What's the BEST external harddrive???

C

concon310

Member
So, I've heard horror stories from people storing footage on externals and having them crash randomly. I've used Lacie for several years now for standard definition and have never had a problem.

I want to invest in a nice 500gb harddrive, but I'm taking every precaution I can to avoid losing data, or having it crash.

I've heard Lacie sucks for HD. And heard some good things about Apple's G drives, and the WD My Book.

Any recommendations?
 
I use 4 LaCie's. No problems. 2x500, 2x100.

I also have 3 WDs - 500 My Book, 2x160 USB drives. No problems.

I have a 300 Seagate. It crashed once, but I didn't lose any files.

I had a client's G-Raid drive last year, and the thing would crash in about an hour into use... and that was if I could get it to mount. Luckily we replaced it before we lost any data.

Prices are getting so low that you can get a couple of 500's and use one as a duplicate backup.
 
I have a usb 500gb WD Mybook(about $135 from newegg). So far so good.
I've had it for a few months, it's my backup hd.
 
I've not had any problems with LaCie 500 Quadras. The tech guys at the Apple store say they do not see many issues either...and that G-tech and WD have about the same level of returns.

My assumption is that mainly just the bad drives get reported in the reviews. If that is the case then 10's out of ten thousands is not a bad performance.
 
I have 320GB G-raid that has been running strong for the past three years and I just got a 500GB G-Raid2 which is also running strong.
 
G-Tech or wiebetech.com.

My preference is wiebetech.com.

I'm glad that the "usb 500gb WD Mybook" is working, but I just wouldn't trust this data to any mechanism and enclosure that isn't among the best.

I don't believe those WD enclosures and drives are among the best.

The reports I've seen is that anything Hitachi is among the best.
 
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lacie has a VERY chequered past as far as reliability goes. for every story i hear of someone liking them, i hear 5 of them crashing, failing to stay mounted or as in my case simply corrupt a years worth of data (and did an "island of doc moreau" job to about 10% of my itunes library)

they may have worked their kinks out by now, but im still reading horror stories.

also heard some unhapiness with the WD mybook drives.

one thing you should look for is multiple ports, should you ever need to daisy chain more than one drive.

i swear by drives from promax and OWC. used them both for years without a single hiccup!

i did have to buy one of those new seagate, multi interface drives the other day (all store had was that, lacie products, and mybooks) you know, that one that sits vertically on a stand and has that amber glow all around its edges. i was a little skeptical as it reeks of commercialised CHEESINESS - BUT i just put it through an ultra-grueling 4 day project editing a 4.75 hour final runtime live presentation shoot, and it didnt miss a beat!
 
g-tech my friend!!! i had four 500 gig drives from lacie and have been a lacie user up until one of my newer drives crashed for some odd reason... so i chucked my lacies and bought a terabyte from g-tech... it's filled to the brim with my DV footage and has been dependable for the past couple years... it cools better... and that's a fact!! anything that can with stand an LA summer with no AC has my vote.... (i'd rather save on my power bill than my equip) i run it everyday for a minimum of 12 hour a day!! G-TECH ALL TECH WAY!!!!
 
We've used Maxtor hard drives for over five years years without a single failure. For our current project we are running 2 300GB and 1 500GB Maxtor One Touch III drives that have preformed beautifully. We're just using a USB 2 connection but they also support firewire 800. The 500GB cost us some $150. Seagate recently bought Maxtor but I believe the drives we're using are still available.
 
I too have been looking for reliable and fast HD's. I've had two Maxtor drives crash in one year. Both firewire drives showed odd behavior, glitches, lost files, and then failed at the power supply. I was able to save the data on the first drive but the second failed completely. Fortunately, I have a WD 1TB drive that contained most of the data of the second drive. I have 4x 300 GB Maxtor one touch II drives and I have little confidence in their ability to store data long term. I would hesitate to buy another Maxtor based on my experience.
 
The WD MyBookPro 2 is a steamer, avoid it. I've got two of them. First off the fans suck in air rather than blow it out. I'm pretty sure they were just assembled wrong in the first place as flipping the fans over makes about a 90% difference in their cooling. But they're just crappy. Problems I've had: Random disconnects. They just unmount themselves at random times. TOTALLY sucks when you're in the middle of something important, like oh I dunno writing data. Doing a firmware upgrade is a crapshoot. I had one shut off during such an operation after it had wiped its own flash memory but before it had written the new data. I had to RMA that one, and on my own dime. WD has the worst tech support in the universe. He was rude and stupid, not to mention he seemed to care very little about fixing the issue. I'll never buy another WD product again. Note however, my 500GB My Book has run perfectly for 2 years and the problems are with the 1TB Raid models.
 
I used to use Lacie; and haven't had any real problems with them. I still use a a few, but I've heard too many horror stories about them.

Pro shops rarely use them unless they have sponsorship deals (which they have TON).

I just got in to G-tech. I love it. Too early to tell for durability.

Simply put, follow the manufacturer with the best warranty. The warranty is a direct reflection of how reliabile the maker thinks their product is.

MOST models from Seagate carry a five year deal. That's the best you can get right now.

Best value has to go to western digital, two year deal, but they are very inexpesive. G-tech has the best performance, but costs the most.

There really is no answer. But there are definately makers to AVOID... and they are not hard to find. Buy nothing with a 1 year warranty, IMO.

Best of luck.
- Alex
 
I have several Lacie drives and was very happy until one went down. All discs evntually go down, but it shouldn't take Lacie 3 months to repair them. So, now I've just bought the new IOMEGA 2TB Power Pro Raid - excellent value for money and it seems to work.
 
It's a bit pricier than the other externals, but I very highly recommend the Buffalo Terastations. These are RAID-5 arrays, 1 to 2 TB capacity, that connect over Ethernet.

If one of the drives fails, you simply replace it, reboot, hit the reset switch, and the Terastation will continue to function normally as it rebuilds the missing data on the new drive.

As far as peace of mind goes, there's no comparison from my perspective. Of course, we keep tape backups of the Terastations as well, just to be sure.

We have had multiple Maxtor failures, tons of Western Digital failures. Maxtor is now Seagate's "value" line, which scares me a bit.

I haven't used Hitachi drives in years (since right after they bought IBM's drive division and became Hitachi) but way back then, the drives sucked. I have heard they are better now.

These days, we are buying Seagate drives. 5 year warranty, seem to be fast and run relatively cool, and I think I've had maybe one failure, less than any other brand .
 
Ive gone to 2.5 eSATA/FW enclosures in the field. I find that there are just as fast and there are a lot more durable laptop 2.5 drives out there that can handle the mobility that I require. After all, thats what they are made for. Most 3.5 drives are not designed for so much movement. Plus the big bonus is size, of course they are more expensive and only small capacities of 120-160 are available at 7200 speed. I always back them up to a raid ASAP of course, and If Im on a Desktop, Im using a raid. I always have a backup of the P2 image when the project is still active.
FYI - Had horible experiences with LaCie which contain Seagate drives I believe.
 
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