Which Portable Hard Drive

Deputy-Dawg said:

Which portable hard drive would you suggest? I have reduced my choice to the MiniXpress 160 or the LaCie Little Big Disk 160. Both are 5400 rpm drives but the LaCie appears to use two 80 Gb drives in a Raid 0 configuration. Since both drives are available at about the same price is there any significant advantage one over the other?

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You would save yourself a ton of money buy buying an internal drive and getting an external enclosure. This gives you the ability to pick exactly what you need and you can compare brands of drives and enclosures. Customer reviews are always better than product reviews.

I personally use a (somewhat "portable 3.5") 320 GB Western Digital (PATA) in a USB/FW400/FW800 Venus DS3 enclosure. The drive is reliable and the enclosure has a very quite 80mm fan to keep it cool.

When you buy these packaged external drives from companies that don't make the drive you have no idea what you'll be getting. Why gamble for the sake of convienience?

If you are looking for the mobile HD unit, I recommend Lacie's mobile HD. I have a small HD (100GB with FW400/USB) and a rugged version (120 GB with FW800/FW400/USB). They are nicely packaged and very durable. I use them every day as my on-the-road-duty iBook's 40GB internal HD does not cut it for me without the additional storage space these mobile HD units provide.

Deputy-Dawg said:

At 73 with Parkinson disease I am not about to do major surgery on a new MBP. None the less I still need something to provide backup and additional storage. I suppose I could have the local Apple dealer install the drive, but by the time I pay him to install the new drive I don't think I would be saving much. I also want it to be bus powered so as to avoid the necessity of carrying another external power supply when traveling. Finally while it is not an overweaning consideration a small size is desirable.

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What Jeff means is to purchase a standered internal harddrive and an external harddrive kit, this would allow to you save a fair bit of money. All you do is connect the hard drive within the enclosure, like you would in a desktop computer, and then you are pretty much good to go.

Jeff Hall said:

You would save yourself a ton of money buy buying an internal drive and getting an external enclosure. This gives you the ability to pick exactly what you need and you can compare brands of drives and enclosures. Customer reviews are always better than product reviews.

I personally use a (somewhat "portable 3.5") 320 GB Western Digital (PATA) in a USB/FW400/FW800 Venus DS3 enclosure. The drive is reliable and the enclosure has a very quite 80mm fan to keep it cool.

When you buy these packaged external drives from companies that don't make the drive you have no idea what you'll be getting. Why gamble for the sake of convienience?

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true story - you could get a western digital.

SMM said:

true story - you could get a western digital.

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You could, but seagate offers a 5 year warranty while WD offers 2 or maybe 3 maximum. The reason I now buy seagate is because my caviar 250 gig died after precisely 2 years and 1 month. I barely used it too.

I would take seagate over WD any day of the week now. It's true that some big stores may not carry seagate drives, but some may, and also small computer stores do. You won't pay much more than a WD and you'll have a much better warranty.

WD - "My Book" is much better than Lacie.. I have 10 TB of Lacie.. they are noisy and if you move them around a lot they will begin to fall apart..

WD..
cheers

f1400 said:

You could, but seagate offers a 5 year warranty while WD offers 2 or maybe 3 maximum. The reason I now buy seagate is because my caviar 250 gig died after precisely 2 years and 1 month. I barely used it too.

I would take seagate over WD any day of the week now. It's true that some big stores may not carry seagate drives, but some may, and also small computer stores do. You won't pay much more than a WD and you'll have a much better warranty.

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I'd second the motion on Seagate! I believe it's the only company giving a 5-year warranty on the 2.5" HDs, they're reliable, fast, and quiet!

iBorg

Even with my 160GB internal drive, I'll need more external drive space for encoding movies, ripping DVDs, etc., and I plan to get either the minixpress or the OWC Mercury On-The-Go, each offering a small form-factor 2.5" HD using SATA and offering USB2/FW400/FW800.

As another post mentioned, you may be able to save $$ by buying the HD of your choice, and the enclosure separately - they're very simple to install, only a couple of screws!

iBorg

f1400 said:

You could, but seagate offers a 5 year warranty while WD offers 2 or maybe 3 maximum. The reason I now buy seagate is because my caviar 250 gig died after precisely 2 years and 1 month. I barely used it too.

I would take seagate over WD any day of the week now. It's true that some big stores may not carry seagate drives, but some may, and also small computer stores do. You won't pay much more than a WD and you'll have a much better warranty.

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I am having issues with Seagate SCSI drives. I have had 3 failures after ~ 2 years of use. I also lost a new Seagate SATA. So, they are not immune from issues, just like everyone else. They seem to have about as many failures in my world. However, I do not see anyone doing remarkably better either. I will also warn you, Seagate has failed to stand by their warrantee if the drive was installed by a manufacturer, rather than just buying it in retail form.

well heres my views on HDD:

Maxtor SATA - consider there the black death awfull drives
Maxtor IDE - Now there IDE drives are great I have used them for years

Sony IDE - niver had one
Sony SATA - Great drives again I have one iv had for about 2 years and its still going strong.

WD IDE - good drives as well had a few die within 18 months tho
WD SATA - only had one of these and its still doing well

Hitachi IDE - had some issues with these, the deskstar range are top drives tho
Hitachi SATA - not had a SATA drive from them yet.

Edit. i would buy an HDD and the external bay much cheaper just buy a good caddy i have used some bad caddys in my day i suggest one with a fan

Don't get a Western Digital with a Power Book

This may be old news, but the PowerBooks do not supply enough power to use the WD external although my LaCie drive has always worked fine.
Here is what WD customer support wrote to me. This is NOWHERE on their support pages, so I think they wasted my time and money. An powered hub can solve the problem.

Thank you for contacting Western Digital Customer Service and Support.
The Apple PowerBooks have been known to not supply enough power to its USB ports to power some devices. You will need a USB 2.0 Power Booster Cable to run this drive on your system.

USB 2.0 Power Booster Cable
WDCA029RNN
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/accessories.asp?ProdID=170

Disk does not mount. I am using a 15" G4 powerbook. I think the most likely answer is that the USB port does not supply enough power.

cec said:

This may be old news, but the PowerBooks do not supply enough power to use the WD external although my LaCie drive has always worked fine.
Here is what WD customer support wrote to me. This is NOWHERE on their support pages, so I think they wasted my time and money. An powered hub can solve the problem.

Thank you for contacting Western Digital Customer Service and Support.
The Apple PowerBooks have been known to not supply enough power to its USB ports to power some devices. You will need a USB 2.0 Power Booster Cable to run this drive on your system.

USB 2.0 Power Booster Cable
WDCA029RNN
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/accessories.asp?ProdID=170

Disk does not mount. I am using a 15" G4 powerbook. I think the most likely answer is that the USB port does not supply enough power.

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Yes this is a well knowen issue thus why you want a usb/firewire400/800 drive

just saw the WD one.. it is simply lovely.. i guess i'll get one even if it is a bit pricey, can i then change the internal hard disk if i break it or something like that?

(like i did on my 250gb lacie..)

You can look into getting a 2.5" case that supports SATA drives. There are lots of eBayers selling pulls from their Macbooks for extremely low prices. Last time I saw one 80GB "Apple" drive get sold for like A$80, cheap!