External HardDrive Advice

[Nabobalis]

So I'm looking for an external harddrive to buy.

Need to back up work and music etc. However I'm not sure if I go with a 500Gb or something smaller. Plus I'm not sure what brand is work getting and if e-sata is worth the extra cost.

For example;

500Gb Seagate FreeAgent Desktop 8Mb ?68.00

or

500GB Western Digital WDH1U5000E My Book2 Essential ?73.23

Both usb only and I found the second one for about ?68

But e-sata

320GB Western Digital MyBook2 Home Edition - 3.5" USB 2.0 / FireWire 400 / eSata ?68.66

or

500Gb Western Digital MyBook2 Office Edition - 3.5 USB 2.0 / eSata ?86.30

So I don't know if the extra is worth a faster transfer method.

Will shop around to see if I can find cheaper.

Your thoughts?

 

[Barney Fife]

Well, the overall necessity of having an external HDD is a must. IMHO; as crucial as having a sound card or video card, specially, since everything we use nowadays is digital. Once your main drives kick the bucket (God forbid) and they will; you will need backup, or you will be begging for mercy.
Buying a HDD depends on what you store: If most of your digital files are documents, music and photos; then 500GB is more than enough, but, if what you store are mostly videos; then the sky is the limit, and you will eventually end up having to buy more than one external drive.

I don't believe though, you would notice the difference between SATA interfaced drives and USB 2.0 interfaced drives with your naked eyes, as long as loading and saving files is concerned. But, Be smart about "Price vs. space" and don't worry much about drive interface.

Good Luck.

 

[VirusType2]

In my experience, SATA is much faster than EIDE and especially USB, which is incredibly slow compared to SATA, though it also depends on the specs of drives themselves of course, but generally the newer the technology, the faster it is, so any new drive should be fast.

I can't speak on firewire or e-sata because I haven't tried them.



I have used an EIDE hard drive installed in an external USB hard drive enclosure and it's slow. If I recall correctly, the bandwidth wasn't enough to play movies from it without hitching sometimes. Not only that, but if the external drive doesn't have a fan, you are asking for it. Heat is the number one cause of hard drive data loss and failure. The second one would probably be shock, which is another disadvantage of a portable drive. It just seems it will get bumped often and banged or dropped eventually.

The main feature that I do like about external drives is the ease of transport to another computer (for example a friends house) because you don't have to open their case or anything, but if that isn't your intention then I'd go with internal instead. Of course I'm assuming your case has good airflow for the drives. Internal drives are far more reliable if you check the records.

So with that said, what I recommend is an internal SATA drive firstly, but if that isn't possible with your setup, then hopefully you can use what I've said to help you make your choice.

For the record, I've always gone with WD drives and have never had any data loss. I've never owned any other brand so I can't compare them, but I do know that with the WD data lifeguard tools (available from their website or on the disc that comes with retail boxed WD HDD's) you can make exact copies of complete hard drives if you wanted to back up the entire drive.

Since you mentioned 500GB, If you decide to go with internal SATA HDD, or if you decide to get one of these and put them in a separate enclosure (with a fan!), I've got the WD 750GB sequential spin hard drive, and the traditional spin type 500GB and can recommend either. I am very happy with them.

 

[TechnoHippyChic]

I've had a 2.5" 40GB USB for years and never had a problem. No fan. It plays movies fine on my tv pc, a P3/866. I prefer the smaller form factor of a 2.5" drive - you probably wouldn't get as much space for the same price but they're much easier to deal with, IMO.

 

[VirusType2]

I've had a 2.5" 40GB USB for years and never had a problem. No fan. It plays movies fine on my tv pc, a P3/866. I prefer the smaller form factor of a 2.5" drive - you probably wouldn't get as much space for the same price but they're much easier to deal with, IMO.

hmmm.

maybe it was the bit rate of the movie or something else entirely then, in my case.

 

[Nabobalis]

In my experience, SATA is much faster than EIDE and especially USB, which is incredibly slow compared to SATA, though it also depends on the specs of drives themselves of course, but generally the newer the technology, the faster it is, so any new drive should be fast.

I can't speak on firewire or e-sata because I haven't tried them.



I have used an EIDE hard drive installed in an external USB hard drive enclosure and it's slow. If I recall correctly, the bandwidth wasn't enough to play movies from it without hitching sometimes. Not only that, but if the external drive doesn't have a fan, you are asking for it. Heat is the number one cause of hard drive data loss and failure. The second one would probably be shock, which is another disadvantage of a portable drive. It just seems it will get bumped often and banged or dropped eventually.

The main feature that I do like about external drives is the ease of transport to another computer (for example a friends house) because you don't have to open their case or anything, but if that isn't your intention then I'd go with internal instead. Of course I'm assuming your case has good airflow for the drives. Internal drives are far more reliable if you check the records.

So with that said, what I recommend is an internal SATA drive firstly, but if that isn't possible with your setup, then hopefully you can use what I've said to help you make your choice.

For the record, I've always gone with WD drives and have never had any data loss. I've never owned any other brand so I can't compare them, but I do know that with the WD data lifeguard tools (available from their website or on the disc that comes with retail boxed WD HDD's) you can make exact copies of complete hard drives if you wanted to back up the entire drive.

Since you mentioned 500GB, If you decide to go with internal SATA HDD, or if you decide to get one of these and put them in a separate enclosure (with a fan!), I've got the WD 750GB sequential spin hard drive, and the traditional spin type 500GB and can recommend either. I am very happy with them.

I would go do an internal drive for backup however the problem is I need o back up other computers also on to the drive.

HDD and external case maybe? Well it would be faster than USB if I go with e-sata. Also its slighlty cheaper than buying my own e-sta external drive. But I'm torn now

Thanks for your advice

Well, the overall necessity of having an external HDD is a must. IMHO; as crucial as having a sound card or video card, specially, since everything we use nowadays is digital. Once your main drives kick the bucket (God forbid) and they will; you will need backup, or you will be begging for mercy.
Buying a HDD depends on what you store: If most of your digital files are documents, music and photos; then 500GB is more than enough, but, if what you store are mostly videos; then the sky is the limit, and you will eventually end up having to buy more than one external drive.

I don't believe though, you would notice the difference between SATA interfaced drives and USB 2.0 interfaced drives with your naked eyes, as long as loading and saving files is concerned. But, Be smart about "Price vs. space" and don't worry much about drive interface.

Good Luck.

Also thanks.

 

[Citrus]

Sorry for hijacking your thread, but is a used 160gb external hard-drive worth 20GBP? My dad is selling it to me, so I know it's in good condition.

 

[CyberPitz]

Sounds a little expensive to me, if I'm correct in assuming USD are ~2x's more than GBP...

You could probably get a 250 gig new for that price.