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which external hard drive...lacie/western-digital/freecom?

student_trap

student_trap

macrumors 68000
Original poster
so i need a new hard drive...i am looking to get a 500 gig one, but am uncertain as to which company i should go for. I current ly have a 160 gig lacie tripple extreme, which has started clicking, and as its not that old, i am wary of buying lacie again. However, firewire would be a definite bonus for me, as i am hoping to use it firstly to back up my mbp, and also to store thousands of 10 megapixel photos.

my choices seem to be...

buy two of these 'mybook' drives (one for storage while the other to back up the back up): http://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Dig...4?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1177888306&sr=1-2

two of these freecom drives:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Freecom-Dri...?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1177888306&sr=1-14

or one lacie triple extreme:
http://store.apple.com/Apple/WebObjects/ukstore.woa/wa/RSLID?mco=9466B268&nplm=TF111

any experience with these manufacturers? and what are the real time benefits of firewire?

thanks, student_trap
 
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I can't say anything from experience on the others, but I have a MyBook Pro 500Gb and it does what it says on the tin. I guess it's a good thing I have nothing to complain about 🙂

The supplied software is good, no fuss and it looks nice. From the tests I read up on it also seemed to get good numbers.

With firewire vs USB I can only speak from experience, and while USB appeared slightly quicker in bursts, firewire seemed to be more consistant (perhaps due to controller?). So say you're copying a large set of images, the transfer under USB might be quicker if you left it alone, but it slows down if you open another app or window, whereas firewire seems to be less affected and trundles along more consistently - so I guess it depends on how you use it?
 
I have tried Lacie and WD. Definitely go with the mybook. It is definitely faster at least in my experiences (firewire) and more realiable. I have had several Lacie die on me. My question is why not get the mybook pro edition? It has firewire 400 and 800. Or the edition that has firewire 400 and USB?

I haven't used USB in years after going firewire...but sounds like you may not have firewire 800. And as far as I know, though USB 2 is slightly faster on paper than firewire400, it isn't the case in real life usually.

In addition, you may consider the firewire if you backup your mbp because you can startup with your firewire drive. USB can't do that right now on the mac.
 
student_trap said:
so i need a new hard drive...
Click to expand...

DO NOT GET LACIE! Look around (outside of MacWorld's stellar recommendations) and you will see that they have a very bad rep as of late. (Look at MacMall and other forums.)

I have a WD 500GB with Firewire 800 and it's okay.

GTech has a good rep as does OWC.
 
FYI, I saw someone at work replace the original HDD in an older LaCie D2. The original HDD inside was a WD.

I hear good things about GTech as well.
 
2jaded2care said:
FYI, I saw someone at work replace the original HDD in an older LaCie D2. The original HDD inside was a WD.
Click to expand...

It's not the drives... there are only four manufacturers of drives in the world... it's the enclosures, cooling and controllers. LaCie buys drives and then screws them up. It's their mission statement.
 
Yeah, LaCie uses good hard drives usually and then puts them in awful enclosures. I've seen more LaCie drive enclosures go bad than the drives they use.

Personally, I like to go the route of buying a good barebones HD and a good enclosure and putting them together myself. Zipzoomfly.com and newegg.com usually have good prices for the drives. As for the enclosures, OWC has some good ones.
 
I bought an enclosure from OWC that I really like (mercury elite pro, with firewire 800) - awesome design, both form and function. They make complete external HDs too with the same case design and they are well priced.
 
majordude said:
DO NOT GET LACIE! Look around (outside of MacWorld's stellar recommendations) and you will see that they have a very bad rep as of late. (Look at MacMall and other forums.)

I have a WD 500GB with Firewire 800 and it's okay.

GTech has a good rep as does OWC.
Click to expand...

I'm hesitant to go with Lacie too. Havent' had the best experience with their DVD dual layer burner w/ lightscribe as a lot of data discs come out to be duds. Kind of turns me off to buying other products from them.

What's a good price you think for a WD 500GB w/ Firewire 800? that's pretty much what I'm looking for.
 
I also love OWC drives (esp. the cool blue light).

Anyway the user live sin England and shipping would cost an additional $50+ so if thats an issue I'd go with another drive - but not Lacie. I don't like them either.
 
I also recommend getting a Mercury Elite Pro case from OWC. They sell them with triple interface set ups. I have the Mercury Elite Pro case with a 250GB Seagate in it (got the drive from newegg, case from OWC).

Prior to building my own I was buying LaCie, I own 3 D2 drives.. honestly can't say that I have had any problems with any of my D2 cases... did have issues with one drive (after like 2 years), which was a Western-Digital but the case was fine. The reason I stopped going LaCie was because I realized that building my own gave me a longer warranty on the drive and in the end I saved a few bucks. I still love the look of the LaCie D2 cases.
 
