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Author Topic: vote for the best external storage device!  (Read 9896 times)

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Offline andromedanwarmachine

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vote for the best external storage device!
« on: January 11, 2011, 08:53:01 AM »
Sorry- that was a bit thin as a title. This probably deserves to be a POLL but mabey we could move onto that depending on the candidates revealed by this post.

I'm trying to establish two things from the populace gathered here;

1. what is the best external hard drive for archive storage of material that anybody has experience of?

2. what is the largest size that anyone would consider safe? (do they get more fragile as they get bigger?)


and following on from there, is there a product that is leant to PC more than Mac and vice versa and is there anything specifically to avoid which has proven unreliable.

Thanks

JimP
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Offline it-goes-to-eleven

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Re: vote for the best external storage device!
« Reply #1 on: January 11, 2011, 09:46:09 AM »
This topic has been covered to death many times.  Nothing has changed.


External enclosures are a crapshoot because you don't usually know what drive is in the enclosure.  It can vary wildly.  They are a good way for companies to get rid of old stock.

Each drive is different.  And I mean *EACH* drive, not model.  It takes over 40 hours of testing for me to qualify a new drive, and they fail fairly often.  Even then, an early failure is still a possibility. 

It's all about your workflow and how you manage those drives: backup, monitor, test.  Learn how to use SMART.  Never leave yourself with only one copy.  Accept that silent data corruption DOES happen, and plan for it.

External drives are a target for theft.   DVDs are clunky, but less likely to get stolen.  I think they can still have a place in a backup strategy.

1TB is still the sweet spot.   Capacities higher than that have new tech that is still very much bleeding edge - especially in the consumer drive market.  Basically, the drive arms have another sub arm at the tip that moves.  That is the current tech direction, but it is still very new.  Another (old) approach is to pack more platters in the drive, and that has serious drawbacks.

Some larger (2tb) drives have timers to park the heads when not in use.  That isn't necessarily just inconvenience or power saving, it can be a sign that the mechanism isn't very robust.

I'd love to buy 2TB drives, but I just don't see the tech as mature yet.

Seagate has been flirting with bankruptcy for years.  I'd avoid them.  The western digital black drives have always been good to me.   Basically an enterprise drive priced for the consumer market.

Offline andromedanwarmachine

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Re: vote for the best external storage device!
« Reply #2 on: January 12, 2011, 04:02:37 AM »
thankyou 'eleven,

I apologise for my ignorance regarding the legacy of this question.

So broadly speaking, from your own experience, something like Western Digital 1TB drives represent a good compromise...?

(in terms of technology and reliablility)

JimP
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Offline it-goes-to-eleven

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Re: vote for the best external storage device!
« Reply #3 on: January 12, 2011, 09:42:31 AM »
Yep.  As a specific example, I recently picked up a WD10000lsrtl on sale at best buy for $85 (sale not advertised at stores), plus I had a couple of $10 gift cards I wanted to get rid of.  I don't normally shop there but they had/have a good CRT recycling program where they charge $10, but give you back a gift card for that amount.

I also buy the WD externals, but again stick with the 1TBs.  I've seen the 3TB's on the shelf, and really look forward to those...

Offline andromedanwarmachine

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Re: vote for the best external storage device!
« Reply #4 on: January 13, 2011, 05:40:02 AM »
thanks for this, eleven...

JimP
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Offline live2496

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Re: vote for the best external storage device!
« Reply #5 on: January 13, 2011, 11:01:29 AM »
I would go for a docking station for SATA drives and get multiple 1TB drives.
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Offline F.O.Bean

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Re: vote for the best external storage device!
« Reply #6 on: January 13, 2011, 09:29:37 PM »
Ive only had my new Seagate 500gb exhdd since xmas, but it syncs automatically w/ my internal hdd, so i love it so far. If I bought a bigger drive id just get lazy. My Seagate 500gb EXHDD uis for storing my 120GB Zune(ALL Phish from 97>2010) and my 160gb iPod, and thats about it. As long as I have a backup of my mp3 players I'm happy. Because I burn ALL my flacs to dvd-+r's.

Oh and I only bought my Seagate bc i had a WD 250GB EXHDD go bad after only 1 year :( I just happened to back everything up the NIGHT BEFORE IT DIED :P
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Offline live2496

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Re: vote for the best external storage device!
« Reply #7 on: January 13, 2011, 10:21:55 PM »
I have had a WD external drive fail too. But the internal ones have all been great.
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Offline Simp-Dawg

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Re: vote for the best external storage device!
« Reply #8 on: January 16, 2011, 07:23:51 PM »
I have had a WD external drive fail too. But the internal ones have all been great.
i've got a WD 1TB MyBook Studio Edition Pro II that shit the bed on me a few months ago.  it's got 2 500gb drives in it and i can't read anything off them.  almost all of my unfinished/unprocessed recordings from the years i was taping are on it.   >:(  i'll never buy another WD external drive.  probably going to have to spend several hundred dollars to get the data recovered off it.

the drives themselves are fine, i should say, the enclosure is the part that's fried.  apparently it uses some proprietary formatting/partitioning system which makes the drives unreadable unless they are hooked up to it.
« Last Edit: January 16, 2011, 07:26:12 PM by Simp-Dawg »
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Offline it-goes-to-eleven

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Re: vote for the best external storage device!
« Reply #9 on: January 16, 2011, 07:42:35 PM »
apparently it uses some proprietary formatting/partitioning system which makes the drives unreadable unless they are hooked up to it.

It uses some type of raid.  This is yet another example of why I tell people NOT to use raid.

Your best bet is to remove the drives and get a replacement enclosure from WD, or elsewhere.

The drives can be easily cloned using linux - and they should be before any recovery effort begins. Since it's only 500gbx2, isn't that much data to deal with.


Offline beatkilla

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Re: vote for the best external storage device!
« Reply #10 on: January 16, 2011, 07:47:42 PM »
I have 8 external hd and only 1 is a Western Digital my book all the rest are Seagate and the Western Digital is the only one that failed.

Offline F.O.Bean

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Re: vote for the best external storage device!
« Reply #11 on: January 16, 2011, 10:39:39 PM »
Damn, I cant believe so many of us have been BURNED by WD :P :(
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Offline andromedanwarmachine

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Re: vote for the best external storage device!
« Reply #12 on: January 17, 2011, 06:04:04 AM »
it's bad for sure-

makes you wonder if the data-write type which tapers use is too much for them.-

I mean large uninterrupted chunks of hi-def audio- mabey it's too much to defragment...?

JimP
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Offline OFOTD

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Re: vote for the best external storage device!
« Reply #13 on: January 17, 2011, 02:24:36 PM »
I've got in upwards of 26TB of storage space at home and won't use any non-SSD drives other than Western Digital anymore.   Several Seagate's and have died both within and just barely out of the warranty period.   Once they bought Maxtor their products have IMO gone to shit.  Samsung seems to be picking up steam in the HD market but I don't know anyone using one of their consumer drives.   

A common problem with all external USB drives is that the converter (usb > sata/pata) gets fried pretty often due to power spikes when people unhook them while on instead of ejecting them through their OS of choice.  The opposite seems to be the problem with Firewire as you hear of cases where the host FW gets hosed in what is supposedly a hotswap connection.

 

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Re: vote for the best external storage device!
« Reply #14 on: January 17, 2011, 04:15:32 PM »
I've been less concerned about the brand and reliability of a drive than whether I've used a good back-up strategy.  If you assuming that any of your drives can fail at any time, you have a far lower chance of being pimped. 

 

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