I am about to begin scanning some of my older negs and wanted to get an external hard disc drive to keep the files separate from my everyday stuff. I was thinking of a single 500GB or 750GB unit to start with.
I have seen mixed reviews of many makes and models.....is there anything in a name?
Maxtor? Iomega? Seagate? LaCie? Are the more expensive makes more reliable or is it lucky dip?
Thanks in advance!
Phil
I might suggest starting with a terrabyte drive instead of smaller, especially since they don't cost much these days. As far as brands... I have two drives, one a Maxtor which is several years old and has never given any problems. The other is a Buffalo... which broke down a week ago after only 4-months in service... I have yet to take it in to a shop to see if the files can be restored. So... stay away from Buffalo externals I would suggest.....
It is kind of a toss-up, but maybe as an indication of reliability, look for those that have a longer warranty period.
I am surprised if Maxtor still exists as a name brand as they were purchased by Seagate some time ago. Of the list, I would be least interested in a Maxtor, although perhaps the quality control improved with acquisition by Seagate.Originally Posted by Phil Hudson
I believe Seagate is the venerable grandfather of the lot, being the first HD used in IBM PC's and early clones when I started working on PC's in the 70's.
For the most part, however, it is the luck of the draw, with full form factor hard drives being extremely reliable, as long as you know two things about them.
The solid state electronics are often more reliable the longer they survive. It's called burn-in. Heat is the killing blow. If a hard drive is going to fail, it will either be an early failure of it's the solid state circuity, and this is uncommon, unless enclosed in a way that creates heat buildup.
The second concern would be longevity. Long term failures are most often due to mechanical wear (bearings likely). The bearings used in hard drives are rated in a generalized lifetime equivalent of 4-5 years. This is a loose average based on how the drive is used. I've seen the majority of drives run longer than this, interestingly in networks that run 24/7. However, the failure of an old drive is often due to bearing wear that allows miniscule movement of the platters relative to the read/write heads and ultimately causing read/write errors or sector failures that cannot be recovered.
As a related issue, you can extend the lifespan of the hard drive by having an abundance of RAM so that applications are not constantly driving the hard drive to it's early demise.
The "iffy" drives are no longer in the market for the most part. You left a major drive manufacturer off your list. That MFR is Western Digital. Over the years, the drives I tended to favor have been Seagate and Western Digital, with Seagate as the leading candidate.
The other factor you will run into is the smaller portable form factor (laptop) drives. They are getting fairly large data capacity now, but unless I absolutely needed "shirt pocket" transportability, I'd suggest the larger drives, and don't put them in an enclosed space while they are powered up.
In any event, I would expect a second storage drive installed in the computer to outlive any external drive, as well as be hugely faster on data transfer due to the internal interface in the computer. That being the case, one of the options you may want to consider is a "front bay" removable drive that uses a common interface inside the computer, and a hard drive mounted in a special removable caddy that plugs into the front bay, yet can be removed and stored elsewhere. These are not USB or Firewire on the interface, but hooked in just as if they were installed inside the computer.
If you have multiple computers, you can then install the bay interface in each computer and plug the drive(s) into the bay equipped computers.
LaCie HDs suck
I picked up a SeaGate FreeAgent 500GB FireWire/USB drive a few months ago. Set-up is very easy. Drive is fast and quiet. Takes very little room on a desk. I got mine through Amazon. Recommended.
Ciao!
Gordon Moat Photography
I agree with Frank - I've also had problems with Lacie hard drives. The ones I've owned have been very fast in use as they are essentially two disks configured as a RAID 0, however if anything goes wrong it is very difficult to recover the data. I've had two go in the time my Seagate external drives have been running, the last one only just lasted through its warranty period!
David Whistance
Buy a big one ... it's amazing how quickly you outgrow them. My two Maxtors are trouble free - so far. And so was my LaCie - but it's too small now to use.
I've always used Maxtor and continue to use them.
I chuck my old 120gb hdd about (it's kicked about the floor in a caddy, plugged in when I need it) and so far no corruption or data loss. I recently bought a 500gb "Maxtor Basics" and it's great.
Just make sure the mechanism (hard drive) inside has at least the following specs:
1) 16 or 32MB Cache (I would only buy a 1TB drive with 32GB cache)
2) 7500RPM
3) 3.0Gbps (they all are now)
4) 3 to 5 years warranty
Until recently, Samsung was the only company offering 334GB platter hard drives, meaning that a 640GB drive had only two platters, consequently, faster and less prone to failure. Western Digital and Seagate followed the trend.
OWC has one of the best prices. I highly recommend their products.
bernal
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