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External HD for iMac!

K

Keiranmorphew

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 28, 2012
9
0
Looking to buy an external HD (1TB) for my iMac.. Just to keep my iMac unclogged. Does anyone have a preferred brand in external HD? Cheers Keiran
 
I've been very pleased with both of these models in various capacities, from Other World Computing (OWC):

OWC Mercury On-The-Go Pro..........................OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro™
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owcmeaqmaphero350.jpg
 
Agree with the Mercury Elite-AL Pro from OWC. I've got five of them running for 2-4 years now with no problems. An advantage of these over most brands is you can open the case to upgrade the drive in the future or retrieve data from the drive if the controller fails (not that I've had a failure).

Photo below shows 4 of them connected to my mini server as I've consolidated all my externals to a single system. The "toaster" is for backing them up.

picture.php
 
I am using portable G Drive (2tb) and the My Book Studio (3tb) for backup and storage. Both are clean looking and compliment the iMac.
 
I've also found the OWC On-The-Go Pro to be versatile and reliable for my back up and cloning needs.
 
Just buy a dual case enclosure but don't buy the OWC Mercury Elite. You can then buy the hdd separately with the 5 year warranty. I have never had an enclosure fail until I bought OWC. I have an acomdata now, it was $50 and runs flawlessly. The one negative is putting it back together perfectly or else the fan vibrations drive you insane. I had to pull the back cover off and now its silent.
 
freedevil said:
Just buy a dual case enclosure but don't buy the OWC Mercury Elite.
Click to expand...
There's nothing wrong with the OWC Mercury Elite. I've been using them for 4 years with zero problems, and the OWC warranty is very good.
 
freedevil said:
Just buy a dual case enclosure [...] The one negative is putting it back together perfectly or else the fan vibrations drive you insane. I had to pull the back cover off and now its silent.
Click to expand...

A disadvantage of dual enclosures. The single enclosures don't need the fan so are quieter. And you don't have potential fan failure to worry about. (I've had more computer fans fail than any other component, including disk drives!)

I've never tried the OWC Mercury Elite dual enclosures, so don't know anything about them, but the single drive enclosures are superb.
 
Of all my Western Digiatal Externals the one that failed was the FIREWIRE one.

I trashed that and replaced it with this one ......

G-Tech G-DRIVE 2TB External Hard Drive

It's nice, has not failed, performs flawlessly.

I'm tired of buying an extern drive every time I need a bit more space. I have 6 of them here and replacing all of them with a 4 or 6 drive raid array soon.
 
talmy said:
A disadvantage of dual enclosures. The single enclosures don't need the fan so are quieter. And you don't have potential fan failure to worry about. (I've had more computer fans fail than any other component, including disk drives!)

I've never tried the OWC Mercury Elite dual enclosures, so don't know anything about them, but the single drive enclosures are superb.
Click to expand...

My OWC fan did not fail. The unit itself did. It also killed my hdds. I have 5 year warranty on my hdds so it was not a problem. From my experience with externals + hdd combos, the warranty is terrible (usually 1 year). Its more economical to buy a case and hdd separately. Worst case you lose a $50 case versus the hdd. My dual case is extremely quiet. Sure, the back cover isn't on but it doesn't bother me.
 
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