External Hard-Drive Suggestions?

[Lollies]

I have two WD Velociraptor which totals 300gigs so I've run out of space due to games, video editing etc... I have been using a Seagate Freeagent to store video materials as well as music and images and it has been fine running music off of it. This is 500 gigs, and I have been running on low for a while. I am looking into getting another external harddrive or just all together getting a larger one.

Basically what I am asking is what do you guys suggest for running an external for streaming and storing. The FreeAgents overall have bad reviews but mine has been good thus far. Would something such as the small portable ones be doable?

Just lookin for suggestions and opinions.

Thanks!
-Lollies

 

[FZ21Z]

First of all, do you have a PC or laptop? It's up to you on how much space you want and what you can afford, and if you have a PC, you've got better options.

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/index.asp?cat=5

 

[noobvious]

Might be some useful info for you here.

 

[Jonathan_King]

Welcome!

Try looking on Newegg for External hard drive.

The reviews should give you a good idea of what is good and what is likely to fail.

 

[1Bowtie]

And also think about transfer times for large files takes alot longer with usb vs internal hd's.

 

[Lollies]

First of all, do you have a PC or laptop? It's up to you on how much space you want and what you can afford, and if you have a PC, you've got better options.

External Hard Drives Overview

It would be mainly for my Desktop running Windows 7 64 bit. Anything else needed I could just stream if necessary I figure. My laptop has 500gigs so storing the essentials is good enough. Both my desktop and Laptop are running Windows 7 64bit.

Welcome!

Try looking on Newegg for External hard drive.

The reviews should give you a good idea of what is good and what is likely to fail.

I looked at it several times but every time I come to the conclusion that getting another Seagate free agent may lead me to numerous problems or might work just fine.

And also think about transfer times for large files takes alot longer with usb vs internal hd's.

Yea, I should have originally gotten the larger of the two set-ups but I figured I'd upgrade to the veloci raptor since the raptor was being slowly replaced, even though the cost was more.

As far as streaming music and such, what i have now has worked fine, small delay at first but what else would you expect? But after that it is fine, as well as movies etc... the rest I use purely for storage.

Might be some useful info for you here.

I'll take a look.

Thanks for the help guys! Any info helps.

-Lollies

 

[Phone Man]

I have a WD Passport but only use it for backups on my desktop and my laptop. Also handy if I need to transfer files to another computer. For daily use I would go with an internal drive. My main drive is a 1TB WD Caviar Back Edition. I have used WD for years and they have been great.

Jim

 

[JonM33]

I have two WD Velociraptor which totals 300gigs so I've run out of space due to games, video editing etc... I have been using a Seagate Freeagent to store video materials as well as music and images and it has been fine running music off of it. This is 500 gigs, and I have been running on low for a while. I am looking into getting another external harddrive or just all together getting a larger one.

Basically what I am asking is what do you guys suggest for running an external for streaming and storing. The FreeAgents overall have bad reviews but mine has been good thus far. Would something such as the small portable ones be doable?

Just lookin for suggestions and opinions.

Thanks!
-Lollies

I would recommend a Samsung Story Station (USB). Samsung makes both the quietest and the coolest running drives on the market, perfect for external use. I do speak from experience as I have two 1TB Samsung F1 SATA drives, a 1.5TB Samsung F2 SATA drive and a 1TB Samsung F2 that I have put into a Vantec NexStar3 NST-360SU-BL USB/eSATA enclosure. If it weren't for the blue glowing LED on the NexStar3 I wouldn't even know the drive is on. The aluminum enclosure is cool to the touch even after hours of transferring hundreds of gigs of data.

You can get the 1TB Samsung Story Station here: Newegg.com - SAMSUNG STORY Station 1TB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive HX-DU010EB - External Hard Drives

 

[noobvious]

I would recommend a Samsung Story Station (USB). Samsung makes both the quietest and the coolest running drives on the market, perfect for external use. I do speak from experience as I have two 1TB Samsung F1 SATA drives, a 1.5TB Samsung F2 SATA drive and a 1TB Samsung F2 that I have put into a Vantec NexStar3 NST-360SU-BL USB/eSATA enclosure. If it weren't for the blue glowing LED on the NexStar3 I wouldn't even know the drive is on. The aluminum enclosure is cool to the touch even after hours of transferring hundreds of gigs of data.

You can get the 1TB Samsung Story Station here: Newegg.com - SAMSUNG STORY Station 1TB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive HX-DU010EB - External Hard Drives

I've heard good things about those recently from someone in a different forum....he has three of them and is planning on getting another.

 

[Zepher]

Personally, I would get a WD 1TB Black and slap it into your Desktop.

And also think about transfer times for large files takes alot longer with usb vs internal hd's.

Here are 2 of my External WD Mybooks, a 1TB black and a 500GB,

 

[Jonathan_King]

I don't think transfer speeds are relevant with external vs internal. USB 2.0 is fast enough that the drive itself is the bottleneck, not the interface.

Now, get an SSD, and you may see a difference, but as far as I know, the speed of the drive itself is slower than SATA or USB 2.0.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Zepher]

I don't think transfer speeds are relevant with external vs internal. USB 2.0 is fast enough that the drive itself is the bottleneck, not the interface.

Now, get an SSD, and you may see a difference, but as far as I know, the speed of the drive itself is slower than SATA or USB 2.0.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

Depending on the drives, USB2.0 is the bottleneck. I have 3 WD 1TB Black drives, just happen to have one in a My Book enclosure since I ran out of space inside my pc.
I get sustained 100+MB/s transfers on the internal Black Drives and upto 88MB/s on the external. The transfer speed goes down when you are transferring a lot of smaller files.

 

[nate42nd]

It just happens I was using a FreeAgent Go also when I decided to get this. This is my video and in part 2 I show you some tests between USB and eSATA.

It's a Rosewill RX-358-S External Enclosure

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jg1qp52MJJQ

I LOVE it and you can put a 1.5 or 2TB drive in it.

 

[JonM33]

Here are 2 of my External WD Mybooks, a 1TB black and a 500GB,

Windows transfer rates are not realistic due to buffering and burst rates. Show a HDTune benchmark for more realistic transfer rates. Most likely it will be between 30-40MB/s at most. It's the limitation of USB 2.0.

Edit- Nice pirated movies you got there too!

 

[pparks1]

I don't think transfer speeds are relevant with external vs internal. USB 2.0 is fast enough that the drive itself is the bottleneck, not the interface.

The USB 2.0 spec is 480 megabits per second max. Thus, 480 megabits per second, divided by 8 bits to a byte = 60,000,000 bytes per second. However, I have never witnessed USB 2.0 running anywhere close to 100% max...it's at best about 60%. So, about 36MB/s is the best that you get. An internal drive will run 2x faster than that...or more.

 

[Lollies]

It just happens I was using a FreeAgent Go also when I decided to get this. This is my video and in part 2 I show you some tests between USB and eSATA.

It's a Rosewill RX-358-S External Enclosure

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jg1qp52MJJQ

I LOVE it and you can put a 1.5 or 2TB drive in it.

Seems like a very good option, especially since I have two WD Raptor drives available to use but I believe that it is 500gigs total with the 2 if I remember correctly which isn't much when you just have one.

The USB 2.0 spec is 480 megabits per second max. Thus, 480 megabits per second, divided by 8 bits to a byte = 60,000,000 bytes per second. However, I have never witnessed USB 2.0 running anywhere close to 100% max...it's at best about 60%. So, about 36MB/s is the best that you get. An internal drive will run 2x faster than that...or more.

I have a mid-tower case which has two drives in it already, it has room for 4 but I'm afraid with the way it is configured with the graphics card haveing 4 would disrupt the airflow. Due to the location of installation on the motherboard for the graphics card it leaves about an inch of space between the top of the hard drive cage and the end of the graphics card which is a EVGA Geforce 9800 GX2. If any of that makes any sense. I could take pics if it doesn't to show. I should have gotten a high tower probably to begin with but I didn't see the point if I was only running 1 graphics card?
______________________________________________________________________

What looks like the best option thus far?

Thanks,
-Lollies

 

[JonM33]

The USB 2.0 spec is 480 megabits per second max. Thus, 480 megabits per second, divided by 8 bits to a byte = 60,000,000 bytes per second. However, I have never witnessed USB 2.0 running anywhere close to 100% max...it's at best about 60%. So, about 36MB/s is the best that you get. An internal drive will run 2x faster than that...or more.

That's because a percentage of the USB 2.0 bandwidth is reserved for USB protocol overhead.

 

[Lollies]

What would be a good drive to accompany the Rosewill RX-358-S External Enclosure? I'd like a 500g-1TB of space. In my comp I have 2 WD veloci-raptors.

 

[DocBrown]

NewEgg has major brands on sale all the time

Newegg.com - Hard Drives, External Hard Drives, Internal Hard Drives, Laptop Hard Drives, Portable Hard Drives, Computer Hard Drives, SATA Hard Drives, Hard Drive

I scan their ads everyday

 

[Lollies]

For an external would Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive be efficient? I've been looking at WD's drives on newegg.