Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Cnercessian

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 24, 2012
27
0
What is the portable Hard Drive do you recommend?

I would like it to be USB 3.0 and 500GB to 1TB
Thanks in advance
 
What is the portable Hard Drive do you recommend?

I would like it to be USB 3.0 and 500GB to 1TB
Thanks in advance


This Samsung portable HD appears to be quite popular.

Also this Western Digital. It was on sale before so you might be able to find a cheaper alternative brand.

There's also this LaCie HD.

I'd probably go with the Samsung based on the number of positive reviews. I use Western Digital at the moment without an issue but YMMV, I guess.
 
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
Costco typically carries WD external drives (if you have a membership there). I grabbed a 750gb USB 3 drive there two years ago for pretty cheap, so you might have some luck there.
 
What is the portable Hard Drive do you recommend?

I would like it to be USB 3.0 and 500GB to 1TB
Thanks in advance
This is the drive I use:
http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-FreeA...qid=1342996002&sr=8-1&keywords=seagate+goFlex

But honestly, they're all very similar. If all you will use it for is USB 3.0 data transfers, roll a die. WD, seagate, and toshiba are all very good and the main 2.5" usb 3.0 drives they offer are all within +-10% of each other performance wise.
 
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
But honestly, they're all very similar. If all you will use it for is USB 3.0 data transfers, roll a die. WD, seagate, and toshiba are all very good and the main 2.5" usb 3.0 drives they offer are all within +-10% of each other performance wise.

+1.
It's not worth agonizing over. All HDD's fail eventually, with occasional quick failures among all major manufacturers.

Might as well buy one on sale. Check dealmac, techbargains, OWC (macsales), newegg, amazon, etc. Once you identify a model, check reviews on newegg or other sites to check that it's not an especially trouble model.

Here's listing for $80 & $90 1 TB USB 3.0 external drives, for instance:

http://dealmac.com/Hitachi-Touro-1-TB-USB-3.0-External-Hard-Drive-for-79-free-shipping/594625.html

http://dealmac.com/Western-Digital-...l-Hard-Drive-for-89-free-shipping/596246.html
If there's a particular case design you like, go for it.

There are 256 GB SSD's (drive only) in the $170 neighborhood already. You'll probably be swapping out the HDD for SSD months or years before the upcoming HDD wears out.

If you are hauling around the drive a lot, use a padded pack, pocket, or pouch for it.
 
I've personally had bad experience with the several Seagate external drives that I've purchased. I haven't done extensive testing, but the three drives I've owned seem to fail much quicker than the Western Digital branded ones.

I'm currently using a few LaCie drives and have had pretty good experiences with them over the past 5 years.
 
I've personally had bad experience with the several Seagate external drives that I've purchased. I haven't done extensive testing, but the three drives I've owned seem to fail much quicker than the Western Digital branded ones.

I'm currently using a few LaCie drives and have had pretty good experiences with them over the past 5 years.

Anecdotal evidence is the best type of evidence!

They're all in the same small ballpark for failure rates, and it really depends on how lucky you get. Doing things like keeping the hard drive cool, not dropping/throwing it and other general care will help prevent failures.
 
I've personally had bad experience with the several Seagate external drives that I've purchased. I haven't done extensive testing, but the three drives I've owned seem to fail much quicker than the Western Digital branded ones.

I'm currently using a few LaCie drives and have had pretty good experiences with them over the past 5 years.
I have a LaCie Minimus 2TB with USB 3.0, and it's very slow. So slow that I thought it could be a USB 2.0-disk, and therefore got me to join this forum earlier this month to make a topic about the 'issue'.
 
I've used a lot of different brand names as I have several computers & travel extensively. Therefore I'm a bit of an external drive fanatic, always testing different drives. I used to prefer LaCie till Western Digital increased the quality, speed & great durability of their drives. Now they're so popular, if you shop carefully you will find Amazon, Newegg & others routinely put them on sale.
 
