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external HD recommendations?
- Thread starter MacIllini
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I usually agree with building your own -- but consider your use.
I don't know if this has changed much ... but a case use to need a specific chip set if you wanted a better performance drive.
ie, oxford 911 for firewire 400, or oxford 912 for firewire 800 -- this used to be the standard to look for in drives that were used for video editing since you were reading a writing to these drives CONSTANTLY.
IF this is just a backup -- then it might not be as important -- but just some food for thought.
I don't know if this has changed much ... but a case use to need a specific chip set if you wanted a better performance drive.
ie, oxford 911 for firewire 400, or oxford 912 for firewire 800 -- this used to be the standard to look for in drives that were used for video editing since you were reading a writing to these drives CONSTANTLY.
IF this is just a backup -- then it might not be as important -- but just some food for thought.
hmmm... I've been looking at reviews for the WesternDigital My Book series and it looks like there are a TON of complaints about breakdowns after just 1 year (ironically, the warranty is 1 yr only).
is this a common issue for all external hard drives in general or just specific to WD My Book drives? anyone got info on this?
is this a common issue for all external hard drives in general or just specific to WD My Book drives? anyone got info on this?
I still look for those chips, because I figure I want the best drive that I can afford, that way I can use it for whatever I need to.
Not sure if this is common, but when looking through customer reviews whenever I looked, I never felt comfortable enough with OTS ready drives. That is why I go with the build-your-own, I get a good quality internal drive with a decent warrant (3 years) and even if the case goes bad, it is usually not as expensive as replacing the whole drive.
thanks for your input everyone!
I returned an unopened WD MyBook drive cuz I just saw WAY too many complaints about their durability.
I'm probably gonna get a Seagate Barracuda drive and find a decent enclosure with active cooling. The newegg.com site looks like a pretty good place to start looking.
any more input on this thread is certainly welcome
I returned an unopened WD MyBook drive cuz I just saw WAY too many complaints about their durability.
I'm probably gonna get a Seagate Barracuda drive and find a decent enclosure with active cooling. The newegg.com site looks like a pretty good place to start looking.
any more input on this thread is certainly welcome
I've used the WD MyBook Studio 1TB for six months without a problem (except for what I suspect was Time Machine corrupting the catalog file on one partition). FW800 transfers very fast, the drive is quiet and without vibration, and it mounts and dismounts quickly. Best of all, you can find it HEAVILY discounted online ($240 at Newegg right now).
I suspect the people with problems didn't update the firmware (from WD's site) - or maybe I was just lucky. Using with a MBP 2.4.
EDIT: Also, it comes with a 5-year warranty - not much consolation if the data only lives in one place, but nice otherwise.
I suspect the people with problems didn't update the firmware (from WD's site) - or maybe I was just lucky. Using with a MBP 2.4.
EDIT: Also, it comes with a 5-year warranty - not much consolation if the data only lives in one place, but nice otherwise.
I found these guys called GTech , who after searching for weeks and weeks appear to have solid reviews over some of the Lacie or WD mybook drives .
http://www.g-technology.com/Products/Products.cfm
The Gdrive looked good to me until I realized that it is passive cooling, I don't think it's a good idea to buy a HD without a fan so that is out , unless I buy a desktop fan and point it at them ( I'd get two 500Gb 1 for daily use & 1 for back up), it sure would save me some $$££ over the GRaid2.... I did begin to look at the GRaid2 500Gb for my everyday HD and then a Gmini 1TB for back up of everything I need to back up .
I haven't pulled the trigger yet so I would appreciate any one with experience of GTech drives to step forward and tell all .
http://www.g-technology.com/Products/Products.cfm
The Gdrive looked good to me until I realized that it is passive cooling, I don't think it's a good idea to buy a HD without a fan so that is out , unless I buy a desktop fan and point it at them ( I'd get two 500Gb 1 for daily use & 1 for back up), it sure would save me some $$££ over the GRaid2.... I did begin to look at the GRaid2 500Gb for my everyday HD and then a Gmini 1TB for back up of everything I need to back up .
I haven't pulled the trigger yet so I would appreciate any one with experience of GTech drives to step forward and tell all .
Hmmmmm. I beg to differ.
