External HardDrives

[Toxin]

I'm looking to get myself an external HDD. 200GB or higher. Any suggestions? I've been looking at either the Maxtor One Touch II 300GB or the Seagate external 200GB.

[killadoob]

i would check the gaurantee (cant spell for siht)

if seagate is 3 years and maxtor is one year go with segate

[Toxin]

killa check your PM.

[Angellus]

Only buy seagate they make the best drives by far and have a 3 year gaurantee (also cant spell for siht ;))

[Toxin]

Yeah, got a seagate myself and I'm happy with it. What about buying a normal HDD and then a HDD enclosure?

[eye_suc]

that sounds way cheaper, seeing as the enclosures are pretty cheap (R300?). Also, if you get tired of your HDD you can pop in a dvd rom or summing later. Just get an enclosure with a fan, since HDD's tend to generate some heat.

[LoneGunman]

I was eyeing the 1000 gig devices a while back, which I see're going for around $500 - which is a little pricey..
also, was perving over the ultra tiny portable 100 gig drives, which can fit in pocket:
http://www.tomshardware.com/storage/20050712/index.html
as well as this: http://www.tomshardware.com/storage/20050308/index.html

[ebendl]

Not quite your solution, but I myself uses a LG laptop harddisk enclosure, just a wee bit bigger than the disk itself. 40GB, cost me less than R1000.

Nice thing is, its runs from USB-power, and is A LOT faster than a flash-disk. Windows (and Linux) picks it up as a harddisk, not a removable device. Has completely replaced my flashdisk.

[ebendl]

Oh, also want to add - since its a Laptop harddisk, its designed to be moved about as well - therefore should hopefully take more of a knock.

Bit slower than normal disk, though...

[Ink_Blotch]

I bought a Maxtor 160Gb HDD less than a year ago, and it has already gone belly up. Not good, especially since I am unlikely to get my data back. The drive is still under warranty, but it shouldn't fail in less than a year. It SUCKS!!!! :mad:

[nOhIwAy]

Maxtor r/w GMR heads are not good.
Maxtor media is not good.
These result in firmware corruption very easily
and then heads damage media after first faults appear.

Seagate - don't like voltage variations - pcb can damage easily.
Seagate media suspect with older drives, but they fixed that problem.

Suggestion : never buy biggest drive available.
Seagate 250GB are good now

Seagate 250GB+ will be good in about 3 months.

Seagate 3.5" only real choice

2.5" drives - all bad but seems like WD fail the least.

[rburley]

I currently have a maxtor and a seagate running, no problems so far...

[EchoZA]

I have 2 x VANTEC NexStar External 2.5" HDD Enclosure USB 2.0 (and 1.0 backward compatabile) and Seagate 60Gb 2.5" drives in each enclosure. They run off USB power and are really small, +- R180 for the enclosures and +-R800 a HDD (a little expensive, but that is 'cause they are 2.5" HDD's) Great for backing up data and for technical (updates, installations etc)

[rburley]

i would wait for this one to come to SA. Start saving
external hdd (http://www.cooltechzone.com/reviews/drives/hddnewsstory_001.php)
or here
link 2 (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?A=details&Q=&is=REG&O=productlist&sku=393998)

[ebendl]

I bought a Maxtor 160Gb HDD less than a year ago, and it has already gone belly up. Not good, especially since I am unlikely to get my data back. The drive is still under warranty, but it shouldn't fail in less than a year. It SUCKS!!!! :mad:

Okay, seems like a common thing! I bought a 250GB Maxtor in the states in December last year, crashed on me this July. Problem is, can't reclaim warranty since it was bought in the states!

Did manage to get my data back, though - www.getdataback.com
Great software!

[LoneGunman]

The one I'm eyeing, and gonna see if I can find for way less than the current $849 price tag - is this one- http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11006455&whse=BC&topnav=&cat=21388&hierPath=84*21388*

849.99 United States Dollars = R5,520.48

5 and a half grand for 1000 gigs of storage, hmmm - a little pricey, given that 300 gigs are going for around R1200 bux a piece locally

[brucel]

Seagate works for me. I have a 120GB drive in casing, casing was from Mecer around R200 for it, plus hard drive costs.

[UtterNutter]

I've got some el cheapo Liquid SIlver/Silver River (seen it sold under both brand names) external enclosure as well as a Thermaltake enclosure.

I highly recommend paying slightly more and getting an enclosure with its own internal fans to cool the drive. It makes a big difference. Okay, so if you're going to place a 5400rpm 40 GB drive in then you don't need fans, but a fast, nasty 7200 300 GB generates a lot of heat (in an unventilated tight spot).

Some of the enclosures with built-in fans are quite big and cumbersome. Shop around. My Thermaltake is barely bigger than a 3.5" HDD, yet has 2 x internal fans.