I've used a lot of different brand names as I have several computers & travel extensively. Therefore I'm a bit of an external drive fanatic, always testing different drives. I used to prefer LaCie till Western Digital increased the quality, speed & great durability of their drives. Now they're so popular, if you shop carefully you will find Amazon, Newegg & others routinely put them on sale.

Lacie is being bought by seagate fyi but i doubt much will change overall. however, i've always preferred seagate portable drives, just preferred their design overall since the drives are all so similar in the end, and i think while go flex might have a premium it does have an advantage in allowing you to upgrade the connector down the road.
 
I've been very happy with LaCie Rugged portables. I hasten to say that I just use them for Time Machine backups, bootable clones and archives of purchased films / TV shows. So, 1) they don't get a lot of hard daily use and 2) I have never paid a lot of attention to their speed because I just connect the thing, start the task and walk away if it's not just copying a few files.

Still, so far I keep going back to get another LaCie when I need another portable drive. I really like the lightweight matte-finish aluminum shell and the rubbery bumper-guard thing around the edges. It's another plus that the bumpers are orange so the drives don't get lost amid clutter on desks. I don't care that they're not thin like an iPod. They look like (and are) the kind of thing you can take on a field trip and not worry that your precious shiny something or other will come back scratched.
 
IMO, you can go for GoFLex or WD (55gb/1TB)...

Else, why not a wireless one (Seagate)?

You can stream stuff using more than one device simultaneously..

What is the portable Hard Drive do you recommend?

I would like it to be USB 3.0 and 500GB to 1TB
Thanks in advance
 
The G-Drive slim I mentioned is thinner than
most external drives and comes in a not-easy-to-scratch aluminium chassis, which should match my MBA well (yes I'm obsessive enough to care about this), but I think the USB 3.0 module is not on sale yet, so be careful if looking to buy this not to get the old USB 2.0 model.
 
I use the Adata HD710 500Gb for my MBA. It is USB3.0. When I used BlackMagic DiskSpeedtest it was around 105MB/s Read/Write speed. So that is pretty good. There also is a 1Tb version. I can really recommend it.
 
The G-Drive slim I mentioned is thinner than
most external drives and comes in a not-easy-to-scratch aluminium chassis, which should match my MBA well (yes I'm obsessive enough to care about this), but I think the USB 3.0 module is not on sale yet, so be careful if looking to buy this not to get the old USB 2.0 model.

G-Technology's website said USB 3.0 versions will be out in August.

g-drive-mobile_usb-3_0.jpg
 
I'm a big G-Drive fan. I have two of their G-Drive Mobiles with FW800 backing up my iMac.

If you can wait until the USB 3.0 version appears in August, I imagine that would be an excellent choice.

Hard drives are mechanical devices, and all mechanical devices fail at some point. I've had WD, LaCie and just about every other manufacturer crater on me ... but the G-Drives I own are still going strong, despite being under load all day, every day.
 
The G-Drive slim I mentioned is thinner than
most external drives and comes in a not-easy-to-scratch aluminium chassis, which should match my MBA well (yes I'm obsessive enough to care about this), but I think the USB 3.0 module is not on sale yet, so be careful if looking to buy this not to get the old USB 2.0 model.

Another immediate available option is the segate goflex slim 500gb, it's USB 3.0 and I think cheaper than gdrive's model. It's just as slim and allows for different cable types (as mentioned above)
 
G-Technology's website said USB 3.0 versions will be out in August.

Image

I think I read somewhere that the G-Drive Slim (not the G-Drive Mobile, which is a thicker drive, but supports larger capacities and one of the models supports Firewire too, though 500Gb is enough for me and I prefer the thinner drive) will be released first, and the original date I saw for this was July, though the end of July is rapidly approaching...
 
I think I read somewhere that the G-Drive Slim (not the G-Drive Mobile, which is a thicker drive, but supports larger capacities and one of the models supports Firewire too, though 500Gb is enough for me and I prefer the thinner drive) will be released first, and the original date I saw for this was July, though the end of July is rapidly approaching...

Yea, I saw the August date on their website this morning when I first found this thread.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.