New hard drive - advice?

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AnthIste

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I have some extra spending money available, so I thought I might invest in a bit of extra storage. Right now I have a Seagate 1TB SV35.3 SATA300 32MB 7200RPM Hard Drive. It's the largest drive I have available and it's like 80% full, which means I don't have anywhere to make backups, so I want to buy myself another 1.5TB or 2TB drive.

Makro has a special going for a Toshiba 2TB External Hard Drive @ R 1,299.00. A friend of mine bought one and says he's happy with it, but I don't want it dying on me after a few months.

Prophecy has a WD WD20EARS Caviar Green 2TB SATA2 5400-7200rpm going for R1413.96.

So far the Western Digital is sounding pretty good and I can afford it, but with shipping it costs quite a bit more than the Toshiba.

Now I can't decide if it will be a good idea to get an external or another internal HDD. The external has its own power supply, and when I built my PC I didn't exactly overcompensate the power to a large degree. The convenience of not lugging around another drive is pretty good though (I won't be using it on any other PC's). Despite being marketed as "power efficient", actual benchmarks show that the WD sucks more juice than they claim.

Speed isn't such an issue, but if it's piss slow I won't be too happy :mad:.

What you guys think? :)
 
The Toshiba is a bargain, especially if you are planning to use it as external storage.
 
moggie said:
The Toshiba is a bargain, especially if you are planning to use it as external storage.
Click to expand...
Hmm, it is a good price, but I don't know if I'll be able to get back to makro before the special ends. I lost my chance to go today :S. Also, makro doesn't list specs (at least that I can find), so at that price I'm worried that it's either bad quality or really poor performance. Do you have any experience with Toshiba products in general?

cyberarmy said:
I have a 1TB external already, also looking at this hard drive. Cheaper here http://www.ikonicit.co.za/index.php?target=products&product_id=6599
Click to expand...
Do you have any experience with that store? I've heard only good things about Prophecy, but I haven't ever heard of these guys.
 
moggie said:
The Toshiba is a bargain, especially if you are planning to use it as external storage.
Click to expand...
Hmm, it is a good price, but I don't know if I'll be able to get back to makro before the special ends. I lost my chance to go today :S. Also, makro doesn't list specs (at least that I can find), so at that price I'm worried that it's either bad quality or really poor performance. Do you have any experience with Toshiba products in general?

cyberarmy said:
I have a 1TB external already, also looking at this hard drive. Cheaper here http://www.ikonicit.co.za/index.php?target=products&product_id=6599
Click to expand...
Do you have any experience with that store? I've heard only good things about Prophecy, but I haven't ever heard of these guys.
 
I have 2x 1Tb Toshiba external hdd's.

No problems.

Toshiba are not a mickey mouse brand.
 
Maybe I should be thinking of upgrading my 6 y/o (AMD 1400,+512mb RAM, 256mb graphics card) PC's HDD as well. My 40GB now only has about 5gigs left.
 
Last edited:
geezer said:
Maybe I should be thinking of upgrading my 6 y/o (AMD 1400,+512mb RAM, 256mb graphics card) PC's HDD as well. My 40GB now only has about 5gigs left.
Click to expand...
40GB? What do you use your PC for, store only 1KB text files?
No. You should buy a new PC entirely. :)
 
woah, I just found this: http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-eSATA-Desktop-External-PH3200U-1EXB/dp/B002XRMNN0

Now I'm not sure if it's the exact same model, but I don't expect that one manufacturer will have an entire range of 2TB externals. So it averaged 2.5 stars out of 52 reviews :/. Some people complain about the eSata connection, others about the drive shutting down after inactivity and so forth. If it has an eSata connection I plan on using it, but if it doesn't work or if it doesn't even come with the required cable, then that's a bit of a waste.

If Ikonic is a decent store I think I might take the Western Digital. SATA2 and up-to 7200RPM sounds > USB2.0. It might be putting all your eggs in one basket to keep everything onboard, but the idea of an external just doesn't tickle me as much as an onboard drive.
 
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