[UtterNutter]

Interesting reading about the realibity of some poster's hard drives.

My three current Maxtors (40 GB, 40 GB, 160 GB) seem completely bulletproof. The one is 5 years old! It was one of the early 7200 rpm drives.

On the other hand (Darren), I've already had TWO 250 GB Western Digitals fail on me!!! Got 90% of the data back, was a dodgy spindle motor in the one case and a total piece o' crap drive in the other.

My most reliable drive ever is a 106 MB (megs, not gigs) Seagate from 1990. It has been in use everyday since the day it got purchased until right now, and is STILL WORKING 100%!. They don't make 'em like they used to, that's for sure!

[gkm]

If you want to use the external drive a lot, get one that supports firewire (1394) in addition to USB. One can really notice the difference in speed.

P.S. I lost a half year old Seagate a couple of weeks ago. The bottom line is, whatever make your drive, make sure you have backups.

[bb_matt]

My most reliable drive ever is a 106 MB (megs, not gigs) Seagate from 1990. It has been in use everyday since the day it got purchased until right now, and is STILL WORKING 100%!. They don't make 'em like they used to, that's for sure!

I've got a 1gig seagate from around 1995 (I think) which is also still going strong. It's been in 20 different PC's over the years, lately relegated to a series of firewall experiments. I've carried it around in my bag, it's been dropped a few times, had bent pins and it just keeps on going.

In contrast, I've had 4 larger capacity drives bomb out on me over the last few years, usually due to controller card failure.

I've still got one of the most uber drives from the late 90's - a 2gig seagate SCSI barracuda. Totally indestructible it seems, now only really good for firewall usage. I've also got a 6gig Ultrawide scsi, which I'd love to have as a primary drive, if I could find a cheap adapater card for it.

Yeah, memory lane !

I'm not sure if uber sized hard drives is the way to go for me, it just makes me lazy, as I end up dumping stuff onto my drives which I could store on CD. I seem to always be at 80% capacity no matter how much HD space I have.
Right now, on 3 computers, I've got a combined 200gb, which is really nothing by todays standards. Almost all of that is used up.

A few years back, I made do with 20gb of storage and before that, 1gb - then again, we all know what that extra storage is all about - Movies ! :D

[Ink_Blotch]

The ONLY thing buying a bigger hard drive does, is increase the time between cleanups! The percentage of used space will always be the same (probably 80% - 90%). ;)

Speaking of hard drives - BACK UP NOW!!!! You just never know... Trust me on that.

They say there are two types of people: Those who have lost data, and those who are going to lose data...

[Toxin]

Feedback: Got a 80Gig Fujitsu Laptop HDD plus enclosure. Got a couple of problems tho: http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?t=27808

*EDIT* PS: Thanx antowan for moving this thread to the Hardware Section. :)

[LoneGunman]

I'm still eyeing prices, as I see there're nice little portable external 1 Terabyte, 1.6 & now 2 Terabyte HD's available.. prices are still a little heavy.. but the advantage is that the damn piles and folders of insufficient storage-space cd's and DVD's, that we all end up with, can go bye bye. Like the piles of stiffy disks we all had.. I've got a couple of 1 gig flash memory drives - and the 4 gig flash memory drives are starting to appear (I was told they're locally available, for around R2,200 - still a bit pricey..

The main thing is to get rid of all the clutter of separate disks and folders, and head towards one or two (or more) easily portable little HD's which contain everything - no more searching, no more shelves layered with different disks - just a portable HD or two, which have everything needed..

To be wanting to maintain the old style method of tons of separate CD's and DVD's for storage, is to perhaps be missing the boat in some ways..

Having come into data storage, in the mid 90's, I remember the old days of painfully arj-ing big files across multiple stiffy disks in order to cart them around - so one or two thousand gigs in a little, easily carried and easily plugged in box, mmmm..

A pc box/laptop, keyboard and an external HD or two - and no other separate disks anywhere in sight - what a pleasure.

[Toxin]

Couldn't agree with you more. The freedom my drive has givin me is really astounding. Even tho it's only 80Gig and I've only had it a week now, it's helped me out allot.

I don't think I'd buy myself a 4Gig flash. For the price of one I could get two 80Gig external HDDs.

What scares me is I can still remember backing up the original Civilization game onto 3 or 4 stiffy disks, only to come home and find that one disk is corrupt. :rolleyes:

Ah, happy days. :)

[ZeroIndex]

i'm running a 160GB Seagate in a Vantec Nexstar 3. very happy with it, a few of my friends have them, they look nice, and they haven't had any problems with theirs

[photonman]

yes its much cheaper to buy a drive and a external hard drive enclosure.

Ive had a enternal drive and it wasnt so fast surprisingly - ran slower than normal ide