Which external hard drive to choose?

bookduck

rcssmb wrote: »

Anyone got an opinion on this external enclosure? These things Vista compatible?

http://www.storagedepot.co.uk/Enclosures-and-Cases/sc884/p216.aspx

Call me tight, but it look a tad pricey for me, however it does look good.

Random

I've been looking for a drive for ages, every one I look at seems to have quite a lot of bad reviews. I was keen on the Western Digital one, but the reviews seem to include a lot of failures (25 1 star reviews on Amazon!).

Anyone got any views on Iomega drives? They seem to use Seagate drives inside, and there is one quite cheap at Comet at the mo.

isofa

I think bookduck is correct the 1Tb LaCie is two 500Gbs together, however rather than the 2x250Gb separate drive con, this time it'll be fast as the data is striped across the two drives to form the larger 1Tb partition, and it's not expensive, I think MacWarehouse has them for 120 quid at the moment...

Never had a problem with WD drives, all HDs can fail, for every 100 people you have recommending a brand, 1 or 2 will have experienced a problem. Most external HDs use drives from 2-3 manufacturers, WD, Maxtor and Samsung.

I have two WD MyBooks, one when they were released 3-4 years ago I think, cost a fortune, and the second more recently, both utterly reliable and fast over firewire. However I haven't left a good review on Amazon, because I didn't buy them from there!

Incidentally never had a problem with a LaCie drive either.

jmc160

Whitefiver wrote: »

Alternatively, 500Gb Western Digital My book from Amazon for £69 - as in link in my reply above. :rolleyes:

Regards,

White

This one's the same price in Tesco atm too.

bookduck

Random wrote: »

I've been looking for a drive for ages, every one I look at seems to have quite a lot of bad reviews. I was keen on the Western Digital one, but the reviews seem to include a lot of failures (25 1 star reviews on Amazon!).

Anyone got any views on Iomega drives? They seem to use Seagate drives inside, and there is one quite cheap at Comet at the mo.

You'd have been better starting your own post as you'd probably get more answers.

to be honest I think the internal drives are all fairly similar at the mo. Best is get one with a 5 year warranty. Write the date received, warranty period and the company you purchased it from on the drive in pen - just in case. If you want speed then Raptor, and more speed scsi 15K

Maxtor, WD and seagate have external drives with 5 year warranties. If i were to purchase one in it's own box, or especially in a new PC, I may only get a 1 year warranty.

At the mo this from overclocker seem ok, Maxtor OneTouch 4 750GB USB2.0 External Hard Drive (STM307504OTD3E1-RK) £95 ex - 5 year warranty.