Thinking about Purchasing a sleek reliable External Hard drive

[Thorbjorn]

FWIW, I'm looking at the Fantom GreenDrive 1TB External eSATA/USB 2.0 Hard Drive, for $119.99 at MacMall ($79.99 after two rebates are applied). If you need Firewire, MacMall also offers a triple-interface Fantom GreenDrive (1TB) for $154.99 (or $114.99 after rebates). I've been doing a fair amount of research on reliability of drives, speed, temps, things like that, and this is the drive I think I'm going for. I think its innards are by Western Digital, which gets rave reviews by some and rants by others. Fantom itself gets pretty high ratings.

 

[cube]

http://www.amazon.com/LaCie-All-Ter...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1247858450&sr=1-1

Is that a 3.5?

That's a 2.5".

3.5" goes upto 2TB on a single drive, and the storage is cheaper. But I don't think they can be bus powered.

Here's an example:

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB

 

[Justin Lee]

Thanks. I bought it from the link you gave me. Sometimes its best to make a quick decision. I analyze the smallest purchases way too much!

I will be using it as a TM solution but backing up once a day. I doubt that will make it overheat.

eV

Wow! Looks like you got the last one...B&H show no more stock. I waited nearly 2 weeks for the last lump of stock to arrive. Well done - your quick decision paid off this time

I'm sure you will be more than happy. I am

 

[eVolcre]

Thanks again. It looks like a fantastic drive and exactly what I need. I was reading some of the reviews and it's actually faster than the 7200rpm desktop Lacie I'm sending back.

eV

 

[eVolcre]

Wow! Looks like you got the last one...B&H show no more stock. I waited nearly 2 weeks for the last lump of stock to arrive. Well done - your quick decision paid off this time

I'm sure you will be more than happy. I am

A quick update. This really is a fantastic drive. It's small, sleek and very quiet. It does run a little hot but I don't plan on keeping it connected all the time. It's for TM backups and extra media.

My initial TM backup took some time but updates are lightning quick. It copied over 25 GB in 10 minutes.

Thanks Justin.

eV

 

[Justin Lee]

Knew you'd like My pleasure with the recommendation - it really is a superb drive.

 

[caonimadebi]

another thing to look at is the power requirement for your external drive (usb in this case). I was looking at some lacies and WD passports for my old powerbook g4, and they simply require 2 USB ports to operate, which takes up all the available ports I had. I got a Freeagent 500GB instead, and it ran fine on just one port. The freeagent uses so little power that it uses just one port on an unpowered 1-to-4 USB splitter (presumably the MacBook Air has extra wattage, but that's another issue)

 

[HomeyC]

A quick update. This really is a fantastic drive. It's small, sleek and very quiet. It does run a little hot but I don't plan on keeping it connected all the time. It's for TM backups and extra media.

My initial TM backup took some time but updates are lightning quick. It copied over 25 GB in 10 minutes.

Thanks Justin.

eV

Does it have a metal or plastic case?

 

[Justin Lee]

Sorry HomeyC. I saw your question for the first time today.

The case is Aluminium (or Aluminum depending on where you live )

 

[Justin Lee]

I did quite a lot of research before I recently purchased this IOMEGA drive. There are loads of reviews online now, so you can look too.

I can vouch for the speed, this drive flys.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/628510-REG/Iomega_34629_500GB_eGo_Portable_Mac.html

A lot of people are reporting that the casing on this drive is peeling off with heat. Whilst I haven't experienced this, I can no longer recommend this drive unreservedly.