500GB external drives what to get

[KeyboardJockey]

Ms kbj and I are getting to the stage whre we need extra storage and also back up.

Looking at a 500gb or a 1TB drive but not sure what to get nor what we shoudl be looking for.

Also got to be usb linkable.

Any ideas

Many thanks

 

[Kanda]

500GB Mybook by Western Digital. Less than a ton, I have 2 of them and they're great.

http://www.dabs.com

 

[KeyboardJockey]

500GB Mybook by Western Digital. Less than a ton, I have 2 of them and they're great.

http://www.dabs.com

Thanks for that some guy in a shop in TCR recommended this unbranded box and I said no thanks.

 

[Dillinger4]

I got a 750gb one a few weeks ago for about £100 (iirc).

Its a maxtor one.

 

[UnderOpenSky]

The feecom I've got is fine, seem to be going for about £70 on ebuyer at the moment, although see they have a £63 LeCie drive.

 

[Crispy]

Thanks for that some guy in a shop in TCR recommended this unbranded box and I said no thanks.

There's absolutely no reason why the unbranded box would be any worse. There's two components for an external drive - 1. Hard drive. 2. Interface circuit. Personally, I'd buy the enclosure and the drive seperately, but I just went and checked prices and there's not really an awful lot in it.

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

`

I haven't foudn that there's any difference in buying sperately or ready made however to the poster who recommended LECie you are wrong. Nice as they maybe they are the only External drives i have come accross which need additional drivers in order to connect to a machine thus ruining the whole portable aspect of them...

 

[Crispy]

Yes, unless you absolutely need some added features, don't install any software that comes with one of these things - it's not needed. (except in the stupid Lacie's case)

 

[UnderOpenSky]

I didn't reccomend the Le Cie, just said they were cheapest drive around. Your right thugh having to use seperate drives is daft.

 

[Lazy Llama]

Well, I bought a LaCie 500GB drive from Amazon (£66) and it didn't need any drivers installing unless you want to format it for a Mac and then use it on a PC...

It works, it's slightly clicky when writing but other than that seems fine. It's a Seagate drive inside.

 

[mauvais]

The advantage to buying your own caddy is that the technologies in question (USB/eSATA/Firewire for the connection, and SATA for the internal interface) are likely to outlast the drive's useful life, plus you can replace it easily if it goes wrong.

 

[dogmatique]

Just from personal experience, I've had a Maxtor external die on me, and my LaCie Big Drive 1tb which I've had for nearly a year has started to act very erratically - spins and spins and doesn't mount on booting.

Not much help, but when buying something like this, I find it useful to google the model number and then add "problem" after it, and you get some idea of the issues for that device.

 

[mhendo]

500GB Mybook by Western Digital. Less than a ton, I have 2 of them and they're great.

I've been contemplating another external drive, and i've been reading customer reviews on newegg.com, one of the America's best online hardware sources.

While about 70-80% of the people with WD MyBook 500Gb drives are very happy with them, there is a significant minority (between 10 and 20 percent, depending on exactly which model) who report complete failure after about a year. Quite a few of these failures occurred a few weeks after the warranty expired. Reviews here.

My current external hard drive is a Seagate Barracuda internal HD in a Rosewill fan-equipped enclosure. It works perfectly, and the Seagate internal drives have a five year warranty. I think i'll go the same route when i need another external drive because, apart from the reliability issues, it's often a little bit cheaper than buying an external drive.

 

[KeyboardJockey]

thanks peeps some good stuff there. We are gonig to have to split the drive in to Windoze and Linux parts so whatever we get should be able to cope with that.

 

[cybertect]

I got a 750gb one a few weeks ago for about £100 (iirc).

Its a maxtor one.

PC World were selling 750GB Maxtors for £109 when I was at their Croydon store last weekend. I was very tempted.

I've never needed to install a driver for a LaCie HD on any of my Macs.

Personally, I'd steer clear of the LaCie 1TB 'Big Disk' drives as they have two 500GB drives internally RAID-ed into a single 1TB volume. If either of the mechanisms fails, you lose all your data, so you've effectively doubled your risk of wiping everything. If it's stuff you have backed up elsewhere, it may be acceptable for the money.

 

[Poi E]

While about 70-80% of the people with WD MyBook 500Gb drives are very happy with them, there is a significant minority (between 10 and 20 percent, depending on exactly which model) who report complete failure after about a year. Quite a few of these failures occurred a few weeks after the warranty expired. e.

Fuck! Better back mine up now

 

[Bob_the_lost]

My current external hard drive is a Seagate Barracuda internal HD in a Rosewill fan-equipped enclosure. It works perfectly, and the Seagate internal drives have a five year warranty. I think i'll go the same route when i need another external drive because, apart from the reliability issues, it's often a little bit cheaper than buying an external drive.

Normally that's the case, but right now you can get External 750GB drives cheaper than internal ones.

 

[untethered]

There's absolutely no reason why the unbranded box would be any worse. There's two components for an external drive - 1. Hard drive. 2. Interface circuit. Personally, I'd buy the enclosure and the drive seperately, but I just went and checked prices and there's not really an awful lot in it.

How about the third component?

3. Design.

You're a Machead, you should know about that.

I've got a WD MyBook. It will stand horizonally and vertically. You can stack several side by side like books on a shelf, or several on top of each other when they're lying on their sides. The edges of the unit have slightly raised rubber bumpers which stop them moving or scratching the surface of the desk or the unit.

The design of the MyBook is a compelling reason to get one. It looks unfussy and it works incredibly well.

 

[xenon]

Have you thought about NAS systems if you've got more than one machine?

 

[Sunray]

Seconded. There are some nice features on NAS drives, esp if they have gigabit networks. UPnP servers can stream files to UPnP clients like Wifi radios and media centres. PC does not have to be off either.