Recommended External Hard Drives (laptop user)

[Damashii!!]

this thing is killing me and it currently has most of my files on it so I'm looking to buy a truly "reliable" external hard drive as soon as possible.

so can anybody please recommend me some good brands other than failgate? preferably under $300 USD.

i've browsed google but there's a bunch of conflicting camps so i'm hoping some of the computer pros here could nudge me in the right direction.

[Moseph]

I've been using an external LaCie drive for several years with no problems, first as a sample drive and now as a backup drive.

[Damashii!!]

thanks, i'll try to get one of those this weekend.

and just for my own judgement, would you strongly recommend that over something like western digital or toshiba?

[Yami]

Never ever use a seagate drive.

In german, there is a joke which goes as follows:

"Seagate oder sie geht nicht", which is a pun on the pronounciation of "sie geht (it works)" and "sie geht nicht (it doesn't work)".

I normally recommend Western Digital external drives, especially the 3,5" ones are great. I still have one running which is nearly 9 years old.

[SenPi]

I'll backup LaCie. I have 2 1TB external LaCie drives, and they have always worked 100% and ive had them for a good 3+ years now.

[Flexstyle]

My boss back at the recording studio I worked at in Nashville a few years ago swore by LaCie--wouldn't use any other brand, ever, end of story. I've personally had good luck with Iomega external devices for a long time, but I'm not entirely sure what they use as their underlying hardware in those things.

[SenPi]

just a little more info. I *think* lacie uses WD drives in their externals. And WD is my go-to for drives. Nobody else :3

[prophetik music]

i would buy an external hard drive case and an internal hard drive like the wd caviar. i don't buy externals premade any more.

a good example is this combined with this.

[Damashii!!]

Never ever use a seagate drive.

In german, there is a joke which goes as follows:

"Seagate oder sie geht nicht", which is a pun on the pronounciation of "sie geht (it works)" and "sie geht nicht (it doesn't work)".

I normally recommend Western Digital external drives, especially the 3,5" ones are great. I still have one running which is nearly 9 years old.

:lmassoff:oh man, now i'm totally going to remember this anytime i think of seagate.

yeah, i also had an extremely trustworthy WD external for a Mac a while back but i donated it to a relative who needed it more (at the time), and to my knowledge it's still kicking.

thanks so much for all the suggestions, i think i'm 98% sold on the enclosure idea. SymbiotiX, do you by any chance know where I could find that information about lacie and WD?

because right now i'm focused on these three:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822154349

http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?id=10517

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136284

but if it's true that lacie utilizes some WD components, then i'm going to go ahead with WD.

[theshaggyfreak]

You're going to get a certain unreliable stories about every single hard drive company. I used to use a few Lacie drives but I've had fairly early failure rates on a few and not just the drives but the enclosure too.

Right now I have one of these Seagate Goflex drives that I use for backup purposes and it's been one of the more reliable external drives that I've had.

[Legion303]

You're going to get a certain unreliable stories about every single hard drive company.

This is true. The only drive failure I've had was a WD, but then I have multiple other WDs that are about 20 years old and still working great. Your best bet is to invest in multiple drives and go RAID or regularly back up one to the other.

-steve

[Damashii!!]

thanks again everyone for the feedback. i'm not patient enough to order online so i picked up the WD caviar and an enclosure at my local electronics store. oddly, they didn't have anything other than Toshiba, WD, Seagate, and i think Sony. no LaCie, though.

You're going to get a certain unreliable stories about every single hard drive company. I used to use a few Lacie drives but I've had fairly early failure rates on a few and not just the drives but the enclosure too.

Right now I have one of these Seagate Goflex drives that I use for backup purposes and it's been one of the more reliable external drives that I've had.

i know, but i wanted to at least get a general consensus on a few trusted brands. if seagate keeps you rolling that's awesome, but i'm going to keep my distance for quite some time.

This is true. The only drive failure I've had was a WD, but then I have multiple other WDs that are about 20 years old and still working great. Your best bet is to invest in multiple drives and go RAID or regularly back up one to the other.

-steve

yeah, i explained my situation to the clerk there and he also suggested RAID. i never heard of that term, his explanation went over my head, and wikipedia's not helping, so you think you can pm me the gist of what "RAID" is in layman's terms?

(you could post it here too if you want, but my issue has been resolved so i didn't want to veer offtopic)

[prophetik music]

no, don't do raid unless you're talking about four or five drives. waste of money otherwise when a simple backup program like cobian can do it easy.

think easy for now and upgrade later. just pick one or two drives and roll with it.

i cover the basics of raid in my guide in my sig, but let's put it this way - in all my builds, i've done raid arrays twice. one was a twenty-drive array with five backups, and one was a ten with five backups. there's almost always a better solution for small-time stuff.

[Damashii!!]

no, don't do raid unless you're talking about four or five drives. waste of money otherwise when a simple backup program like cobian can do it easy.

think easy for now and upgrade later. just pick one or two drives and roll with it.

i cover the basics of raid in my guide in my sig, but let's put it this way - in all my builds, i've done raid arrays twice. one was a twenty-drive array with five backups, and one was a ten with five backups. there's almost always a better solution for small-time stuff.

yeah, i'm not a computer noob but i definitely have no idea what you're all talking about i'll totally be checking out your sig links to be more informed for my future endeavors.

thanks again so much for the suggestions everybody. as of now i've unfortunately lost about 120 GB of files, but the new drive is 3TB so that give me room to make up for it.

peace

jordan