The one hard disk to buy

[e69087]

Hi all,
I would like to know what (brand/model) hard disk u use to store your photos/data? And how long have u been using it & serves u well without much error?
Generally how long does a HD last (if well taken of, that is no hard knock or dropping…etc)?
I have 2 HD (Samsung & Acer), both breakdown after about 2 years of service. Cannot detect after plugging in & very very slow data transfer are the problem.
Planning to buy another HD. So your feedback & comments are greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

 

[donut88]

Hi all,
I would like to know what (brand/model) hard disk u use to store your photos/data? And how long have u been using it & serves u well without much error?
Generally how long does a HD last (if well taken of, that is no hard knock or droppingeetc)?
I have 2 HD (Samsung & Acer), both breakdown after about 2 years of service. Cannot detect after plugging in & very very slow data transfer are the problem.
Planning to buy another HD. So your feedback & comments are greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

Seagate and WD.

These days, there are only 3-4 HD brands in the market. U don't have much choices.

The next one is Buffalo. But I dont know good or not.

 

[e69087]

Thanks bro.
Hope to hear more from others.

 

[Hinata76]

Yeah WD is highly recommended...dropped couple of times still data is intact...not the same for Samsung though...haiz...

 

[edutilos-]

Hi all,
I would like to know what (brand/model) hard disk u use to store your photos/data? And how long have u been using it & serves u well without much error?
Generally how long does a HD last (if well taken of, that is no hard knock or dropping…etc)?
I have 2 HD (Samsung & Acer), both breakdown after about 2 years of service. Cannot detect after plugging in & very very slow data transfer are the problem.
Planning to buy another HD. So your feedback & comments are greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

Dunno, I have not experienced any hard disk failures thus far. Have 3 or 4 WD drives.

It depends on your luck mar. Suggest to always have two backups - if your on-board computer hard disk fails, you have one backup, and a backup of that backup in case anything happens.

 

[fmeeran]

If you're planning to leave the hard disk plugged in for extended periods of time, buy wd my book series. Best cooling for the drives.

 

[Blur Shadow]

I would go for Seagate or Western Digital. But then again, that may be because I used to do sales for them...

 

[yrh0413]

My storage drives are mostly WD Green 3TBs, so far so good no disk failures on all my 7 drives for the past 12 months.

Just bought a WD Red 3TB to try out. I recommend WD though... had bad experience with Seagate.

 

[Rashkae]

Had a few problems with WD, but never an issue with Seagate. By the way, never only back up to 1 drive. I use an internal RAID array for redundancy, and then still have an extra external drive.

 

[e69087]

Thanks for all the feedback.
For the WD portable HD, which one is more reliable…elements, my passport & my passport essential?
Looking for a 1T storage.
What exactly is an internal RAID array for redundancy? Will it takes up double the storage space?

 

[jas1984]

Seriously is around the same..

 

[Rashkae]

Thanks for all the feedback.
For the WD portable HD, which one is more reliable…elements, my passport & my passport essential?
Looking for a 1T storage.
What exactly is an internal RAID array for redundancy? Will it takes up double the storage space?

I would avoid WD portable drives. They have a proprietary connector that's impossible to find if it breaks/gets lost.

If you want to know more about RAID, I recommend reading up on Google. Many links and explanations. I use RAID-1

 

[thoongeng]

TS are you looking for internal or external hard disk drives? Sounds like you're going for external ones

If external ones then can't easily do RAID... basically there are many different modes of RAID, for RAID-1 it automatically mirrors data on 1 drive to another (so you have 2 copies).

There are only a handful of hard drive manufacturers making for everyone else on the market, last I remembered they are WD, Seagate, Hitachi and Samsung. Other brands of external hard disk makers get their internal drives from them. I have used hard disks from all the manufacturers, and they have mostly served me well. I think nowadays it depends on luck, you can get a lemon from any manufacturer.

I got an older WD Elements, uses the same mini-USB that my other hard drive casings use...
Regarding you question on which WD portable more reliable, I think they should be similar internally, difference is in the features that you need.

 

[Rashkae]

TS are you looking for internal or external hard disk drives? Sounds like you're going for external ones

If external ones then can't easily do RAID...

caaaaan. You can walk into any challenger and get an external RAID enclosure with harddrives. Buffalo, Seagate, Iomega, Lacie, all have.

 

[Cowseye]

I'm also against WD drives, especially the green one. I've two spoilt green drives that took away my entire early days photo collection... The other is my archival drive. I am suspecting the power saver mode mechanism actually killed my drive....

 

[thoongeng]

caaaaan. You can walk into any challenger and get an external RAID enclosure with harddrives. Buffalo, Seagate, Iomega, Lacie, all have.

hmm that is true, but I guess still a bit more troublesome than just buying an external hard drive and RAID enclosure more expensive / need to buy more drives. And need to understand the different RAID modes in the first place

I just set up my backup program and don't use RAID, my desktop and main backup drive don't really move so less risk of physical damage. However my livelihood doesn't rely on my data hee so TS has to decide how much his data is worth

 

[Rashkae]

hmm that is true, but I guess still a bit more troublesome than just buying an external hard drive and RAID enclosure more expensive / need to buy more drives. And need to understand the different RAID modes in the first place

The enclosures come *with* the drives. You just set the RAID mode in the device setup (all clearly explained) and you're set. It's really easy.

 

[e69087]

I want to get an external HD for back up of photos & some important data. In fact I already have 2 external HD to store the same file twice. I don’t copy the file into my laptop b’cos of the limited storage space inside the laptop.
But now one of my 2 external HD has gone bad, I need to get another one for back up. This is the 2nd time happening, it becomes very frustrating. I lost some data/photos when I transferred to a new HD b’cos some files I forgot to copy twice & these files are inside the faulty HD.
Data recovery charges is expensive.
I handle all the HD with care & I don’t really use them much. Even though the manufacturer replaced the faulty HD with a new one (under warranty case), it can means nothing b’cos all the data/photos are lost.
I don’t expect HD to last forever but at least serves a reasonable duration without errors.

 

[agws1970]

Had a few problems with WD, but never an issue with Seagate. By the way, never only back up to 1 drive. I use an internal RAID array for redundancy, and then still have an extra external drive.

Used to have problems with Seagate IDE but not with SCSI. Then WD was perfect for me with IDE and bad for SCSI. Nowadays, use WD external my books with no problems and internal also WD, comes with the Mac's.

 

[agws1970]

caaaaan. You can walk into any challenger and get an external RAID enclosure with harddrives. Buffalo, Seagate, Iomega, Lacie, all have.

Hi Rashkae,
Sorry to OT a bit, what RAID do you use currently. thinking of getting one but a bit blur about current terminologies.
Thanks.
PS I do google but just thought a user could give me a little insight. Hehe.