External Hard Drive

Robm1955

My external hard drive, which contains all my mp3's and recorded tv, has just started making a clicking noise, which I believe, means it's on its way out. It's Seagate Expansion 1TB External USB 2.0 Desktop Hard Drive, and I bought it in May 2010. It's used constantly, as I sometimes record programs while I'm at work. What I want to know is, is this normal lifespan for such an external drive? And what is the best external hard drive to buy (at least 2TB)?

Squire_Fulwood

I don't know what a normal lifespan is for a hard disc. I have owned many that lasted longer than yours and some that didn't. As for which one to buy. You will probably get answers to that championing whatever the writer has at the time.

I think you will have to choose one, buy it and take your chances like the rest of us. Sorry to be unhelpful but I suppose that if there was an obvious front runner we would all buy that one.

robmar0se

Hard drives are mechanical equipment and do in the small print advertise a mean time to failure, so its when not if...although 2 years is way too short.

Backup elsewhere asap, and run the seagate utility on it - http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?locale=en-US&name=seatools-win&vgnextoid=552bd20cacdec010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD

Many of these hard drives do have a 2 year warranty, you can check yours here - http://support.seagate.com/customer/en-us/warranty_validation.jsp

so you need to move quickly

lots of opinion about which exthdd to choose, everyone has their own opinion western digital, samsung, etc (samsung are more expensive but offer a 3 year warranty)

victor2

I would say go for a known brand, but you already did.
You could just be unlucky, or the drive could have been knocked over and damaged. Drives do typically last longer than yours has, but they have mechanical moving parts and will fail eventually.
Shop around, but try and get anything you want to keep off the drive while it's still working. The "click of death" does usually mean the end is nigh!

andy2004

as someone whos bought quite a few hard drives over the past year. i can say a few things.
hdds that are in constant use should last a long time, my first 27gb fujitsu 3.5in ide lasted 9 years before dying. i've still got a 300gb maxtor 3.5in ide which i use, 8years. and samsung 1tb sata 4years, samsung 1.5tb 3years, samsung 2tb not in constant use but has been used 2years, i had a WD green 1.5tb which i bought just after the samsung 1.5tb but it died after 8months, got replaced with another and thats just been replaced after 14months, so i cant recommend WD at all. I do recommend Samsungs though. i have 5 of them altogether. they didnt come as external but i bought an enclosure for them, however saying that samsung have been bought by seagate this year so not to sure.

1 piece of advice. if the drive is clicking STOP USING IT until you have a replacement, then connect and copy all the files you can.

currently novatech are doing samsung 2tb drives for just over £90 they are internal but the enclosures are £8

fenlander_uk

As someone already said, you'll get recommendations based on what people have already got. So here's one: I've never had a failure with a Buffalo drive and have just ordered my 4th. Coincidentally, the 2TB Buffalo DriveStation seems to be the cheapest available at this difficult time: you can get it from eBuyer for £90. Amazon had the same deal until Sunday, but on Monday the price increased by £8. Most other external 2TB drives will cost you about £20 more.

(Actually, the only drive I've ever had fail was the internal drive in my Vaio, which was a WD. I think failure time is a bit of a lottery - you can't totally rely on any drive to keep going for a specified length of time, which is why you should keep a backup of everything. My new 2TB drive will be used to back up 2 1TB drives.)