External Monitor & HD

[derpasaurus]

Two things I'm looking into purchasing soon. Well, one is questionable.

- External HDD
I'm looking to purchase an external HDD. I don't particularly care how fast it is, but it would be a nice to have speed.

I have been looking at the WD Elements or MyBook series. I'd love to get the 1.5TB or 2TB. I'm more interested on reliability. Now, I've heard that the more space in an external, the less reliable it is. So maybe I should get the 1TB, even those price per byte would be better going higher. Does anyone have any personal feedback on a 1TB> ? I've read the reviews and it's either been a hit or a miss.

- External Monitor
I've been thinking about purchasing an external monitor lately. To be honest, I'm not sure why. It'd be nice to have to hook up to my MBP, but I don't necessarily need it. I have been looking more at 22-24 inch screens, trying to get 2ms, speakers, and HDMI. And not sure whether it should be LED (Looking at Asus and Samsung). I'm probably thinking too much because I think I'd rather save for something else and that I don't really need the external monitor. I'm pretty certain I'll get answers like, "It's ultimately up to you", I know. But maybe someone can sway me one way or the other.

 

[treestar]

1. You are in an age of data and HD content takes up lots of space. People are considering the price per byte is so low that they aren't bothering with compression. This is a good thing. Don't think small. You didn't say what you need this drive for, but 1 TB is your minimum. It's no more affordable to get anything smaller.

2. Don't worry about failure rates increasing with capacity. You'd hate to learn about drive failure rates. Some manufacturers have spotty products all across the board. You'll take the same risk with 2 TB as with 1 TB, and you won't know what that risk is.

3. Learn about drive failure rates. Lots of people cite the statistic of 13% of one manufacturers drives dying an early death. Maybe this is an exaggeration, but early failure rates are still significant, maybe 3%, maybe 8%, maybe 10%. Protect your data. There is a big gamble involved. Your drive could be 1 in 20 that will die in 6 months. The reviews are hit or miss because that's the truth.

4. It might not matter what drive you get. If you find one with a 5 year warranty, you can get a replacement drive, but not replacement data. Still, the replacement drive is nice. If you want replacement data, get two drives, or get a mirrored RAID. WD isn't my personal choice because their enclosures are bulky and I don't like external power supplies. I think WD is OK. Besides the disks themselves, some manufactures use bad controllers that have their own failure rates. LaCie comes to mind as being bad in this area.


If you like to move around a lot with your MBP an external monitor isn't a great investment. If you sit at a desk at home all the time, YES.

 

[tbayrgs]

Regarding the External HDD:

- My advice is get an external HDD enclosure with the connectivity you desire (USB, Firewire, eSata, or ethernet) and then load your HDD of choice. Then, get another to back the first one up. I go this route simply because if a drive fails, it's a snap to load in a replacement. Plus, you may prefer a certain manufacturer but dislike the aesthetics of their External units--this way you can get exactly what you want.

As far as drive size--get something large enough to hold all of your data and with enough extra space for what you anticipate adding.

Regarding the external:

I'll second treestar's advice. If you find yourself sitting at a desk most of time and get tired of spending long hours looking at a smaller display, get an external.

 

[derpasaurus]

Thanks for both of your inputs. I might get the WD External 2TB or 3TB.

As for external display, I'm still considering it. I have seen some nice 22" and 24" monitors. Not sure which size I should get. I discussed with a friend and I have thought about picking up an ASUS that includes speakers, at least the top two monitors on NewEgg (+1,000 reviews) both have speakers. My friend said I should consider getting a 22" and have external speakers (I have thought about picking up the Swan speakers I have seen many users post up here). I'd probably like to get the 24" because I have also dreamed that maybe I would get the 27" iMac. Not only that, I would have to purchase an external keyboard and mouse. One can only dream and contemplate back and forth right now. In the end, I know it's my decision and I'm really trying to weigh out the pros and cons. Anyway, thanks again for the input. Still in a tough debate myself as always.