Reliable External HD
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- CincodeMayo
Any suggestions? Mac compatible. Around $100. What do you use?
Or does any thoughts on online backup?
- CincodeMayo0
And now in English...
Or does any one have any thoughts on online backup?
- CincodeMayo0
Yeah, I didn't think online backup was the way to go. Thanks akrok. I'll check this one out and any other suggestions.
- stewdio0
G-Tech. More expensive but also way more robust. Multiple interfaces. Casing built to last. I've been very satisfied with these.
- ESKEMA0
- I have the esata model, quite a disappointment. Mgmt software is terrible, written in java, looks 1995, crashes...raf
- The drive sometimes isn't recognized on start, have to boot it, wait a few secs, then plug into computerraf
- The fan is always on even when drives aren't spinning, no thermal sensor only manual speed controlraf
- It looks 'mac' and lures you into the illusion of good UX. My €20 noname Chinese enclosure is nicer to use.raf
- formed0
Anyone noticing that HD's aren't shipping with software? I just got a new Seagate drive (my Maxtor's have always been great, got stacks of them), but it only comes with a trial version of Memeo, which is jus a horrible program, installed TONS of crap shit, just pissed me off (considering Maxtor drives used to ship with a simple version of Retrospect).
For drives, I've got Seagate, Maxtor and WD. I've had a few have errors, but more or less all have been fine (and inexpensive).
- Projectile0
my WD passport is so frikkin useful, been dropped a thousand times when I move my laptop around, my housemates are always stealing it and god knows what they do to it... and it still works fine 2 yrs later.
and not having an extra power source+wasting electricity is a massive bonus
- really? my WD usually just die for no reason.... they are like the cheapest brand on the market... maybe the quality control isn't there and the good one might be really good.pango
- there and the good is might be really good.pango
- I use this thing to death. had mine for almost 2 years, no problems, and I can literally fit it anywhere.********
- Worst of the worst - don't buy WD.d_rek
- i've had mine for 2 years now, 320gb and it's worked flawlessly.kona
- never had problems with my WD mybookgenfour
- I have a few of these, some work well others have usb plug problems. I'd recommend not using this one.spot13
- wd is shit. & kona. may work fine with 300+gb but you go tb and its sucks..plash
- don't buy WD********
- bjladams0
i've had 1 out of 4 western digital hds blow up - but the other 3 are still good. so, i guess i'd rate them 3 stars out of 4.
- vaxorcist0
I've had 2 of 4 LaCie drives stop working... one locked up and stopped spinning, the other just wouldn't be recognized by any computer, then it made grinding noises and smelled funny....
I've had better luck with:
1. buying seagate OEM raw drives, buying an enclosure and putting them together myself in 15 minutes with a screwdriver.
2. buying normal, plain old office-depot Verbatim drives... so far they work fine and are very cheap, if slightly slower than the 7200 RPM drives.
I've also found that some drives are Mac or PC, not Mac and PC. Some work with both no problem, some require reformatting to switch systems, erasing all the stuff on them.
Many consumer drives have irritating software that's supposed to backup your system but may just cause problems... I'd avoid or erase that stuff...
- Same here. I've had much worse experience with LaCie than WD.********
- FAT32 drives will work on Mac/PC. HFS+ only mac, and NTFS will read/write PC but read only macanimatedgif
- Same here. I've had much worse experience with LaCie than WD.
- vaxorcist0
Some photographers I know use DROBO backup systems, quite complex and pricey, but supposedly very redundent.
- d_rek0
Seagate - been a loyal seagate customer for over a decade now and have not once had a seagate drive fail or die on me.
I started using them when I built my first PC - it was an old 3200rpm Barracuda drive, like 6gb or something. It lasted until I disassembled the machine.
I then built another PC with two internal seagate 7200rpm SATA drives. Again, never had any issue.
And more recently i've been using their external drives. I bought an external HDD back in 2006 and used it until 2010, when the 80gb just wasn't enough. I upgraded to a GoFlex 500gb drive with firewire and couldn't be happier. I also use a 1TB external HDD for backup for my home machine.
My *only* quip with their newer drives is they feel a bit too 'plastic' for me. They're sturdy enough but I liked them just a tad more when they were encased in aluminum.
- Your FIRST HD, over a decade ago, was a 6GB 3200rpm Barracuda? You fucking wish!monospaced
- oops...I totally read that wrong...disregard my commentmonospaced
- Uhm, yeah, I think it was like 1998 when I built my first rig. One drive was the barracuda the other was a used quantum fireball.d_rek
- I don't know if they sold GB drives back then. Maybe 600MBmonospaced
- 1998? C'mon dude.d_rek
- lajj0
Seagate also.
I just bought the 2TB in sale for 139$ at Staples last week.
- showpony0
i've gone through more drives than i can count... they will ALL fail you. it's true. i've spent $100 all the way up to $700 and they all blow. seriously, it's criminal.
the key word with back up is *redundancy*
for me, i do time machine... just bought a glyph drive after my g drives (yes, 2 of them) died:
for email, if you use the gmail business account, your email and folders (which is amazing) is backed up online by default.
at the end of every project, i burn disks of them. in an ideal world, there'd be 2 copies of these disks, one off site and one on site, but i only have one set on site and that's it.
for super important stuff, i'll store a zip on my server as well. for example, every month i get an archive of my address book, omni focus database, and soho notes databases, and post them to my server.
in all seriousness, these hard drive companies need to be brought up on war crimes...
- kona0
i've been really lucky with my externals.
i still have a 150gb lacie from at least 8 years ago that works great. (i only use it as a time machine backup for my work computer so i could give two shits if it fails)
i have 3 wd mybooks at home. 2 1tb and 1 2tb drive. i swap them every three months and so far they've been great. of the three one is always a drive that i back up my music, movies, portfolio and photos to, and that then gets stored at my parents house god forbid anything happens to our place. the other two drives are swapped every 3 months and run timemachine backups of my computer. the swapped drive gets stored in a safety deposit box at my bank.
knock on wood but i've had no problems. i was really looking into a g drive but then i heard some bad things about them so i went with what's worked so far, which was the wd 2tb firewire 800 drive that i bought from amazon.
good luck.
- i spoke too soon about the lacie. it just shit the bed late last week. oh well, it lasted almost 9 years.kona
- CyBrainX0
I've had at least 4 drives die on me. Two were Lacie. I've talked to people in the stores and they say there is no such thing as a reliable brand. They all die. Anywhere from 3 months to 3 years. So, you better back up.
Obviously solid state drives will last longer, but they are more expensive.
- nocomply0
I got sick of always worrying about backups, what's stored on which HD, where my HDs are located, etc... and early this year switched to online backups with Crashplan.
Now I store everything on 1 external HD and have Crashplan always running in the background to upload my files. I haven't noticed it being a memory hog or slowing down my system at all.
I have about 500GB of stuff to upload and it's been almost 3 months and it's still not complete (but close).
You definitely have to be patient with the process, but it gives me peace of mind to know that I'm covered not only if an HD fails, but from theft or fire as well.
If you need all of your data from the Crashplan cloud asap they will fedex you a physical HD with your stuff on it, but it costs like $150 or 200.
And as far as HD brands go, I can't recommend any single brand. I've had both good and bad experiences with all of them.
The one trend I've noticed though is that if you get a lemon you'll generally know it in the first week of use (if not the first day). Once my HD's make it past a few weeks, they're generally good until I decide to retire them.
- WinterKid0
not iomega.
