Help me pick an External Hard Drive please!

[terrorist96]

I have literally been researching for days now.
You'd be surprised at how many hard drive companies there are once you branch out of Seagate and Western Digital. It's so tough picking one when you see positive and negative reviews for pretty much all drives. After having 2 unbelievably crappy 1TB Toshiba external hard drives, I'm not taking anymore chances.

I've looked at so many different drives on so many different sites and the ones I feel the most strongly about are LaCie and Fantom. They seem to have the least negatives. I need a 1TB one with eSATA and preferably 7200rpms. Don't wanna deal with slow "green" drives (though some of the Fantom greens are 7200rpms ). Here are some of the drives I'm leaning towards:

1. Amazon.com: LaCie 301848U USB 2.0 Neil Poulton 1TB Rugged XL eSATA External Hard Drive: Electronics (official site: LaCie - LaCie Rugged XL)

2. Amazon.com: LaCie Hard Disk Quadra 1TB eSATA/FireWire800/FireWire400/USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive 301881U: Electronics (official site: LaCie - LaCie Hard Disk Quadra)

3. FD G-Force Hard Drive - GF1000EU - Buy.com (and here: Fantom GF1000EU G-Force 1TB External Hard Drive - USB 2.0, eSATA at TigerDirect.com)

4. Fantom GreenDrive 1TB USB 2.0 and eSATA External Hard Drive - 2 Year Warranty! - GD1000EU - Buy.com

5. Fantom GreenDrive 1TB External Hard Drive - eSATA, USB 2.0 at TigerDirect.com

6. Fantom GDII1000EU GreenDrive II External Hard Drive - 1TB, eSATA, USB 2.0 at TigerDirect.com

7. Fantom 1TB G-Force Triple Interface at TigerDirect.com

8. Fantom Drives G-Force 1TB eSATA / USB 2.0 Hard Drive 16MB cache GF1000EU16

9. Fantom Drives G-Force 1TB Triple Interface Hard Drive


Please, this will only take a moment of your time for those of you who have more experience with this type of stuff. I just want to get an external hard drive that I can back up my internal one on every night so I can feel secure. Thank you very much!

 

[Phase]

I would personally stick with Western Digital - 1TB.

Western Digital WDBAAH0010CH My Book Elite External Hard Drive - 1TB, USB 2.0 at TigerDirect.com

 

[whs]

I own 6 external harddrives from 5 different makes. Never had any trouble with any of them (knock on wood). There is so much cross supplying these days that you never know anyhow from where your particular drive comes. I guess it is a matter of luck.

 

[terrorist96]

I would personally stick with Western Digital - 1TB.

Western Digital WDBAAH0010CH My Book Elite External Hard Drive - 1TB, USB 2.0 at TigerDirect.com

No eSATA.

 

[noyb]

There's an advantage of building your own ....
by getting an enclosure then installing a drive of your choice.
This way, you can to get to the HDD and maybe swap it.

I have an Emergency Bootable backup in an enclosure ... where I can keep the data updated.
If connected via eSATA .. I can boot to it and keep the system updated.

Something like ... Enclosure .. HDD

 

[pparks1]

Don't wanna deal with slow "green" drives (though some of the Fantom greens are 7200rpms ). Here are some of the drives I'm leaning towards:

Actually though, even the slower 5,400RPM green drives can just about saturate the eSATA bus and can go 2-3x faster than USB 2.0. I wouldn't be all that concerned with the rotational speed of an external drive

As far as backups go, I use robocopy to replicate my data and synchronize my internal hard drives in my server and my external drive. With robocopy, this only copies the files that have changed or been removed...thus my backup jobs complete in less than 60 seconds. So, I don't really worry about the speeds of my drive for backups.

Edit: Almost all of my external hard drives have been Western Digital and I still have all of them to this date. I've also got 1 320GB Simpletech drive...and it's done it's job just fine.

 

[Phase]

I would personally stick with Western Digital - 1TB.

Western Digital WDBAAH0010CH My Book Elite External Hard Drive - 1TB, USB 2.0 at TigerDirect.com

No eSATA.

WD makes some with eSata, just depends on your budget.

 

[terrorist96]

There's an advantage of building your own ....
by getting an enclosure then installing a drive of your choice.
This way, you can to get to the HDD and maybe swap it.

I have an Emergency Bootable backup in an enclosure ... where I can keep the data updated.
If connected via eSATA .. I can boot to it and keep the system updated.

Something like ... Enclosure .. HDD

I actually looked at those exact enclosures and HDDs. It would be like $140 at the best for both of them. Would the benefit of building your own external outweigh the cost of just buying one of the ones I linked to above? One was like $90. (This one: http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=206821006&loc=101&pastRev=99) and the reviews seem pretty positive too. I guess for the extra $50, I'd have 4 more years to the warranty.

