Which External Harddrive???

[valve90210]

I am looking for an external hard drive top use for backing up work and photos etc, and maybe music though that's not a top priority.

Having looked around I think I have narrowed it down to 3 different drives and wondered if anyone has any experience of them.

The drives are:

Seagate Pushbutton Backup 400GB External Firewire/USB 2.0 8MB Cache Hard Drive (HD-036-SE)

Western Digital WDXUL4000KDNU Essential 400GB USB2.0 External Hard Drive (HD-068-WD)

and

Western Digital WDXF3200JBRNU Media Centre 320GB External Firewire/USB Hard Drive (HD-049-WD)


I have a few thoughts about these drives, which I am weighing up.

1) the Media Centre drive has a card reader which would be very useful for transferring photos from my camera, and the USB hub would also be very useful as I have several USB devices.

2) the extra space on both the seagate and the other WD drive would be nice, but it is at extra cost.

What are peoples thoughts on these drives and from peoples experience what are they like to use?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Valve

 

[Joe42]

Its usually much cheaper to get the drive and the box separately. Pick a drive you like and find a box with internal sata/ide, and external usb/firewire.

As for the card reader, you can get one separately very cheaply.

 

[valve90210]

True but I'd prefer the ease of a pre made unit really.

Valve

 

[BONES__69]

True but I'd prefer the ease of a pre made unit really.

Valve

Well you will then lose out on 3-4 years of hd warranty

Honestly putting an enclosure and Hd together takes like 2-3mins and is childs play! Just grab an IceyBox and a nice big Seagate Hd (5 Year Warranty).

 

[valve90210]

I take the pointon the warranty, that is something to consider, but looking at it froma cost point of veiew, it's not gonna make much difference, having just looked on this site it'll cost me much the same if I go with a Seagate, Would be less if I went with a WD drive of course.

Valve

 

[valve90210]

back to the drawing board....

Right having spent the afternoon looking into this from the viewpoint of putting a drive in an enclosure I'm further from a decision than I was previously, so I've decided to start from the very beginning.

1) what I want the storage space for.

I want to use the extra space to back up work from my Graphic design business (aas well as backing up to DVD), and to back up my photographs (also backed up to DVD). This will allow me to clear a lot of space on my main data disk which will improve performance in Photoshop etc, while still allowing me access to old files if I need them.

2) How much storage needed.

I have my own business as a graphic designer which I intend to expand during the course of the year, this involves large numbers of high resolution photos etc and large graphics files. Also I am a keen photographer and intend to take loads of photos throughout the year.

As such I need as much storage space as possible.

3) Budget

I don't want to break the bank really, If I did I'd got for a huge Buffalo Terrbyte network storage thingy or similar.

4) connectivity

IIRC I have a spare USB2.0 connector at the back of my mother board, I also have 2 firewire connectors going spare, so either would be suitable.

5) Warranty

I hadn't really considered this until it was mentioned earlier in the thread. Having looked at the warranty on various external HDD, compared to those on internal IDE drives. This has made creating my own external drive much more attractive.


Options:

A) Seagate 400 GB - £184 + p&p

Pro:
huge storage
Good reliable make

Con:
Price, it is the most expensive of my considered options, and while it does include back up software for one button backing up, I have no intention of using this.



B) Western Digital 320GB Media Centre - £132 + p&p

Pro:
Includes card reader
Includes USB hub
safe power off feature
Good Price compared to Seagate

Con:
Less storage space compared to Seagate
1 Year Warranty

C) Western Digital 400GB - £156 + p&p

Pro:
Huge storage space
front mounted power button

Con:
1 year warranty
Price compared to Media Centre

D) Icy Box enclosure & IDE HDD

Pro:
Price compared to others could be lower depending on drive used - smaller drive
storage space - if large drive used
longer warranty on drive

Con:
Price compared to others is large drive used.
Smaller storage if cheaper drive used.
Power switch at rear of unit



Right now, looking at the options above I can't decide what to do. I think I have discounted the Media Centre drive cos I don't really need the card reader and hub, and the Seagate Drive as it's too expensive.

This leaves me with the Western Digital 400GB Drive which would give me masses of space but only a 1 year warranty, or putting my own together.

If I were to go down the route of putting my own together, to get the same amount of storage as the WD drive, it would cost me a similar amount or more but I would have the longer warranty.