From what I hear, WD is one of the best. I don't think you can go wrong with Western Digital. Just my two cents and a half for what its worth. Good luck!
 
SpaceJello said:
I have tried Lacie and WD. Definitely go with the mybook. It is definitely faster at least in my experiences (firewire) and more realiable. I have had several Lacie die on me. My question is why not get the mybook pro edition? It has firewire 400 and 800. Or the edition that has firewire 400 and USB?

I haven't used USB in years after going firewire...but sounds like you may not have firewire 800. And as far as I know, though USB 2 is slightly faster on paper than firewire400, it isn't the case in real life usually.

In addition, you may consider the firewire if you backup your mbp because you can startup with your firewire drive. USB can't do that right now on the mac.
Click to expand...

excuse my ignorance however what is the difference between the different 500 gb WD drives appart from the connections? There are two for sale on Amazon one is for £99 and the other £89 but it does not give and indication as to the difference? I only intend to use my HD with my airport extreme so a USB connection is all I require. Does it matter which one I go for?
 
doug.hall said:
excuse my ignorance however what is the difference between the different 500 gb WD drives appart from the connections? There are two for sale on Amazon one is for £99 and the other £89 but it does not give and indication as to the difference? I only intend to use my HD with my airport extreme so a USB connection is all I require. Does it matter which one I go for?
Click to expand...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Dig...6?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1178216128&sr=8-1

That's the basic one and will do what you want on USB.
 
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Rizvi1 said:
I'm hesitant to go with Lacie too. Havent' had the best experience with their DVD dual layer burner w/ lightscribe as a lot of data discs come out to be duds. Kind of turns me off to buying other products from them.

What's a good price you think for a WD 500GB w/ Firewire 800? that's pretty much what I'm looking for.
Click to expand...

Alright, I need to get an external HD bad now. I know there's a lot of recommendations here for the mercury elite, but I can't figure out which one's the right one (there's OWC Mercury™ Elite-AL Pro Storage Solutions or the OWC Mercury™ Elite-AL Pro FW RAID Solutions).. and I don't know what's good value for the money, and I still don't quite get this RAID thing.

So I think I'm just going to grab this:
http://www.buy.com/prod/western_dig...dg1t5000n/q/loc/101/202712831.html?adid=17662

Western Digital MyBook Pro 500GB Triple Interface (USB 2.0 and Firewire 400/800) External Hard Drive - WDG1T5000N
Our Price: $179.95
Shipping: FREE
Buy.com Total Price: $179.95

I'll save $10 if I'm new to google checkout too.

Anyone opposed?
 
Rizvi1 said:
So I think I'm just going to grab this:
http://www.buy.com/prod/western_dig...dg1t5000n/q/loc/101/202712831.html?adid=17662

Western Digital MyBook Pro 500GB Triple Interface (USB 2.0 and Firewire 400/800) External Hard Drive - WDG1T5000N
Our Price: $179.95
Shipping: FREE
Buy.com Total Price: $179.95

I'll save $10 if I'm new to google checkout too.

Anyone opposed?
Click to expand...

Well it's a heck of a price, that's for sure. Personally, I don't trust WD drives as much as I trust Seagate and Hitachi drives, but I don't really have anything against them either, like I do with Maxtor and Toshiba.

Still, if I were in your shoes, I'd probably buy the following combination:

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=101452

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/MEFW8912/

But that enclosure doesn't support USB, which I'd personally not use for a hard drive, but you might need for some reason or other.
 
I'm a little late to the party but just want to say that I LOVE MY MYBOOK PRO!

The MyBook's are gorgeous. Works flawlessly with my Mac, too.
 
yadmonkey said:
Well it's a heck of a price, that's for sure. Personally, I don't trust WD drives as much as I trust Seagate and Hitachi drives, but I don't really have anything against them either, like I do with Maxtor and Toshiba.

Still, if I were in your shoes, I'd probably buy the following combination:

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=101452

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/MEFW8912/

But that enclosure doesn't support USB, which I'd personally not use for a hard drive, but you might need for some reason or other.
Click to expand...

I have two other WD Drives and I have no complaints. This just seems the easiest way to go. I would like USB 2.0 too. For when I use with my PC or whatever if need be (my PC doesn't have firewire).

There are no RAID options or anything with what I got right? (I know this is probably a stupid question).
 
I have always used Western Digital and I find them to be awesome, really. Some people I know use Maxtor and they haven't had issues either, except they're hardly as sightly as the WD drives. WDs MyBooks are great and I intend to buy one of their super portable 160GB HDDs.
 
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