Best external HD?

[Judy G. Russell]

I'm in the market for an external HD, about 1TB, for backups for my home system. I will probably get two, to be able to keep one offsite. What's the consensus as to the best external HDs these days? My options are USB, firewire or eSata (I have all these connections on my desktop box).

[Dan in Saint Louis]

I'm in the market for an external HD, about 1TB, for backups for my home system. I will probably get two, to be able to keep one offsite. What's the consensus as to the best external HDs these days? My options are USB, firewire or eSata (I have all these connections on my desktop box).
All those connections are fine. USB would be the most portable if you needed to transport any data to another computer, especially a laptop.

I just bought a Western Digital 1TB external (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136321) for a client. It runs cool and quiet. Also available in white (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136299). WD and Seagate should be among the most reliable drives.

[ktinkel]

I'm in the market for an external HD, about 1TB, for backups for my home system. I will probably get two, to be able to keep one offsite. What's the consensus as to the best external HDs these days? My options are USB, firewire or eSata (I have all these connections on my desktop box).I got a Seagate FreeAgent Pro 750 (http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-FreeAgent-eSATA-External-Drive/dp/B000ND93DO) GB a few months ago, and it seems fine. (I got it at Costco for half the Amazon price, btw.) Another member of the DTP forum has one as well; she has been using for most of the year.

They probably have a terrabyte version now.

[fhaber]

My clients have had good service from the WDs, both the one referenced and the "standup" form factor MyBook line.

The Seagates are fine, too.

Both these drives suffer vs. generics from:

o tricky on-off-sleep hardware, that IMHO is not feature but debit. The Seagate is more annoying.

o backup crapware that advertises, then sort of backs up.

The second is of course instantly correctable with the DEL key.

SATA's a bit faster, but eSATA can have hickies on some machines. Test first. Firewire is best for Macs, except on the new MacBooks, from which Jo^H^H some idiot removed the protocol and port. USB2 is universal, and mostly works on newer stuff.

The advantage of the above branded units is their 3-5 year warranty - on the hardware. But to save your data, you should back up the backup drive. There comes a point.... WD makes a pricey $350 dual-1TB RAID1 version, which I haven't tried, but seems nice.

Or you could glom a whole bunch of 320G laptop-size drives, which my woman clients love, because they're purse-able, and encourage off-site storage of multiple generations.

And then there are the NAS boxes. Good ones tend to start at $400 empty. They're much slower, but can hold as much as 4x 1TB, for 2T mirrored storage, possibly more. Popular for offices, but not for homes, unless you have a veritable forest of machines occupying every corner, like the husband of a long-suffering Molly I know.

-he whose idea of convenience is to back up a DOS machine to NAS via an ancient program on third NT4 machine.

- he who never says die. Jobs stopped supporting AppleTalk? Why, just FTP to the NASbox. Something really off-the-wall to do? DD or UUCP on linux.

The forensic guys do even weirder stuff.

[Judy G. Russell]

to save your data, you should back up the backup drive.Yeah, I'll have one backup here, one external HD offsite and I just signed up for Carbonite. I figure I should complete one full backup by the time my new two-year subscription expires.

[Judy G. Russell]

USB would be the most portable if you needed to transport any data to another computer, especially a laptop.I don't think I'd get one without USB; the real issue is whether I worry about having another option at all.

[Judy G. Russell]

They probably have a terrabyte version now.You know, I remember only yesterday (it seems) when I bought a computer with a hard drive so big I thought I'd never fill it up -- and I never did. It was a HUGE 40Mb. These days you can't load most operating systems in 40Mb...

[Mike]

I have two WD MyBooks, 500 GB each, and I've been pleased. I don't have quite as many photos as you, so I don't need two terabyte boxes.

[Peter Creasey]

Judy, I concur with the recommendations about Western Digital HDs connected via USB. Ours have served us well without any anomalies (as I knock on wood).

[MollyM/CA]

I've had a Seagate FreeAgent drive for at least three years now, and it has really done what it's supposed to do -- move from one computer to another without crashing. (Hasn't crashed ever but it's tempting fate to say that I know) I've used it most days as all my music files are stored on it. It can be USB or Firewire (comes with a little kit kind of gidget for changing to Firewire) -- I've always run it on USB.

Mine's 750 gigs, the biggest made at the time, and came from Costco, where I see there's now a terabyte version.

My other external HDs were not so carefree about being read by other systems but I imagine most of the major brands have fixed that by now. Ross permanently farkled my first external HD, a Seagate, when he borrowed it and tried to get it to read on his Mac. That also was a few years ago but if you would need to use it on a Mac and a PC it might be well to check.

m

[Judy G. Russell]

if you would need to use it on a Mac and a PC it might be well to check.Nope, just the one PC, and possibly occasionally the notebook, also running XP.

[MollyM/CA]

On-off sleep hardware? Did I miss something (like a potential for something serious) about my FreeAgent drive? It does go to sleep after a while, but that just means it takes a second or two to wake up when I click on a file that's on that drive.

I vaguely remember that backup hardware -- didn't it install itself or something? I think I complained and they told me how to deactivate it. There's a folder on the drive with the tools (sic) in it, dunno if I collected all the stuff or it was in that folder to begin with.

One thing I've liked about the FreeAgent drive is its skinny footprint and the 'on' light that's a line down the whole side of the case. The base is wider than the case so it's pretty hard to jam it up against something so there's no air circulation around it.

I wonder how much of this is true of the new FreeAgents. The new video camera's going to need another drive if I ever really get serious with it.

m

My USB2 is faster than my firewire but I believe Firewire's been speeded up since I got this computer.

[fhaber]

Y'talkin' to me, ma'am? I think I have the same original 750 as you, or Kathleen, or both.

>On-off sleep hardware?

Just that ring, that "buttonless button." Mine sometimes doesn't react to my finger, doesn't turn on when I boot the computer, or doesn't go to sleep. I find that irritating.

>they told me how to deactivate it.

It's just some bloated stuff to manage the sleep, etc., and backup software - harmless if you leave it in the folder.

>skinny footprint and the 'on' light that's a line

It's kind of elegant, I guess. At least it's not another blue searchlight illuminating my floor at night.

>new FreeAgents.
haven't had one in here yet.

>I believe Firewire's been speeded up
In practice, only Macs have Firewire 800, and even Apple's moving away from that. There's a USB3 in the works, eventually, maybe.

eSATA (external SATA) is the speed champ for the mo'. But the eSATA on our triple-interface Free Agents is big trouble. Don't use it - it corrupts files.