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Pls. recommend a reelable 1 or 2TB Hdd for mass storage

M

marcelsendrea

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 11, 2011
7
0
Need your help Guys,
I must buy an External HD to store my work&family archive (music, photos&videos).
I'm on MacBook Pro 2011 and will be using an OWC PCI card (2,5 gb/s) to connect thru e-Sata.
I will buy an external HDD SATA/e-Sata enclosure. Please advice a good Hdd model [1 up to 2TB]. I read loots of post about pros&cons of Seagate and WD. Reason of this post is to get an exact model recommendation from a personal experience.

Thanks in advance!
 
If you want reliable use some sort of RAID config. Like two hdds in RAID 1 or more in RAID 5.
For single hdds what miles says it is true.
Some may be a little more reliable but others but you usually only know 3 years after they are released to market and even then statistiks and evidence is scarce.
The only people with useful reliability experience are those that work at datacenters and deploys them in the hundreds. A single or even a few people here can tell you about speed and no more.
Firmware problems such as ssd still have them don't really exist with hdds.
 
I got a seagate 1.5t external drive which I attached to my airport extreme at best buy for $99 bucks. Works like a charm.
 
I like western digital the best. None of their hard drives have died on me..yet.
 
I have two sea gates... stay away from them. the only advantage they have over any other hard drive is the covered SATA plugs. As far as speed they are horrible. I have only compared mine to a Western Digital MyPasport 1TB firewire 800 drive. which is fw800 and daisy chain ready.

recently, for desktop storage i purchased a G-Technology G-DRIVE 3TB External Hard which also has daisy chained fw800 (smaller 400 inside the 800) connections, SATA, and a mini usb 2.0.

I recommend both over any seagate product any day. even LaCie drives are better. But it's all in you're budget. seagate produces the thunderbolt connection for the portable drives, but still, would not make it a better hard drive. The western digital is full on aluminum, and never get's hot (I even keep it in a case logic case). amazing drive. even brighter light that flashes. I mean that thing is a nice led flashlight ;)

let us know what you decide to do
 
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marcelsendrea said:
Need your help Guys,
I must buy an External HD to store my work&family archive (music, photos&videos).
I'm on MacBook Pro 2011 and will be using an OWC PCI card (2,5 gb/s) to connect thru e-Sata.
I will buy an external HDD SATA/e-Sata enclosure. Please advice a good Hdd model [1 up to 2TB]. I read loots of post about pros&cons of Seagate and WD. Reason of this post is to get an exact model recommendation from a personal experience.

Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...

A WD Green drive within an InXtron enclosure works reliable for me (i've the previous generation of the SK-3500). You can use also the WD Black drives, but they run hotter (much hotter), are louder and consume more energy.

The newest version of the InXtron SK-3500 enclosure supports also:
- USB 3.0 (Ivy Bridge)
- > 2 TB drives (3 TB for example) without a firmware update

I think these enclosures support "only" SATA-I and SATA-II drives (not SATA-III), which is no problem, if you do not use SSDs.
 
Here we go again... Seagate, WD, Hitachi, Toshiba, Samsung, Lacie... each better than the others. :D Seriously. Most of the parts used by the above companies all come from the same place. (And probably assembled by the same 3 people in China).
 
Mr. Retrofire said:
A WD Green drive within an InXtron enclosure works reliable for me (i've the previous generation of the SK-3500). You can use also the WD Black drives, but they run hotter (much hotter), are louder and consume more energy.

The newest version of the InXtron SK-3500 enclosure supports also:
- USB 3.0 (Ivy Bridge)
- > 2 TB drives (3 TB for example) without a firmware update

I think these enclosures support "only" SATA-I and SATA-II drives (not SATA-III), which is no problem, if you do not use SSDs.
Click to expand...

yes, Mr. Retrofire
I read on other forums that WD Black edition is hotter&louder.

Guys, thanks for sharing your thoughts!
 
I have all OWC drives here. Could not be happier in the 10 years I have been using them.
 
MacMojo1 said:
I have all OWC drives here. Could not be happier in the 10 years I have been using them.
Click to expand...

OWC uses drives from a variety of companies, so you likely have a mixture of drives in your enclosures. OWC usually specifies the brand of drive in the enclosure specs online.

I'm currently a fan of Samsung drives. The last Western Digital Black Caviar drive I purchased was DOA. I haven't had good luck with Seagate. Hitachi has a poor reputation when it comes to honoring its warranty and customer service.

It's really a crap-shoot. The quality of drives varies; sometimes Seagate has a run of defective drives, then it's WD. Go Figure. That's why I always have two external drive backups as well as Crashplan.
 
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