External Hard Drive

[Choctaw1983]

Do I need one? Im sure i do.. anyone have any recommendations on a good one, or where to get one? Thanks!

[W.Smith]

Hi Choc,

pay attention that the one you plan to get supports at least the USB 2.0 protocol or better (FireWire800) for data transfer. Otherwise writing photos to it may take weeks!

With that taken care of, I'd go for the cheapest option of a well-known A brand. Obviously dependant on the offerings in your area.

Have fun!

[Nikon Man]

I've had very good luck using Seagate drives.
It's amazing what you can buy for 1 hundred dollars.

[webfootdesigner]

I use Lacie brand (firewire) and have had great luck with them.

[whaas2]

I bought an external drive contorller from a small electronics store in Santa Ana, CA for about 20 bucks that allows me to use almost any IDE device including hard drives, CD-ROM drives and DVD drives as external, USB 2.0 devices. This is for those who know how to take their computers apart and put them back together again. I have had no problems with major brand drives such as Maxdor and Seagate.

[Nikon Man]

I did that also.
The problem is, it is now cheaper to buy a complete USB drive from CC or BB or even Office Max
for less money that a raw drive.
I wanted to increase the drive in one my kit USB drives but it was cheaper to buy a complete unit!

[jfrancho]

The problem is, it is now cheaper to buy a complete USB drive from CC or BB or even Office Max
for less money that a raw drive.

Pay attention to what HDD is actually in there. You do get what you pay for.

[Nikon Man]

Seagate 5 year warranty.
Can't do better then that I don't think.

[jfrancho]

Warranty means nothing to me. Kias have ten year warranties. That said, Seagate ES series drives are quiet, run cool, and have been good to me.

[digitalzed]

If you belong to Costco, you can get a Seagate Freeagent Pro FW/USB 2.0 750 GB drive for 179.99, It has a 5 year warranty and spins at 7200 RPM. One of the best deals I've been able to find. If you're REALLY serious about backup, get a SATA 300 RAID enclosure that you can stuff up to 4 or more drives into for up to 4 TB of storage. Buffalo makes an excellent enclosure as does a company named Venus. RAID allows you to back up over multiple drives so even if one drive fails, the others still have the data and you can recover it. As for bare drives, Seagate and Western Digital are the most reliable and have the longest warranties. Look for SATA 300 drives that spin at the aforementioned 7200 RPM.

[cyclohexane]

I like Seagate and LaCie drives.

The Seagate FreeAgents from Costco/Fry's are pretty well made and could survive most household computer accidents by clumsy people like me. Also, it's hard to beat the price; I think I paid $10 less for my 500 GB version a year ago.

The LaCies we have in my university department are built a little tougher but I think they run in the $300 range.

Western Digital's another good brand, but I haven't used any of their larger drives.

[dgs]

We have had a lot of problems with Lacie drives, but it was the striped model. I too prefer Seagate drives. I recently had a 500G fail, because I put it in an external enclosure and it got to hot. They replaced it with a 750G. I was upset.

thanks,
Danny

[jfrancho]

I recently had a 500G fail

That truly sucks dgs. You really have my sympathy on that one. Fatal HDD crashes are awful. People always talk about warranties, but really, if a TV breaks it is replaced, and you can tune into Mythbusters again. Imagine if your TV breaks, and all your favorite shows are gone. That's a HDD failure.

[dgs]

Originally Posted by jfrancho

That truly sucks dgs. You really have my sympathy on that one. Fatal HDD crashes are awful. People always talk about warranties, but really, if a TV breaks it is replaced, and you can tune into Mythbusters again. Imagine if your TV breaks, and all your favorite shows are gone. That's a HDD failure.

I still had the originals, this was just a backup, but you are right it was serious. However, I got over it quickly when they replaced it with a larger disk. I will buy from Seagate again, they all can break.

thanks,
Danny

[Nikon Man]

They all can break. And they do!
That's why I have all my files on 3 physically separate drives.

[LadyPhotographer]

I've purchased external drives when they are on sale either at Staples or Best Buy. I usually buy the 500 Gig since I take so many photos. I use Maxtor and Seagate.

[W.Smith]

Originally Posted by Nikon Man

Seagate 5 year warranty.
Can't do better then that I don't think.

You should, though.

[Nikon Man]

Should though what?
You know of drives with a warranty longer then 5 years?

[jfrancho]

You should do better than five years?

[DocNo]

Originally Posted by digitalzed

If you're REALLY serious about backup, get a SATA 300 RAID enclosure that you can stuff up to 4 or more drives into for up to 4 TB of storage. Buffalo makes an excellent enclosure as does a company named Venus. RAID allows you to back up over multiple drives so even if one drive fails, the others still have the data and you can recover it.

and if you don't want to deal with the complexities of RAID, check out Drobo. It allows you to do incremental upgrading, without having to backup and redo your RAID - it works on the fly.

My only complaint with them is it's USB only. I'm hoping they will come out with a newer version that is at least firewire, but eSATA would be even better.


BTW - you can play with various configurations here. Pretty cool stuff and beats the crap out of maintaining a RAID array.