One other thing which is making the decision annoying is that the WD drive has a power button located at the front, while the Icy Box has the switch at the back, now I know this is very minor but where the box is to be located is very awkward and to reach round the back of the box to turn it off which it would be most of the time, would be difficult.

I konw this is a huge post but I am really struggling to make a decision here and would like other peoples opions on what to do.

Thanks in advance for any help you can give me

Valve

 

[Joe42]

Get a switched multi-plug so you can switch off the icy box easily.

I'ver never really considered the drive spin down problem. I wonder if theres a way of getting drives in a separate external box to spin down automatically?

Edit: Actually, the need for spindown is negated by the 5 year warranty on the seagates. Leave it running 24/7 for 5 years if you have to, it'll be uselessly small by then anyway. Of course it may fail but you'll have backups of your backups right?

 

[valve90210]

My main reasons for it being switched off most of the time will be to discourage me from just using it as another storage area for crap and secondly to keep noise down.

I'm thinking putting a drive in an enclosre would be my best bet really what drive to get is my main question as a 400gig seagate one would be prettyy expensive and would it be worth the extra cost to just to have the extra warranty???

Valve

 

[Joe42]

The ide version is much cheaper and you probably don't need sata if its only for backups.

One way or another, if the drive breaks the warranty won't get your data back. So the question is, do you see yourself wanting to return the drive if it breaks in 4 or 5 years time rather than 3?

I was choosing a 250gb backup drive recently, and l found that the hitachi and seagate drives were the only ones worth considering because of the warranty on the seagate and the speed of the hitachi.
I chose speed over warranty because i can't see myself using that drive in 4 years time for anything.

With any luck harddisks won't exist in 4 years time.

You need to go and have a look at storage review. Read their reviews of the drives your considering, and most importantly look at their drive reliability survey. Avoid drives with lots of reported failures.
I have a lot of faith in it, and the hitachi i was looking at only had 2 failures out of 46 compared with some much higher numbers for competing drives.
Long warranties don't always mean less failures.

 

[MeatLoaf]

Just had a freecom 250GB, very quick. very happy wit at under £100

 

[valve90210]

Right, after some indecision and rethinking, I'm pretty much decided on what to get.

I was thinking of a 400gb seagate IDE drive in an Icy Box enclosure, however, looking at it fresh today I realised that the 400gb drive is just over twice the price of the 300gb seagate drive. Meaning that if I were to buy s second 300gb drive and another enclosure in the future, I would have 600gb of storage for about £20 more than if I went for the 400gb drive now!!!

So my decision is to go for an Icy Box Enclosure, the USB 2.0 one, with blue lighting...though the lighting really is not important to me.

With a either:
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 300GB ST3300622A ATA-100 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-068-SE)

Or

Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 320GB 3200JB ATA-100 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-036-WD)


With delivery this will be just over £100 and will give me a good amount of storage space at a very reasonable price and with a good manufacturers warranty.

I think I'll go for the Western Digital drive as it's only another £5 or so and will give me another 20 gig of space, unless there's any reason not to go for this?

Valve

 

[Joe42]

Have you checked the storage review reliability survey for both of those drives?
Since i've got an account there anyway, i'll do it for you. When i looked up the 250gb drives, supprisingly the wd had the most failures.

Lets see:

-Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 300GB ST3300622A
Failures: 0/5
DOA: 0/5
Sadly its too new to have any reported failures. Not enough of them around.

-Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 320GB 3200JB
Failures: 7/131
DOA: 2/131
This is much better than the 250gb version i was looking at, which had over 12% failures.

Make sure you add your drives to the reliability survey when you get them so others can see which drives are prone to failure and which aren't.

 

[valve90210]

Thanks for the help mate, I'm gonna go for the western digital drive, along with an icy box enclosure.

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, I shall be using this drive as a back up for various business work. I will back everything up to DVD also and move it to this drive to allow me access to it all without having to search through numerous DVD's. This way if I have a drive failure, it won'y be too catastrophic as I will have everything on DVD still.

Valve

 

[ChrisLX200]

One thing to note - you don't need a high performance drive if connecting via USB2, file transfers will be 'tedious' at best. You might consider an external SATA2 connection for faster transfers (what I would do if using the thing to backup a drive image). A network drive is another option - useful if more than one PC needs access.

