Rough and Tough Portable HDD

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aka.Goliath

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Besides using solid-state HDD's what are the best portable HDD's out there that a rough and tough enough to survive dad-to-day use? I'v now gone through my second HDD in a year and really want to get one that will cope with a bit of use.
 
Hard drives aren't meant to be carried / handled without care.

I think your only option would be to get a flash drive, SDHC card or SSD - pretty much anything that doesn't make use of mechanical moving parts.

You might be able to find like a portable hard drive that will lock its heads when unplugging it.
 
You could also look at one of the Freecom Toughdrive hard drives - they claim that they can survive a 2m drop onto a hard surface or one of Transcend 25M series which are supposedly also drop tested. Esquire often have the Toughdrives on special. Use pricecheck and jump to look for a good price on the Transcend models or alternatively try www.rebeltech.co.za.
http://www.freecom.com/Products/External-Hard-Drives/Mobile-Hard-Drives/ToughDrive
http://www.freecom.com/Products/External-Hard-Drives/Mobile-Hard-Drives/ToughDrive-Sport
http://www.freecom.com/Products/External-Hard-Drives/Mobile-Hard-Drives/ToughDrive-Leather

USB 3.0
http://www.transcendusa.com/products/ModDetail.asp?ModNo=284&LangNo=0&Func1No=&Func2No=
USB 2.0
http://www.transcendusa.com/products/ModDetail.asp?ModNo=198
http://rebeltech.co.za/index.php?ma...36_237&zenid=d2b3ab71f09d43009a4f930e12975cfc
 
Last edited:
Yotch said:
You could also look at one of the Freecom Toughdrive hard drives - they claim that they can survive a 2m drop onto a hard surface or one of Transcend 25M series which are supposedly also drop tested. Esquire often have the Toughdrives on special. Use pricecheck and jump to look for a good price on the Transcend models or alternatively try www.rebeltech.co.za.
http://www.freecom.com/Products/External-Hard-Drives/Mobile-Hard-Drives/ToughDrive
http://www.freecom.com/Products/External-Hard-Drives/Mobile-Hard-Drives/ToughDrive-Sport
http://www.freecom.com/Products/External-Hard-Drives/Mobile-Hard-Drives/ToughDrive-Leather

USB 3.0
http://www.transcendusa.com/products/ModDetail.asp?ModNo=284&LangNo=0&Func1No=&Func2No=
USB 2.0
http://www.transcendusa.com/products/ModDetail.asp?ModNo=198
http://rebeltech.co.za/index.php?ma...36_237&zenid=d2b3ab71f09d43009a4f930e12975cfc
Click to expand...

All marketing gimmick.

+1 on Pada's post.

No such thing as a tough hard drive.
 
The portable HDDs that died on you, were they 3.5" or 2.5"?

2.5" HDDs are more resilient as all their parts are smaller. Platters are smaller and thinner (less mass to move around), head stack is shorter and therefore more rigid. They can definitely take more beating than a 3.5". HDDs are actually pretty tough if they are knocked around when switched off. I had a client deliver one (3.5") to me last week and as he opened the door of his Landy Discovery it fell from the dashboard onto the concrete gutter in the road, well over a meter drop. HDD didn't suffer any damage other than a scratch. However, drop your HDD a few centimeters onto your carpet while switched on most likely you'll wreck it. You need to understand how they work in order to know how to look after them.

http://i56.tinypic.com/33v14ba.jpg
http://i55.tinypic.com/zn2cs2.jpg

There are pictures of the inside of a Seagate 80GB 2.5" HDD. Look at how fragile the heads are. They literally fly over the surface of the disk at 5400/7200rpm at a height of about 3 nanometers. That's about the same size as a DNA molecule. A human hair is about 60,000 nanometers in diameter. So imagine the damage when you subject something this tiny and fragile this to a physical impact when it's all moving at a few thousand RPM.

I would say either get a 2.5" external and be careful with it whilst it's switched on, or if you have lots of money to blow get an SSD as mentioned by others. But getting an SSD for storage purposes seems insane.

Treat your drive with a bit of respect and you shouldn't have any problems.
 
My external drives have thus far all survived (some are many years old).

Just be careful turning it on and off, leave it for a few seconds after turning it of before moving it and keep it inside a bag/laptop bag or other bag that has padding.

Only time I ever lost an external drive was when I left it on the roof of my car. And Lost as in missing. Ultimate hard drive crash I guess.
 