I run ONLY Western Digital in all my computers. I have WD internal HD for my iMac, MBP and they run great without a problem. It's fast and quiet. I've used them for hours and hours at a time, shut down only once a week or every other week. Save files, delete, etc... NOT one problem so far.
I have WD 500gig external HD, again no problem runs great and smooth. My fiance bought the same one as i did and again no problem with hers. Just last night we used it to install things from it into her new MBP she purchased yesterday.
If you read it as a common issue i would like to know how they use their edxternal drives? Do they keep it outside in warm temps, or drop it, or near magnetic stuff, etc... Mine is on my desk, and always connected to my iMac, ZERO PROBLEMS.
I think, take care of it, and it will take care of you. I believe apple used seagate as their HD's. Well i don't know, i like WD, maybe I should give seagate a try sometime.
gtech drives are very nice but you pay a big premium for the nice 'mac pro' styling. If you're a slave to fashion then they're going to impress people.
If you want something that just works for god sake just go to eBuyer and buy what's on special offer. They're all good. If you can tell the difference between drives then you must have special talents
If you want something that just works for god sake just go to eBuyer and buy what's on special offer. They're all good. If you can tell the difference between drives then you must have special talents
Fair comment
I'm not buying to impress anyone , far from it unless you count me into that equation , I'm not fussy tbh , just looking for something that is reliable for a decent amount of time
Thing is I have read many favorable views on the GTech drives , which is why I was thinking of buying some of their drives
I'm UK based at the moment so eBuyer is out for me but I'd be happy to get suggestions of a trustworthy UK supplier.
Special talents I do have( so I'm told) but not in the telling of drive differences which is why I posted in the first place
Fair comment
I'm not buying to impress anyone , far from it unless you count me into that equation , I'm not fussy tbh , just looking for something that is reliable for a decent amount of time
Thing is I have read many favorable views on the GTech drives , which is why I was thinking of buying some of their drives
I'm UK based at the moment so eBuyer is out for me but I'd be happy to get suggestions of a trustworthy UK supplier.
Special talents I do have( so I'm told) but not in the telling of drive differences which is why I posted in the first place
lol
eBuyer is uk based: www.ebuyer.com
dabs.com is also pretty good.
i've only ever seen Gtech drives in the wild once and the person that was using it was a smug video editor who thought it was specially superiour for video editing needs. Thats guff.
My advice would be to get a nice RAID drive if you want one (maybe that means Gtech i don't know - Lacie have some good ones)
and just get a cheap and cheerful 1TB drive for backup.
I've been very happy with my G-Tech drives and would highly recommend them. Been using them for the last two and a half years now and no problems!
hehe , that's me told
thanks for the heads up , appreciated .
yep , I agree , I cannee stand folk who show off ...really lame imho
thanks for the advice , I'll take on board .
I have set up a FirmTek SeriTek 2en2 with two WD 640 drives connected to a Sonnet card and couldn't be happier with the setup. It's quiet and very fast.
http://www.firmtek.com/seritek/seritek-2en2/
http://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempo_sata_e4p.html
http://www.firmtek.com/seritek/seritek-2en2/
http://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempo_sata_e4p.html
Reliability of GRAID2
I have had two of these (250GB and 500GB). they're great for speed but have lousy reliability. Both had to be send back for service each half year. Furthermore the customer support of G-Technology is non-existent. Recently, it took over 8 weeks to get the drive back - presumably because the technicians were 'backed up'....what does that say for the number of drives coming back!
Uranus
I have had two of these (250GB and 500GB). they're great for speed but have lousy reliability. Both had to be send back for service each half year. Furthermore the customer support of G-Technology is non-existent. Recently, it took over 8 weeks to get the drive back - presumably because the technicians were 'backed up'....what does that say for the number of drives coming back!
Uranus
....funny that ,I've heard/ read nothing but good things , after weeks of reading user reviews and so I just pulled the trigger for a 500Gb GDrive http://www.g-technology.com/Products/G-DRIVE.cfm
I paid £125 , and am happy with that......
.......will report back with unboxing pics if wanted , also I will do a short 'review' and post back here over time
I paid £125 , and am happy with that......
