Reliable external HDD

Lord_Gardener

Looking to improve my backup for main PC after recent problems! Any thoughts on what brand to go for (reliability) and who to avoid?
Thanks

Chippy_Minton

Seagate and Western Digital seem to be better than average for reliability. Maxtor less so, although that might have changed since it was acquired by Seagate.

I have this Seagate drive - http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/116092

CHR15

Difficult to answer really.

I will always avoid a drive carrying the DESKSTAR name. Historically some of the very worst drives and had a class action lawsuit against them when they were made by Hitachi.
Hitachi flogged it on though but they still carry the name.

Maxtors were always great drives but seem to struggle a little with the larger capacities. I have had a couple of failures.


Western Digital would probably be my choice
Seagate okay but I find them noisy.

oldagetraveller

Just purchased as Chippy's link. Seems excellent so far. Piece of cake to install and use. A bit over £56 delivered using Google Checkout and saver delivery.
Formatted FAT32 as supplied but can easily be re-formatted NTFS if required. I have a link to Seagate help for doing this. http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?locale=en-US&name=Why_does_my_drive_report_as_full_even_when_it_is_not_(when_copying_files_larger_than_4_GB)&vgnextoid=92d1781e73d5d010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD
Completely silent operation. (well virtually!)

Lord_Gardener

Thanks for the replies. Looks like the Seagate is a good option, but out of stock at the moment at ebuyer. NTFS is what I would want to do!