Recommendations for Ext Hard Drive?

[halfstep]

I am looking to purchase my first external hard drive with firewire connectivity for archiving audio and video. Seems each major brand has some amount of bad press.

If you have experience with a particular brand or model that you are pleased with or would always avoid, I would appreciate your input.

[alchemy71085]

Also, why we're at it, can anyone say for sure which transfer is faster: firewire or usb?

[Karst]

Firewire seems to transfer faster on the Mac I have. Try either the Big disc or D2 ones. The others are far too fancy. :cool:

[lostboy]

I have a Western Digital 160 GB external thru USB. No problems so far.

Saw in a review on epinions.com they have a newer model with firewire and one reviewer tested it to be almost twice as fast as his USB times. He connected both since it can also act as a USB hub.

[gsmyth79]

I have a LaCie 120 Gig External (firewire) that hasn't given me a single problem in 2 years. And I abuse that thing too, trust me. I down to around 20 gigs free all the time.

Here's a link to thier drives:
http://www.lacie.com/products/range.htm?id=10033

Check out the refurbished ones, they're significantly cheaper.

[ishallbefree]

Seagate :D

[hpp]

I can heartily recommned the LaCie drives. I have three (two USB and one FireWire) and they're all great. I have the Porsche design (they look good with a Mac) and they're compact, quiet and sturdy.

Since harddisks tend to fail quickly or after a long time, yo can do really well by buying a refurbished LaCie drive off their website. It coems with 90 day warranty instead of the usual 1 year, but you can get a really good deal.

[halfstep]

I love this place! Such a great response in such a short time.
Thanks everyone.

I think I should have mentioned I am on a WinXP box that does not have USB 2.0 currently so that is why I chose the Firewire connection.

Looks like votes are:
2 Lacie
1 WD
1 Seagate

I thought I read somewhere the Lacie drives are geared towards Macs. Anyone with Lacie & Windows combination?

I currently enjoy 2 Seagate internal drives so I was tempted to go that route for an external drive.

The use for these will be for long time storage (or so I hope). I envision filling one up, burning to disc (CD or DVD) playable copies then shelving the drive until I need the archive again. This method versus a daily use drive I hope will make these last a long long time. Any thoughts on this idea/approach?

[thisistoto]

I love this place! Such a great response in such a short time.
Thanks everyone.

I think I should have mentioned I am on a WinXP box that does not have USB 2.0 currently so that is why I chose the Firewire connection.

Looks like votes are:
2 Lacie
1 WD
1 Seagate

I thought I read somewhere the Lacie drives are geared towards Macs. Anyone with Lacie & Windows combination?

I currently enjoy 2 Seagate internal drives so I was tempted to go that route for an external drive.

The use for these will be for long time storage (or so I hope). I envision filling one up, burning to disc (CD or DVD) playable copies then shelving the drive until I need the archive again. This method versus a daily use drive I hope will make these last a long long time. Any thoughts on this idea/approach?

If you are using it for purely archival use I wouldnt get one big drive. Get a bunch of small ones, just in case something happens you dont loose ALL of your music.

Have you thought about taking the DVD route instead?

[diggrd]

Since LaCie does not make drives I often wonder why people have such high regard for them. You are just as likely to get a Maxtor or a Seagate drive in a LaCie case depending on who came up with the lowest bid.

[texizjtexiz]

Since LaCie does not make drives I often wonder why people have such high regard for them. You are just as likely to get a Maxtor or a Seagate drive in a LaCie case depending on who came up with the lowest bid.

Agreed. And as mentioned in another post, my own personal experience with LaCie at work (backing up 15+ workstations every night) was less than pleasant. Do a google search for Lacie + Delayed Write Failed.

Of course ymmv :D

[halfstep]

Ahh so Lacie just rebadges other drives. Hmmm...
"Delayed write failed" - that doesn't sound good!

thisistoto mentioned the DVD route. Thanks for the tip but I am trying to avoid a sea of DVDs much like my sea of CD archives of SHNs. My hope was to put these drives up on a shelf when full and pull them out on an as needed basis.

Thinking Seagate since I have good luck <knocking on wood> with their internal drives.

Anyone else care to share their experience or solutions?

[lostboy]

For backup - DVD vs external HD - it mainly depends on how many shows you plan to have/keep. If you only download a show or 2 a month, HD would probably be ok. But if you download 20 shows a month, you'll be buying a lot of hard drives.

Personally, I'm always finding something to download. So, I download to HD. Then as I get a chance, I backup to DVD as data and burn a copy to listen to/watch, and delete off. After a little over 2 years with BT, I'm up to 90 backup DVDs and still have 2 full 160 GB HDs (both Western Digital, 1 internal, 1 external).

[mort]

I Have Bben Using A Maxtor For 2 Years With No Problems

Fire Wire !

[diggrd]

Ahh so Lacie just rebadges other drives. Hmmm...
"Delayed write failed" - that doesn't sound good!

thisistoto mentioned the DVD route. Thanks for the tip but I am trying to avoid a sea of DVDs much like my sea of CD archives of SHNs. My hope was to put these drives up on a shelf when full and pull them out on an as needed basis.

Thinking Seagate since I have good luck <knocking on wood> with their internal drives.

Anyone else care to share their experience or solutions?

The fact that you want to shelve the drives makes me want to suggest you get a Hot Swappable (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_swap) drive bay like this one (http://www.granitedigital.com/catalog/pg26_firewireidehotswapdrive.htm), I'm not recommending this manufacturer it just came up in a search. There are other types of bays including internal that will allow you to do that. Buying the whole case with a drive card in it just to shelve it doesn't make sense.

[thisistoto]

For backup - DVD vs external HD - it mainly depends on how many shows you plan to have/keep. If you only download a show or 2 a month, HD would probably be ok. But if you download 20 shows a month, you'll be buying a lot of hard drives.

Personally, I'm always finding something to download. So, I download to HD. Then as I get a chance, I backup to DVD as data and burn a copy to listen to/watch, and delete off. After a little over 2 years with BT, I'm up to 90 backup DVDs and still have 2 full 160 GB HDs (both Western Digital, 1 internal, 1 external).


just 90? lol, after about 2 years I have over 250 dvds just for my audio, and a little over 100 for my backed up dvd videos


thus I took the dvd route, i knew my collection would grow waay to fast and cost too much money to go the dvd route.


Ideally though, I would have all my stuff backed up on dvds, then also have all my stuff on daisy chained ext drives

[Sverre]

I have three external WD hard drives (two 250 GB and one 320 GB) which I use to store my live music collection, and so far I haven’t had any problems with them. I have to admit that I'm a bit concerned about drive failures though, but in my opinion it's worth the risk to get a much more flexible and convenient solution than a ton of loose DVDs. In most cases it should be possible to retrieve the content from a damaged hard drive as well.

[halfstep]

Great info people. Keep it coming.

Diggrd - the idea of the drive bay was brought up at my office today and it sounds so good it stopped me from buying an overpriced Seagate at the local Fry's on my way home. Time to do some research on these drive case solutions.

Latest tally:
Looks like votes are:
2 Lacie
2 WD
1 Seagate
1 Maxtor

If I go with Diggrd's suggestion, I'll open a new thread for internal drive recomendations :D

[diggrd]

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=GN210
here's a cheap drive bay
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=GN210-BLK