external hard drives

[manuel_odabashian]

Those of you with the experience can you tell me which would be the best

external hard drive to use? I understand Lacie and Maxcor are very good while

the RAID system is mainly for the professional. What makes one better than

another. I am really looking for an assurance that the saved images are less

vulnerable to being corrupted

[leicaglow]

RAID is not a brand, it is a storage model. The comparison is usually between RAID, SATA, ATA, USB, etc.

 

Speed makes one better than another, but RAID was designed for redundancy--things like mirroring drives so two or more drives have the same info on them in case one bites it. It used to be you could only use RAID with high end server machines, but XP has it built in.

[anthony_r]

There really is no best drive. Lacie uses Maxtor, seagate, you name it and just puts it in their

case. The same is true with most if not all drives. Hitachi drives are the current fave so I hear,

so maybe you want to find the size you need, order it somewhere online and also purchase

an enclosure to put it in. Hard drives fail, all of them. Sometimes it's just a corrupt directory,

sometimes your cat knocks it off your desk, and other times it just gets old.

[Mike D]

I've always used Iomega external hard drives with their automatic backup software. You can get a 500GB for $269. I have several different hard drives in my computer for different data storage purposes and the Iomega HD can simultaneously back them up. I rotate external hard drives every 3 months with the last backup going to a different location.

[graham john miles]

You can save a little cash, by building one yourself. External cases are cheap from any computer store and you just insert a drive and a USB cable and away you go. If the drive is formatted, it will be recognized the moment you power it up. RAID is an internal arrangement of drives, where data is written to two drives simultaneously for drive failure redundancy. Striped RAID involves writing split data to alternative drives, for speed.

[ace_fury]

<I>..... but XP has it built in.</I><P>As does OSX if you are using a Macintosh.

[philfx]

The integrity of the drive is degraded as heat is built up. The most important thing you can do after picking a external drive is making sure you are sucking heat away from the drive or pushing cold air towards the drive. Even a few degree in temprature above MFG rec will degrade the stability of the drive.

 

I have had over 30 HDD personally. For some reason out of the different brands MAXTOR has failed me most. Then a Western Digital. So far I have not had IBM, HITACHI or Seagate fail.

 

Prebundled hard disk sold in enclosures will likely use the cheapest hard drives.

 

Piece it together yourself, but buy a good case, meaning one with a good chipset, so sleep and wake featuers are not an issue. Also if it has a fan, it might help, but I always add a extra fan or 2 to keep flow of air. Also a good idea depending on location, that you check if the vents on the case stay clear of dust buildup.

 

So latest greatest, the 10K drives with mass mem, and super quick seek times are popular in the Sata flavor, but if you get a SCSI, you will notice the difference.

 

Hope this is helpful to you and others.

[J.W. Wall]

FWIW, I've had good luck with Western Digital, including MyBook, which several computer folks recommended to me; bad luck with a LaCie that crashed and wiped my data (during warranty, they fixed the drive, but data was gone).

[punkass1]

Data capacity and speed make one drive better than another. Cache memory can be misleading. A good way to compare speed is looking at the average seek time of the hard drives.

 

Personally, I wouldn't buy anything less than 7200rpm but I also don't think dishing out a lot of money for a 10,000rpm is worth it at the moment for an external drive because of the inevitable bottleneck which occurs at the housing to pc. If your computer supports it, firewire rather than USB lessens this bottleneck.

 

Also, do you plan to carry around your hard drive? If so, you will want to consider buying one with a case designed for better shock absortion.

 

At work, I've seen thousands of hard drives come and go over the years and I favor Western Digital.

[manuel_odabashian]

Thanks guys, an interesting set of responses. One club member

works in the city and comes in contact with many professional photographers though he himself is not. They recommended maxtor but western digital is certainly one i will look into as well as the possibility of building my own, interesting idea that!

[delwyn_ching]

I have great success with my Maxtor 300GB external hard drive with one-touch backup.