Libertas Computers said:
If only you found it, plugged it in and it worked..
Click to expand...

I was looking for that drive for about an hour.
Left several things on the roof (dvd's, keys, lunch and the hard drives).

Found everything but the drive.

I think it's still lying there somewhere in the veldt, would be awesome if I found it now and it still worked.
 
LGrey said:
You are mistaken. Those drives are tougher than normal external drives.
Click to expand...

HDDs are quite resilient when switched off and the heads are parked. This is the only time portable HDDs marketed as being "tough" will be negligibly better, due to rubberised enclosures and slightly higher shock resistance. However if the HDD is on, the 'military drop tested' portable HDDs will help bugger-all.
 
Transcend

I have a transcend rugged 2.5" drive. I think the fact that it comes with a 3 year warranty says a lot.

It has a Samsung drive inside but the casing is rubberised, Its "stranded military drop tested". I have actually doped it myself and it is still going strong. I have had it for almost 2 years now, and the diagnostic tools says its in good order still... I would buy another.
 
Park@82 said:
I have a transcend rugged 2.5" drive. I think the fact that it comes with a 3 year warranty says a lot.

It has a Samsung drive inside but the casing is rubberised, Its "stranded military drop tested". I have actually doped it myself and it is still going strong. I have had it for almost 2 years now, and the diagnostic tools says its in good order still... I would buy another.
Click to expand...

Is it a Transcend Storejet 25m2? It definitely is more 'rugged' and better protected than a normal 2.5" in a standard USB enclosure as it has rubber and silicone mountings etc. All that squishy material will soak up a lot of impact. There are youtube videos of people throwing them down stairs and driving over them in cars. Transcend state their tests as 'transit' tests, so the drives are switched off at the time. Sure they are really tough when switched off, but knock it off your desk onto the floor whilst it's on and there's a high chance you'll wreck it.

If the OP is killing external drives then he's obviously doing something wrong. Any old external drive can take a fair bit of punishment, so perhaps he should look at the way he handles them so as to cure the root cause.
 
Park@82 said:
I have a transcend rugged 2.5" drive. I think the fact that it comes with a 3 year warranty says a lot.

It has a Samsung drive inside but the casing is rubberised, Its "stranded military drop tested". I have actually doped it myself and it is still going strong. I have had it for almost 2 years now, and the diagnostic tools says its in good order still... I would buy another.
Click to expand...

I have the Transcend 25M 250GB, and it is reported as a Toshiba drive, so it does seem like the 25M2. Also had no problems with it, lugged it around a lot over 2 years +.
 
Park@82 said:
I have a transcend rugged 2.5" drive. I think the fact that it comes with a 3 year warranty says a lot.

It has a Samsung drive inside but the casing is rubberised, Its "stranded military drop tested". I have actually doped it myself and it is still going strong. I have had it for almost 2 years now, and the diagnostic tools says its in good order still... I would buy another.
Click to expand...

Most come with 3 year warranties.

All Samsung internal HDDs do.

You've dropped it while it's off. A turned off HDD is a different story compared to a turned on HDD.

Drop it while it's on, I dare you. :D Then we see how good the 'military testing' was... ;)
 
PostmanPot said:
Most come with 3 year warranties.

All Samsung internal HDDs do.

You've dropped it while it's off. A turned off HDD is a different story compared to a turned on HDD.

Drop it while it's on, I dare you. :D Then we see how good the 'military testing' was... ;)
Click to expand...

Dude, no one here said anything about dropping it while it is on. Personally I don't see why someone would drop it while it is on. The op asked for "portable HDD's out there that a rough and tough enough to survive dad-to-day use?" I responded with my personal experience. ;)

/I might take you up on that challenge seeing it is still under warranty and Rectron said they would be glad to swop it out for me if it is in fact faulty. :D
 
PostmanPot said:
Drop it while it's on, I dare you. :D Then we see how good the 'military testing' was... ;)
Click to expand...

I dropped my laptop yesterday in between rushing to get orders out and couriers arriving. I just left it there as I knew that either the hdd or the LCD went and picked it up 5 mins later. Luckily there's no damage...
 
By the way, you can use something like GSmartControl (http://gsmartcontrol.berlios.de/home/index.php/en/Home) to do SMART checks on external USB drives, since most other programs don't pick them up.

You could then look at the drive attributes and you might be able to tell if the drive failure is related to physical handling or not poor casing quality (e.g. power regulation). This is assuming that the drives aren't completely dead.
 
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