juliette_loska Posted March 24, 2008 Share Posted March 24, 2008 I recommendations on what is the most reliable external hard drive. I'm looking at 500 GB. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
savagesax Posted March 24, 2008 Share Posted March 24, 2008 PC or Mac? For PC's I prefer Western Digital. Of course you will hear about Seagate, Maxtor, and a few others. All hard drives can fail. PC World and Maximun PC magazines don't seem to favor any particular brand. Probably because all of the companies advertise with these magazines! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
savagesax Posted March 24, 2008 Share Posted March 24, 2008 By the way, Seagate and Maxtor are the same company and I think the hard drives come with a 5 year warranty. Western digital I think is 3 years. But with the external cases the warranties aren't as long. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2yellowdogs Posted March 24, 2008 Share Posted March 24, 2008 I've had excellent luck with laCie drives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brian_hutchison2 Posted March 24, 2008 Share Posted March 24, 2008 Bob is right, all hard drives can fail. I've had good luck with Seagates in recent years, and recommend the Seagate FreeAgent Pro drives usually. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcmanamey Posted March 24, 2008 Share Posted March 24, 2008 Seagate is the ONLY brand w/ the 5yr warranty (Maxtor doesn't), and even the Free Agent and Free Agent Go drives have 5yrs. We have 2, 500G Free Agent drives as a mirrored raid array and have had no performance issues yet. While all drives go bad eventually, we have not had problems w/ any Seagate drives, but have had many failures from others brands. Also - for the 500G Seagate, seeing it on sale for $150 is not hard. Some Sam's clubs even have it for $150. I've seen it as cheap as $120 or $110 at Office Depot and Best Buy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jlharris Posted March 24, 2008 Share Posted March 24, 2008 Seagate has the best warranty and the best rep for reliability. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tibz Posted March 24, 2008 Share Posted March 24, 2008 Just don't drop them. Storage is a tough thing, and short of punch cards there really aren't fail safe methods to store data. I've had lacie's fail on me. Nothing's perfect, just get any good drive and BE CAREFUL. Two couldn't hurt--mirrors, backups...maybe even burning to CDs. FYI your operating system makes no difference... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dennis osipiak Posted March 24, 2008 Share Posted March 24, 2008 I agree any HD can have a failure. But my experience with LaCie was an awful one and I vowed I'd tell everyone the hassle I had w/ the company. I'm just grateful that all my stuff is backed up multiple ways (DVD's AND other HD's.) As for what I use..I've put many Seagates into use with no problems, with varying capacities up to 500gb.I'll stick with what works and avoid the LaCies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kelly_flanigan1 Posted March 24, 2008 Share Posted March 24, 2008 LaCie doesnt make drives; they place HDA's in a package you buy. The warranty won't replace your data. So after HDA failure you get another blank drive several years down the road to make you feel good. There is no long term data on 500Gig exteral HDA's; a flaw; bad luck; the HDA dropped; stolen; flooded with ruin your data. Having data in two places on two hda matters more than something that cannot be characterized. Its also good to have two flashes and cameras for a wedding and extra flash cords. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david_garcia10 Posted March 24, 2008 Share Posted March 24, 2008 Maxtor, Seagate, Hitachi, Western Digital. Have them all. All of them are good. Luckily, I didn't have any hd failure yet but then again I do defrag once in awhile... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dawn_kelly Posted March 24, 2008 Share Posted March 24, 2008 As was mentioned, Seagate offers a 5 year warrenty. At least they will replace the drive if it fails in 4 years and 364 days. You are still out the data on it depending on how hard it crashed. If you buy a preassembled external drive, check out the warrenty length. Sometimes they shorten it. You can always buy your own external case and then buy a drive to put in it and get the longer warrenty. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimstrutz Posted March 25, 2008 Share Posted March 25, 2008 After three years who wants it? It's too small anymore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marc_rochkind Posted March 25, 2008 Share Posted March 25, 2008 Just to be a bit contrary, but also to tell the truth, to talk about the reliability of drives purchased in small numbers is meaningless. Even assuming that anyone who posts here has the data, which I doubt, it wouldn't apply to individual purchases. Any such data would apply only to large numbers. If you needed, say, 25,000 drives, then it's possible that one model might be better than another. Outfits like Dell and Apple, who use a lot more than 25,000 drives, have such data and surely use it when conversing with their suppliers. Instead, the way to think about it is to design a system for yourself that works regardless of the reliability of the drive. Use two or more in a well-designed backup/restore scheme, and you don't have to worry about a failure. (Rare for well-known brands that are handled carefully, cooled, etc.) If a drive fails while it's under warranty, so much the better. You get the replacement and feed it into your system. To say it another way: You can't control the reliability of a drive much (maybe a little, as I said, with a few precautions, but not much), and you will lose drives from time to time. But, there is no reason to EVER lose any data, which is the real goal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
petemillis Posted March 25, 2008 Share Posted March 25, 2008 I'm very happy with Seagate Freeagent drives. Also back up to DVD with duplicate DVDs living elsewhere. And most importantly of all....for photographs I really want to keep.....they're printed! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
godfrey Posted March 25, 2008 Share Posted March 25, 2008 I have multiple Seagate FreeAgent Pro drives (twin 500s, twin 1Ts now). They work reliably, are quiet, stay cool, etc. Good drives. Godfrey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juliette_loska Posted March 25, 2008 Author Share Posted March 25, 2008 Wow, thank you for all the great information. I really appreciate it...a lot. I do also back up on DVD's and will continue to do so. I also just started making prints so thanks for the confirmation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mindstyle Posted March 25, 2008 Share Posted March 25, 2008 Frankly, choose anything between Seagate, Samsung or Maxtor but AVOID Lacie. We have had a lot of hard luck with Lacie at our workplace. Even many have given good suggestions, my rule of thumb is have multiple hard drives and multiple backups. Looking for extended warranty like (5 years in some cases) is good but what about the data on them? No company is going to restore that data so choose whatever you find it cheap, just have at least 2 different brands. (I have Samsung and Maxtor working for 3 years without any hassle till date, even if I have toppled Samsung a while ago) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curt wiler Posted March 25, 2008 Share Posted March 25, 2008 Heat is the HD's worst enemy (other than being dropped). For external drives, I only use enclosures that have fans. They may cost a bit more, but Other World Computing has a number of options and I have had excellent luck with their "Mercury Elite Pro" series of enclosures. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patrick_p Posted March 25, 2008 Share Posted March 25, 2008 After much research I got a Seagate and WD, I've had no problem with them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mendel_leisk Posted March 25, 2008 Share Posted March 25, 2008 The most reliable hard drive is: 2 hard drives. One hard drive *will* fail, eventually. Personally, I like internal a lot better, fwiw. And, I only count on them (the 2 of them) for the duration of a project, then it's off to (quality) optical media. Again, double copies, one at home, one elsewhere. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now