External Drives...what to buy?

[stuff99]

I'm currently in the market for an external drive because I take lots of pics and the 320 gb wont be enough on my new iMac

I want something with a fast transfer rate cause I want to back up my photos and swap it btwn my computer and my external drive frequently. Im looking for at least a 500gb.

I prefer firewire because I heard that's faster for transferring...but I'm not sure what this 8mb and 16mb buffer stuff is all about and I dont know how much transfer speeds vary from brand to brand...and which HDD company is reliable

I know Western Digital and Seagate are big names...

what do you guys suggest for my needs?

Is Lacie a good and reliable brand?

 

[jfmartin]

G-TECH ok !

I'm currently in the market for an external drive because I take lots of pics and the 320 gb wont be enough on my new iMac

I want something with a fast transfer rate cause I want to back up my photos and swap it btwn my computer and my external drive frequently. Im looking for at least a 500gb.

I prefer firewire because I heard that's faster for transferring...but I'm not sure what this 8mb and 16mb buffer stuff is all about and I dont know how much transfer speeds vary from brand to brand...and which HDD company is reliable

I know Western Digital and Seagate are big names...

what do you guys suggest for my needs?

G-TECH are small, cool looking... many ports (USB + firewire) but a little bit pricey...

 

[ghostshadow]

Lacie is really good, sometimes they are over priced, but they are still great. I build my own, it's usually cheaper and it's some times better. I buy the enclosure and hard drive separate, it usually works out cheaper than buying an "pre-built" enclosure.

I really like the Next Star series from Vantec, the build quality is fab.

 

[vicious7]

Yep, Lacie's good. Also check out the offerings from macsales.com

 

[thegoldenmackid]

I'm kinda laughing, a new thread gets posted every day.

I like my Western Digital MyBook Pro's

500 GB, Fast, Reliable....just scroll down a little there was a user that didn't like his/her Lacie

 

[PDE]

I got a lacie quadra 500gb the other day and hated it because it was so noisy. Nice case, felt sturdy, but the noise was driving me crazy so I had to return it. It was the drive mechanism itself that was very noisy - a seagate drive.

Today I got a seagate freeagent pro 500gb and it's completely silent. Love it so far: fast, nice design, silent....good price from amazon $179, no tax). What more can you ask for? I didn't go with the mybook because several reviews said it was slow.

 

[sabarrabas]

LaCie Porsche 500GB

LaCie Porsche 500GB are reliable and the cheapest around.
A bit basic though with inly USB and you have to turn them off manually.
I have lots of them, besides the more expensive LaCies and My Book Pro's.

 

[devilot]

Today I got a seagate freeagent pro 500gb and it's completely silent. Love it so far: fast, nice design, silent....good price from amazon $179, no tax).

Creepy coincidence. That's actually the exact external HD I received from Amazon yesterday; made a bootable clone today. Link. And yes, OP, it has FW400.

 

[flopticalcube]

Another vote for MyBook. I have the Premium 500 (USB/FW400) and its quiet and reliable (touch wood).

 

[BillyBobBongo]

LaCie Porsche 500GB are reliable and the cheapest around.
A bit basic though with inly USB and you have to turn them off manually.

I use one of these too! Cheap as can be (99 euros at the mo) so top value for money. Mine is constantly on and connected to my AEBS and it works like a charm!

 

[bankshot]

I'll add another vote of confidence for the Western Digital MyBook series (get the "Premium" or "Pro" -- those both have FireWire while the "Essential" does not). I have a 500 GB version that's been performing like a champ for the last year.

I was actually about to order a few 750 GB MyBooks the other week - stumbled upon an unbelievable deal selling them for about $100. Clearly it was a pricing mistake, but I was hoping it'd go through... Unfortunately somebody else must have found it too and didn't know when to keep their mouth shut. It apparently got posted to a couple of the big internet deal sites a few hours later and that was the end of that. The deluge of people ordering a few dozen drives each obviously tipped off the company to the mistake, and they canceled all the orders, including mine. Bah. Too bad.

I was about to go with that Seagate Freeagent Pro from Amazon instead (750 GB for $250), but at the last minute decided to get a pair of internal 500 GB drives for about $200 total. Just got 'em today. I lose the flexibility of an external, but I get more space for the price... as long as my aging Power Mac holds out. I now have 4 drives inside this 5 1/2 year old machine, plus the MyBook outside. So far, so good...

 

[jasonnorm]

I own both the Lacie 640 GB and 3 of the G-Tech 500 GB (firewire 800) drives. In my opinion, the g-tech drive is far superior in both reliability, pure aesthetics and sound reducing qualities. Although a little pricier, you are getting a better drive in my humble opinion.

By the way, a raid 0 (stripped) configuration of the G-Tech Firewire 800 drives provides GREAT performance for an external drive. I am planning on adding another drive (4 500 GB drives) in a raid 0+1 configuration (stripped plus mirroed) for both spead and data backup. A little pricy but a GREAT configuration for 1 TB of stripped and mirrored data