External Hard drives

[DawnFrost]

Hey Guys,
I'm in need of an external hard drive. I've been debating on whether to get the Time Capsule 2Tb or something more generic. Unfortunately, I haven't heard the greatest things about the Time Capsule and therefore I'm hesitant to purchase one. I'd like to know the opinions (good and bad) of your experiences with external hard drives: how well it worked, how long it lasted, how easy it is to use, and cost if possible. I'm hoping to use it as a back up for my 500GB hard drive (of which I'm running out of space ) and also as storage for movies, shows, books, etc. (basically entertainment). Any suggestions/opinions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Cave Man]

Assemble your own. I use Macally, OWC and Rosewill enclosures with Samsung or Hitachi SATA drives. If you buy a canned drive, you can't disassemble it if it has problems without voiding the warranty. More often than not, the enclosure's controller fails than the hard drive.

 

[gorby]

I have a OWC mercury elite

 

[mangrove]

I have a OWC mercury elite

Me too, have 2 of them. Suggestion--make sure to get a FW800 enclosure for faster i/o. Also try to buy a 7200 rpm drive versus 5400.

Look into the Seagate Momentus XT which has a 4GB flash in it. Most report very good results with the,.

 

[DawnFrost]

Thanks! I'll check the OWC Mercury Elite out. Has anyone heard of the My Book Elite?

 

[circularforward]

Thanks! I'll check the OWC Mercury Elite out. Has anyone heard of the My Book Elite?

The OWC will be a better choice bc of the firewire, and it does not come preloaded with software that requires a separate firmware update to be run to disable the preloaded software.