Windows 7: external HD

Hi everyone, I'm looking to buy a 1 to 2 tb extenal HD I looked at the reviews the costco store has and got scared of the seagate. However some say it is a good one.
So now I ask you people what you have and why and how much.
Thanks...............Conrad

I've got a Western Digital 640GB, real happy with it. It writes data a little bit slower than I expected, but it's normal, because it's not an internal hardware device. About that Seagate - I've heard good things about it. The father of one of my friends stores security camera recordings onto a 1TB Seagate. Having about 17 HD cameras hooked up to one computer and all recording to the external HDD at the same time...... It must be a pretty good HDD... You decide

I've always used LaCie external hard drives. However, LaCie doesn't actually make the drives, the three I have are Toshiba, Seagate and Samsung. Given that, I've had very good results with all of them and I've had multiples of the Toshiba and Seagate, 2.5" and 3.5", PATA and SATA. Some people like Western Digital but I've always had better results with either Seagate or Samsung like I said.

Here are some drives I recommend.

LaCie Desktop Hard Drive - 1TB - USB 2.0 (1 DISK) - $100
LaCie Grand - 1TB - USB 2.0 (1 DISK) - $90
LaCie Grand - 2TB - USB 2.0 (1 DISK) - $140


Regardless of the price discrepancy, I'd recommend two of the smaller drives. I also don't recommend getting drives that actually contain two hard drives but act as one. The problem with these drives is that if one of the internal drives fails, all of the data is lost. Personally, 2TB drives are so new that I'd recommend getting a couple 1TB. If you don't want to go with LaCie, here are some alternatives.

Samsung Story Station Plus - 1.5TB - USB 2.0 - eSATA (1 DISK) - $120
Samsung Story Station Plus - 1TB - USB 2.0 - eSATA (1 DISK) - $110

You can get a samsung story 2TB for $140 but personally I don't trust the 2TB drives, they're too new. If you want a western digital, they're fairly cheap as well.

Western Digital Elements - 1.5TB - USB 2.0 (1 DISK) - $120
Western Digital MyBook Essential - 1.5TB - USB 2.0 (1 DISK) - $130

It is my opinion that the customer reviews of external hard drives are suspect, unlike reviews of almost any other component.

This is because people use these drives differently. My external drives (Seagate) are used in my office and stored in a cabinet - they never leave the site. But many people use these drives as portable devices, carrying them around in bags, luggage, etc. We can never know just how much abuse one of these drives goes through.

A hard drive is a precision mechanical device that is prone to damage from shock. You don't want to drop one. So when I read the reviews about dead drives I wonder how many of these were exposed to baggage handling at an airline. So I take those reveiws with a grain of salt.

My daughter has a Lacie that she does occasionally travel with and has not had any problems. That may be because Lacie drives can take more abuse, or it may be because she is careful.

I would make the decision based mostly on price/performance. But that's me!

Very well stated.

Mine is a Samsung Story Station 1TB. I wanted capacity enough to last me a while, and it was only $99 on Amazon.com. This one is an external drive, as opposed to a portable drive....so this one is best left sitting on your desk, not thrown in your knapsack and carried about.(those portable types generally cost more though, for the same capacity).

If you really want a drive that can be used as a portable storage device, I'd recommend getting something along the lines of the LaCie Rugged series. Most of the smaller sizes are fairly expensive for their size, but the 1TB version is only $30 more than it's equivalent w/ only USB 2.0 would be and this version comes w/ USB 2.0 and eSATA. There are other alternatives you could look into, LaCie is just my favorite.

LACIE Rugged XL 1TB USB 2.0 / eSATA - $130

Update:
LaCie Grand 1TB USB 2.0 - $90