 

[Azraeluk]

just picked up a 320gb USB2 external from a competitor, the one with purple shirts.

nice solid toshiba unit with a western dig drive inside, all for just over the 100 mark.

 

[Kejaha]

just picked up a 320gb USB2 external from a competitor, the one with purple shirts.

nice solid toshiba unit with a western dig drive inside, all for just over the 100 mark.

I am in the market to get a new external hd. But not knowing a lot its a minefield, is the toshiba unit any good?

 

[mark66]

Thanks for the help mate, I'm gonna go for the western digital drive, along with an icy box enclosure.

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, I shall be using this drive as a back up for various business work. I will back everything up to DVD also and move it to this drive to allow me access to it all without having to search through numerous DVD's. This way if I have a drive failure, it won'y be too catastrophic as I will have everything on DVD still.

Valve

Hi valve90210,

Did you get the Icy Box in the end?

If so are you happy with it? I am considering one but I am concerned how much noice it might make and how hot it gets?

Cheers

 

[ByteJuggler]

I've recently got the latest 7200.10 Seagate Barracuda SATA drive with 16Mb cache, and the SATA/USB2 combo aluminium Icybox, one without a fan. The enclosusre is dead quiet when the drive is not in use, although you can hear the drive when the heads are moving/seeking, although still quite quiet. Using the Sata port (which is essentially just a straight through connector) the drive is as fast as it can be (peaks at about 75-80Mb/sec sustained transfer rate). Via USB2 it sustains around 32-35Mb/Sec which is actually a very good sustained rate for USB2. (Aside, the enclosure also supports PATA/IDE drives, and the performnance seems very similar.)

My only concern is heat: Although the enclosure is aluminium, after an extended period on, the drive's temperature went up to 51C (I had also done quite a bit of transfers which probably made it worse, but I'm not sure how significant this would be wrt the temperature.) While the enclosure itself was only lukewarm to touch, the hdd itself was uncomfortably so when I checked. I would therefore not recommend to have the hdd in permanently on in an enclosure on all day, unless it had some form of active cooling, or unless the passive cooling was properly (heatsing style or somesuch) attached to the hdd to help disipate heat (unlike this Icy Box.) The heat btw, is not the hdd's fault as such -- In my main rig, where it sits alongside some raptor's and has some airflow from some fans, it never goes above 31C or so, which is about the same as all the other drives.

In summary: I can heartily recommend the new 7200.10 320Gb Barracuda. It's quiet, fast, very affordable (particularly considering it's the latest edition drive featuring cutting edge technology) and generally a joy to work with. The IcyBox on the other hand is a bit more of a mixed, chiefly because I've got concerns over its heat disippation. However, it does look the part and works very well in use. (I've tested it on Windows XP, 2000 and on a Gentoo linux LiveCD, all of which worked fine with it. ) In future, I'd prefer/recommend something with active cooling to protect the reliability and longevity of the harddrive it contains.

 

[mark66]

^^^^ Excellent post ByteJugglerm, very informative

I hadn't realised that the some enclosures supported SATA. Have you tried the drive via Firewire as I have read this can give better sustained transfer rates than USB 2?

I also seen the following in your Icy Box's spec: "Low Noise without Fan". Is this switchable then? Are you running without the fan?

 

[ByteJuggler]

^^^^ Excellent post ByteJugglerm, very informative

I hadn't realised that the some enclosures supported SATA. Have you tried the drive via Firewire as I have read this can give better sustained transfer rates than USB 2?

I also seen the following in your Icy Box's spec: "Low Noise without Fan". Is this switchable then? Are you running without the fan?

The enclosure I've got is SATA/USB2 only. It does not contain firewire support. I've had a firewire enclosure before, and yes, in practice it is faster than USB2 even though in theory USB has the higher speed rating. In straight transfer tests it is about 5-10Mb/sec faster or so. I actually prefer firewire, however USB is more prevalent and because I lug this drive around with me a lot, USB2 now serves as the common denominator and SATA performance surpases both USB2 and Firewire by a large margin obviously. The Icy Box does not have a fan, hence what they probably meant is "Low noise [as a result of being] without Fan" (So yes, Im running without the fan as there isn't one!)

Let me know if you've got other questions. (Maybe I should post a mini review with pic's?)