Please recommend an external HDD

[Minty]

Hi all,

I'm purchasing an iMac. I can't wait, been doing all my PP on a Windows laptop and it's soo slow and small.

I want a good quality external hard drive for MAC,to use to backup RAW's etc, but also business docs.

Please can you recommend me a decent HDD (preferably 500GB to 1TB) for up to around £150 (approx $240 USD)

Many thanks

[Pete]

People rate the Buffalo drives.

But the choice really depends on what you want out of it

* will it always be on a desk
* will it be attached to a network (and accessd via the network)
* does it have to be portable
* does it have to look cool

[CosmoKid]

Your best bet is to build your own.

1- Most external drives have a shorter warranty than internal drives.
2- Internal drives are cheap and you can swap them out of the case easier when you want to upgrade it.

Buy a 1TB internal SATA drive from Newegg for around $85.
Buy an aluminum SATA external enclosure that has firewire and USB 2.0 connectivity for under $35.

Fatwallet Guide to External Enclosures (http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/arcmessageview.php?catid=28&threadid=496281)

[Minty]

Your best bet is to build your own.

1- Most external drives have a shorter warranty than internal drives.
2- Internal drives are cheap and you can swap them out of the case easier when you want to upgrade it.

Buy a 1TB internal SATA drive from Newegg for around $85.
Buy an aluminum SATA external enclosure that has firewire and USB 2.0 connectivity for under $35.

Fatwallet Guide to External Enclosures (http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/arcmessageview.php?catid=28&threadid=496281)

Never thought of that, many thanks! :)

To answer the previous questions. It will stay on a desk (though portablity would be a plus, not essential) and just be direct attached to the Mac. Looks would be nice, but not essential. Fast and reliable is priority.

[CyberDyneSystems]

Big fan of the Seagate Freeagent drives, I get the ones with E-Sata,..
They have 5 year warranty!

On sale they are usually cheaper than you can build yourself.. but only if you find the sales.

I also have a pair of Cavalry externals that are a mirrored pair of drives in one case..
Added redundancy :-)

[Minty]

Will check out the Seagates, thanks...

[Minty]

Hmmm, the Seagate Freeagents get really bad user reviews on Amazon (complaints of them just dieing) . Will check out buffalo, and also ProAvio....

Any other recommendations out there.??

[dahl]

I'm a long time Mac user and I have two RAID set ups from LaCie.
http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=11140

One for my music, one for my photos.
LaCie might be a bit more than other brands, but they have NEVER failed on me and RAID is a very smart choice, if you don't want to risk losing your stuff.

[jcothron]

Hmmm, the Seagate Freeagents get really bad user reviews on Amazon (complaints of them just dieing) . Will check out buffalo, and also ProAvio....

Any other recommendations out there.??

Interesting, I have two 500G Freeagents, and on portable FreeAgent Go (500G) and I've never had an issue with any of them.

[Nukey]

I just went through this process myself. After filling my MBP's internal drive with images, I needed an external drive to pickup the slack.The FreeAgents have had disastrous reviews lately, especially for the 1.5TB drives. There were/are? some major problems that cause(d) them to fail en mass. I have a 160GB FreeAgent drive that works great, but it looks like QC issues start once you break the 1TB mark.

After much deciding, I went with two 1TB Western Digital My Book drives. http://westerndigital.ca/en/products/products.asp?driveid=353

I just hooked them up yesterday, and so far they're working great. I use the second drive to backup the first, just in case. Redundancy is never a bad thing. Western Digital is a good brand, and I've never had a problem with it in the past. I am a little disappointed by the 1 year warranty, but when I registered my product on their website, it said that the warranty expired in 2012! I don't know if it's an error but I'm planning on holding them to it (hopefully that'll never be an issue). :)

[deletedpenguin]

^ I'm with Nukey. I just bought a RAID1 1TB My Book drive. RAID format is a great piece of mind, but I decided to spend the extra money and go with an external drive so I could "grab and go" in case of emergency.

[Wild Style]

I'm a long time Mac user and I have two RAID set ups from LaCie.
http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=11140

One for my music, one for my photos.
LaCie might be a bit more than other brands, but they have NEVER failed on me and RAID is a every smart choice, if you don't want to risk losing your stuff.
what this man said!

I am a network admin and work with ALL sorts of external hard drives. Western Digital is so dainty. I have dropped one of those a inch (no exaggeration) to the floor and they stopped working. I had this happen to 3 WD so far. My lacie drives are like mack trucks though. As others have said, just make sure you get a raid configuration. Now one other option you could go with is a NAS. THis is the only time I went with western digital and was happy. I have a 4 terabyte NAS. RAID 5 setup and I absolutly love it.

On a side note, with your mac, look into a software called quicksilver. You will thank me later.

[dahl]

Also, check out SuperDuper
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html

It's a great clean smart little back up program.
I back up my stuff in the middle of the night using the built in timer.

[tgara]

I use this one with my iMac. Works great and has never failed.

http://www.g-technology.com/Products/g-driveq.cfm

[sf_loft]

I'm happy with my Lacie Quadra drive. Looks nice and fairly inexpensive. It supports all interface types includig esata, firewire 400/800, and USB 2.0.

[Minty]

I use this one with my iMac. Works great and has never failed.

http://www.g-technology.com/Products/g-driveq.cfm
I do like the look of this!

[xenomorphic]

The most important thing is what type of harddrive is inside the cabinet. I use Western Digital eSATA drives - I have had about 10 WD drives of various capacities, both in-mac (stationary tower) and in external cabinets, for the last 5 years. Not a single problem, only my occasionally running out of space and upgrading (though some of the drives have been running 5 years straight) For external drives I use the Seritek RAID cabinets from FirmTek (http://www.firmtek.com/seritek/).

I have heard many cases of LaCie drives failing. I'd just find a good, quiet, fan-ventilated cabinet and buy some drives yourself so you know whats inside.

Addition: Western Digital MyBook series comes with a number of different interfaces (USB2/eSATA/FireWire400/FireWire800) and offer plug and play functionality with cabinet at reasonable prices. A friend of mine actually bought MyBooks to pry apart and retrieve the harddisks inside just because it was cheaoer than buying the disks separately.


James