 

[whs]

Looks OK except I would never get anything from Buy.com. They are miserable. Here is an alternative (first on the list) from a decent company (Dell). Iomega has a good reputation.

 

[terrorist96]

Looks OK except I would never get anything from Buy.com. They are miserable. Here is an alternative (first on the list) from a decent company (Dell). Iomega has a good reputation.

I've heard the exact opposite about Iomega, actually.

I'm starting to consider the WD and the Rosewill enclosure again. Seems like the most important thing when buying hard drives should always be the warranty, since so many die.

 

[whs]

I've heard the exact opposite about Iomega, actually

Hmm, the Iomega ratings I have seen were in Germany. Maybe the ones you refer to come from another plant - no idea.

 

[terrorist96]

Well, after thinking about it for a while, I decided to go with the internal hdd + enclosure. The 5 year warranty is what won me over. I'd much rather feel secure about the drive than get a discounted external drive.

I got these, by the way:
Newegg.com - Rosewill RX-358-S BLK (Black) 3.5" SATA to USB & eSATA Ext. Enclosure w/Int.80mm fan - External Enclosures
Newegg.com - Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

I like that Rosewill includes a lot of the wiring, but I wish I had not gone and bought an eSATA cable and a dual eSATA Bracket that plugs into my SATA ports. I guess I could probably try selling them.

 

[noyb]

I’ve read where many have had problems with Pre-Assembled’s .. Then the question …
Is it the HDD or the enclosure ??? .. And then what does one do ???
Breaking into the Pre-Assembled Box to get to the HDD voids the short warranty...
And you have to send it back with the HDD ... and all your personal Data.

My Main reason for a “BYO” .. I like to split my Data and my Operating System into different partitions.
I can partition the HDD in my external the same way.
Then .. I can have a backup system in the external .. And use it’s data partition for backup storage.

The system in my external is a fresh install, fully loaded, mostly updated and a master copy for my working system.
All I have to do is Swap HDDs .. perform a few updates .. make another Acronis Image .. And I’m brand new again.
Then Later .. I can replace the system partition in the external from my Acronis backup image .. And I’m ready for the next time.

Any data you don’t care about .. Is data you only have one copy of .. So I always get two .. And this also gives me hardware backup.
It's been my experience that the HDD (a good one) is more reliable than the box it's in
My third HDD used to be in an external … But I’ve recently moved it internal.

Most eSATA’s are not hot swappable .. So my externals are connected via USB .. Unless I want to boot from them.
Practically speaking .. I see very little speed difference between eSATA and USB for my normal data backup operations ... (Copy > Paste)

I think you're going to like this .. Once you figure out what all you can do with it

 

[whs]

Practically speaking .. I see very little speed difference between eSATA and USB for my normal data backup operations ... (Copy > Paste)

That's normal. One may think that 3Gb/sec data transfer rate will buy better data transfer speed. But a disk running at 600Mb/sec average transfer capapbility can do nearly as well on USB2 at 480Mb/sec. The limitations are with the disks, not with the attachments.

 

[Stevy22]

Western Digital is Awesome-- 1 TB

 

[NoN]

I would personally stick with Western Digital - 1TB.

Western Digital WDBAAH0010CH My Book Elite External Hard Drive - 1TB, USB 2.0 at TigerDirect.com

Looks WD new Hdds (WD Ears) system are supposed writting faster by reducing sectors 512ko to 4ko, having some lite probs...I wouldn't recommand WD until they have fully tested on 1Tb Harddrive.

Mentionned it doesn't work on XP and earlier system

They also mention a "jumper" in case (not supply by them), to return to 514ko sectors.

Here in french the chronicle (use translator, please):
http://www.presence-pc.com/actualite/western-digital-ears-38229/

 

[noyb]

One thing I like about those Rosewill Enclosures …
They look like they have adequate cooling for long term operations…
And the Black series of WD HDDs will run hotter.

On thing I Really don’t like .. The Power switch is “Conveniently” hidden on the back Panel.
If you would like to have the External turn On or Off automatically with the computer …
(Along with other Peripherals) … One nice accessory is one of These
Mine also controls my LED desk lamps .. And other Stuff.

Here’s another nice accessory to go with an External.

You got any more money I can spend ???
:roflmao:

The WD Black Series will run a little faster … If you want to use it as a System drive ..
Here’s a comparison of the WD Black to the Blue series …

 

[terrorist96]

Thanks guys, for all your responses. Noyb, the power switch doesn't really concern me. I'm probably just gonna leave it on most of the time so I don't forget to turn it on for the automatic backup every night. (I use the Windows tools to make a backup and a system image). And as for the power strip, I don't need that. I have a UPS I got recently from APC (check my specs).

 

[Zen00]

I'm using a 500gb SimpleTech Simpledrive. It works beautifully, just plug it in and Windows 7 recognizes it as an external mass storage device and assigns it a letter.