need advice on best external hard drive

[inthegarden]

I'm looking for a new external hard drive. I had two Maxtors that went bad. I tried doing a google search for reviews but really couldn't find much. Then I remembered potn forum. Surely many of you use them for storage and can share your pros and cons, and make recommendations.
I did try a search here, but couldn't find much on specific brands.
Thanks!
donna j

[blonde]

i just ordered a 320GB SATA internal drive from Western Digital and put it in a macally external enclosure. the entire thing cost me $127 from newegg. i heard tons of great reviews on both items.

[rklepper]

Seagates have the best reputation as far as reliability.

[SoaringUSAEagle]

I personally like seagate.

[coreypolis]

best buy has the 500gb Western Digital Life Book HD for 199 right now. Gret deal

Just stay away from maxtor and you'll be ok. WD and seagate are top dogs

[JaertX]

I've been using adaptec cases with hitachi and western digital drives for quite a while now...no problems so far! (from newegg as well)

[Jon]

I use Seagates external and internal.

[blonde]

i am an idiot, i did by the seagate barracuda and not the western digital. sorry for the wrong info in my first post.

[Digitalwave]

I just picked up a SeaGate 160gb for $90 at Best Buy on sale. I've heard great things about SeaGates, and more great things about LaCies.

[DavidW]

I tend to go for Seagate drives - everything I've had a choice of in recent years has been Seagate. Maxtor were bought out by Seagate and are gradually disappearing except as a consumer brand - I believe there's still some Maxtor drive designs that are current, but they're gradually disappearing.

I've only lost one Seagate hard disk over the years - I had a Cheetah 15K.3 go bad. Though SMART was OK, the drive kept going into a "fast click" then going offline. I managed to keep it online long enough to run a final differential backup, though I had recent backups anyway. I got a replacement under warranty.

I also had some hassle with what were then Seagate tape drives - eventually I got an upgrade to a larger capacity model from a senior technician, which sorted that one out. Seagate spun off their tape division into Certance, which has now been bought by Quantum.


I'm not so impressed with the range of enclosures available in Europe, though. Whilst I see the attraction of something that's fanless, my Icy Box enclosure seems to run quite hot. It works without problems, but I wouldn't want to put any drive with high cooling requirements (such as a drive that's faster than 7200rpm) in it.

When it comes to choosing an interface, I'd use eSATA if possible - it has the lowest overheads.



David

[alexclc]

Very happy with my 400gb Seagate external.

Alex

[inthegarden]

Thanks everyone! I think I'm going with a seagate.
donna j

[Fureinku]

seagate bought maxtor..

[Nekkid]

I have a LaCie 250Gb external, which was the most bang for the buck at the time (last year). Not had much use, but works well. Oh, and it looks great, all metal and shiny!

Probably an obvious thing to say, but make sure you always have 2 copies of everything, on 2 seperate drives.

[nation]

Maxtors have worked well for me in the past. My Seagate SATA drive works fine but often times gets a buggy connection to my PC and is not always recognised. I ended up having to trial and error (plugs, ports, power switch etc) with it for an inordinate amount of time until it finally gets recognised by my PC.

[EOSAddict]

Seagate internal and WD External. Am planning to get a second Seagate SATA internal.

[inthegarden]

Maxtors have worked well for me in the past. My Seagate SATA drive works fine but often times gets a buggy connection to my PC and is not always recognised. I ended up having to trial and error (plugs, ports, power switch etc) with it for an inordinate amount of time until it finally gets recognised by my PC.
I had similar issues with my Maxtor. It seems like everyone has had a negative experience with every brand there is. It makes it scary to make a final choice, knowing that something can and very may will go wrong . . .

[inthegarden]

seagate bought maxtor..
Maybe it would be worse if Maxtor had bought Seagate?? :-)

[jesusdelallata]

Old post, but I wanted to contribute. I have a 250 gb external from Western Digital (My Book) and it's worked fine so far. I paid about $150 at Best Buy.

I just bought an 80 gb portable drive, also from western digital to take along with me. I got the portable from Best Buy for $89 this week.

Has anyone experienced problems with Western Digital?

[angryhampster]

My 120GB Western Digital external has been nothing but great. I even dropped it on a hard floor once, and it fired right up when I plugged it back in. Really fast, reliable drive. I've actually got all of my pictures on it.

[zacker]

funny, someone said WD is great and Maxtor isnt... I had a WD die in just over a year as my maxtor is going on three and still running strong...lol who knows!

[jesusdelallata]

My 120GB Western Digital external has been nothing but great. I even dropped it on a hard floor once, and it fired right up when I plugged it back in. Really fast, reliable drive. I've actually got all of my pictures on it.


Thanks. So far mine has been great, but was wondering about others' experience.

I really think it's awesome that prices keep dropping and drive capacity get bigger.

[angryhampster]

Well yeah.. it's great if you're getting a new one, but it sucks if you bought one when externals started booming about a year and a half ago :lol: