Buying external hard drive advice

[Dimwhit]

So those OWC drives are pretty good? I'm about this close to purchasing the 500GB RAID1 external drive they have (Its called the Maximus) and am looking for feedback on the drives.

I highly recommend OWC drives. I bought their 2-drive enclosure and slapped a 500GB Seagate into it. And I love it. I'll put a second drive in it soon and use it for Time Machine. My current 500GB is a clone (using SuperDuper). Plus extra storage for disposable files.

OWC makes great stuff.

 

[Biker21098]

In regards to Lacie.

Many people have had huge amounts of success and reliability with the older Lacie drives. I'm not surprised at all that your 160GB drive is still working fine.

I work at a film school helping with post production, and we used to recommend all the student purchase Lacie drives. In the last year and a half we have had MANY Lacie failures. The drives themselves are usually not the problem, but the chipset/enclosure. Seems that the chipset or board is corrupting the data structure on the drive. Sometimes its recoverable if the drive is removed right away and then recovered in a separate non-Lacie enclosure.

Also Lacie uses a variation of drive manufacturers in their enclosures. Sometimes you are getting a western digital, but I've seen LOTS of Maxtors in there.

I think 2+ years ago Lacie was great, and the creative professionals used the drives and had good experiences, and still do with those old drives, but now, there is no way I'd buy a Lacie.

Just my 2 cents. I own about 3TB or HDD space, and I only trust seagate.

I know seagate bought Maxtor, so hopefully they will rub off on them, but only time will tell.

GOOD LUCK.

 

[hanzoh]

Which external drives would you recommend in the 2.5" department?
Firewire would be nice, but isn't a no-go if it isn't included...

 

[teflon]

Seagate FreeAgent Go or Western Digital Passport, although i'd pick Seagate because of the 5 year warranty. None have firewire, but i trust those 2 brands. If you want firewire for 2.5'', you might need to buy your own drive and enclosure.

 

[weckart]

I have the Freecom and the WD 2.5" drives. Nothing to choose between the two except that the WD is shiny black plastic and will scratch more easily. I have also bought the Maxtor One Touch for someone, which also seemed fine.

If you need Firewire on a 2.5, then you should look at Smartdisk, although their USB drives are thought to be a tad too slow. Smartdisk also have a FW800 version, which also costs more.

The benefit of the Smartdisk drives is that you can take them apart and upgrade. Many of the other makes of 2.5" external drives on the market are sealed units.

 

[Ladybug]

I'm currently in the process of replacing my Lacie drive. I will be looking for something else. I had a 500gb drive. The drive had a lot of trouble mounting and finally it just stopped working altogether. The light would come on but the drives would never spin up. The drives inside are still good, however I lost all my data on them.

 

[zioxide]

I'm currently in the process of replacing my Lacie drive. I will be looking for something else. I had a 500gb drive. The drive had a lot of trouble mounting and finally it just stopped working altogether. The light would come on but the drives would never spin up. The drives inside are still good, however I lost all my data on them.

Did you try recovery software like SpinRite?

 

[jng]

OWC > LaCie

I use a 320G Triple interface D2 extreme or what it was called and it is built like a tank, PROPER aluminium metal which subdues the noise and is a natural heat dissipator.

Yes, they are built like a tank. It was a pain to take apart whe the drive died. But I really don't need anything built like that, heavy and bulky.

Also, the LaCie's only come with a 1 year warranty and relatively expensive ($$/gb). We bought a LaCie and the USB/Firewire Controller just crapped out on us and we had to rescue the perfectly good Seagate HD. Of course, we stuck it in an OWC Enclosure.

i like my OWC drives..info on them in my sig

OWCs come with a 2 year warranty and their designs are much cooler than LaCie's (when were they last updated?).

The best way to go if you can do it is just order an HD off newegg or wherever and stick it in an enclosure yourself. And those you can buy anywhere (newegg, best buy, owc, buy.com, etc). I have a preference however for OWC as stated above.

I think 2+ years ago Lacie was great, and the creative professionals used the drives and had good experiences, and still do with those old drives, but now, there is no way I'd buy a Lacie.

Just my 2 cents. I own about 3TB or HDD space, and I only trust seagate.

Ditto re: LaCie.
And I love Seagate too. 5 year warranty on their HDs

I'm currently in the process of replacing my Lacie drive. I will be looking for something else. I had a 500gb drive. The drive had a lot of trouble mounting and finally it just stopped working altogether. The light would come on but the drives would never spin up. The drives inside are still good, however I lost all my data on them.

Check this one out:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/MAU8F7500G16/

It's an OWC drive with fw400/800 + USB2, 2 years OWC warranty + additional 3 years on the Seagate Barracuda dwelling within for $220.

 

[hanzoh]

Hm, in Germany the only retail 2.5" HDD with Firewire available at a "low" price is the 160GB LaCie for 129€. The WD Passport II 160GB (USB2.0 only) costs 90€.

I wonder if I really need the Firewire, I currently own a RaidSonic 3.5" case with an Samsung 250GB IDE HDD which runs over Firewire most of the time. But I haven't noticed any speed improvements over USB2.0, maybe this will only be useful for video editing?

 

[crazycat]

I have used LaCie for a long time, and Western Digital for a shorter time. LaCie is better built, i had on in my backup for months without a problem, yet a western digital could not take it for a few weeks. (they both had the same size but WD was smaller physically). They both work very well, they both are great but i find that LaCie is better. I would also recommend the LaCie software that you can get for free online.

 

[numbersyx]

WD MyBook Premium is a great choice. Has Firewire and USB options and is future proof... Very quiet and looks good on the desk...

 

[GilGrissom]

well my experience with WD is becoming a little more love/hate.

After my 120Gb Passport died, they sent me the wrong one out...swapped it finally, that drive begins to show signs of same problem...suddenly before I get chance to ring WD up again, another 120Gb drive arrives at my door!

So now I have 2! So, if none of these die on me...I'm up to another 240Gb in total, which always helps!

Not the firewire durable 3.5" drives I was after, but its something for nothing!

I'm still not convinced about the reliability of the 2.5" WD Passport portable drives, I've had several now which have been iffy.

The 3.5" ones are probably fine, I know several people who have no problems with them.