plan b.]

seagate is good. just plug and play. i hate how the maxtor one you have to use their software.

[BOORADLEY]

you know what i think i have come to realize is that half of these opinions and horror stories are likely to be 15 year olds or 60 year olds that have no idea what they are doing and overheat the shit out of the drives. ill stick with my purchase i guess :S

[mixedup]

bestbuy.ca has the WD mybook 500gb on for $229cdn. i believe it's the version without firewire, though.

[BOORADLEY]

yeah i looked at that, but unfortunately has no firewire like you said!