.......will report back with unboxing pics if wanted , also I will do a short 'review' and post back here over time
Just bought a GDrive 500Gb ....review/pics to follow..
.......funny that ,I've heard/ read nothing but good things , after weeks of reading user reviews and so I just pulled the trigger for a 500Gb GDrive http://www.g-technology.com/Products/G-DRIVE.cfm
I paid £125 , and am happy with that......
.......will report back with unboxing pics if wanted , also I will do a short 'review' and post back here over time
.......funny that ,I've heard/ read nothing but good things , after weeks of reading user reviews and so I just pulled the trigger for a 500Gb GDrive http://www.g-technology.com/Products/G-DRIVE.cfm
I paid £125 , and am happy with that......
.......will report back with unboxing pics if wanted , also I will do a short 'review' and post back here over time
An external hard drive is just an external hard drive. I don't think brands really matter unless you buy it for the extra features... like Drobo.
I hear ya ,
but when one starts looking for a drive and then go's on to read reviews etc , I for one found myself reading lots of horror stories about various brands ....so I dunno , I suppose that's why I went for the GDrive
I think as long as you choose a brand that is known... should be enough. Like WD externals. But I see a lot of people just buy enclosures and put in their own internal, which imo is better idea because you can buy a really good hdd brand is that is less likely to fail.
That's true about building your own and I thought about it but I needed one quickly and live a good bit away from a shop & delivery would take a while so yeah GDrive ...
I'll see what happens with this GDrive 500Gb and let you guys on this thread and future readers know how I get on
Right so it arrived today , well packed and feeling quite heavy , after unboxing I realized there was no software disk , no matter ,plugged in , mounted then I partitioned the drive...I'll ring them tomorrow & see if one can be sent out ...I'll let you know
Just now I'm using Super Duper to copy my HD over as a bootable back up , then doing the same with my other Mac ....all seems to be going to plan so far, taking a while though(169,000+ files) 1.6MB/s at first now I'm seeing 7.1MB/s ( I'm using a iMac G3 so that could be bottle neck?)
...it really is a nice object to look at and certainly feels /looks well made.
There is a pale white/ice blue(ish) light on the front which indicates when it is turned on and also is a reference for when the disk is writing data as it flickers when reading/writing ..I was a bit concerned at first , I thought it was broken ....some may find that light slightly annoying but , it's ok really ....the drive is quiet , makes a small ( really small ) amount of read/write noise as expected , totally silent when not in read/write tasks ,but when intensively working , like say backing up my HD it makes a little more noise as it go's along , grunting kinda iTunes on the lowest volume drowns it out....but nothing real annoying , usual amount of heat , faintly warm I think would best describe the heat (after 40mins backing up my HD)
Only just got the thing so I'll report back on how it's going for future readers looking for a HD , up to now , I'm happy with what I got.
Well packed and it came with both cables, bonus !? ( not expecting that as it said no FW400 USB2 cables on the GTech website )
anyway..........here's a few unboxing pics.
Just now I'm using Super Duper to copy my HD over as a bootable back up , then doing the same with my other Mac ....all seems to be going to plan so far, taking a while though(169,000+ files) 1.6MB/s at first now I'm seeing 7.1MB/s ( I'm using a iMac G3 so that could be bottle neck?)
...it really is a nice object to look at and certainly feels /looks well made.
There is a pale white/ice blue(ish) light on the front which indicates when it is turned on and also is a reference for when the disk is writing data as it flickers when reading/writing ..I was a bit concerned at first , I thought it was broken
....some may find that light slightly annoying but , it's ok really ....the drive is quiet , makes a small ( really small ) amount of read/write noise as expected , totally silent when not in read/write tasks ,but when intensively working , like say backing up my HD it makes a little more noise as it go's along , grunting kinda iTunes on the lowest volume drowns it out....but nothing real annoying , usual amount of heat , faintly warm I think would best describe the heat (after 40mins backing up my HD) Only just got the thing so I'll report back on how it's going for future readers looking for a HD , up to now , I'm happy with what I got.
Well packed and it came with both cables, bonus !? ( not expecting that as it said no FW400 USB2 cables on the GTech website )
anyway..........here's a few unboxing pics.
