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External Hard Drive

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pangelpip

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 8, 2009
28
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Hey all - I am looking to buy an external hard drive 1TB. I am reading a lot of reviews and I am having trouble deciding what the most reliable will be to buy. I need to make sure I don't lose this data but it is so big I can no longer keep it on my computer. Any suggestions? I am hoping not to spend above $150. I could really use some help :confused: - thanks in advance!
 
pangelpip said:
Hey all - I am looking to buy an external hard drive 1TB. I am reading a lot of reviews and I am having trouble deciding what the most reliable will be to buy. I need to make sure I don't lose this data but it is so big I can no longer keep it on my computer. Any suggestions? I am hoping not to spend above $150. I could really use some help :confused: - thanks in advance!
Click to expand...

My advice, get 2 drives that are between 500-1TB in size, and a RAID external enclosure. Throw the drives in the enclosure, set it as RAID 1, and be happy. External hard drives die, like any hard drive. However in my line of work I see them die a LOT more than normal hard drives. I myself have had 4 external drives die on me in the last year. They can simply be problematic at times.

Thus if you build your own, with RAID 1 you have two copies of all of your data. It will run you closer to $200 but that kind of protection (if your data is very important to you) is worth it.
 
Western Digital would be my recommendation at that price point if you chose not to build it....

Everyone has their own experiences, but I imagine that most of them are positive. Sure, there are these threads about how person x's drive failed and person y wouldn't buy anything but them. I own three drives that there are plenty of horror stories about.

No one would ever post: "I love my Western Digital 1TB Drive", unless someone posts a horror story about one. Companies ship tons of drives daily, not everyone will be perfect.

The best advice is to find one that has a good warranty and excellent customer service. And then avoid reading these threads so you don't lose any sleep.

Or you could be OCD, anal and paranoid like me and have two back-up drives...

More literature found here.
Here, is another thread on 1TB Hard Drives
This one is about LaCie...
Here is another, there is some more discussion about LaCie in there...
Here is one on USB 1TB, I'd stick to Firewire...
And if all else fails, MRoogle
 
To give you more of an idea of what I said:


Or do what the person above said which is a very smart, traditional way to backup data. Just remember not to put all of your eggs in one basket (or all of your data on one drive) because if it fails, its gone.
 
What uberamd is a great idea, but, for most people if you are asking generic questions as opposed to which enclosure, usually you are going to take the route I mentioned, but uberamd's way is by far the best for cost, just not something everyone wants to do...
 
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