Portable and External HDD opinions

[Notorious Scullman]

Any opinions on these?

Looking for a portable drive ~250-320GB

and an External ~500GB-1TB


I thought LaCie were very good till I started reading some reviews.

Any idea about Western Digital, Buffalo, and iomega?

[Fuzz Master]

i have a western digi 500gb was well worth the price

[VexXx Dogg]

Honestly i fraid WD.
ive seen a couple fail without reason.

[mitsu_crazy]

just ordered an iomega 500gb

reviews look fairly good...

[RBphoto]

Western digital 1TB. It bess for home or office. The portable 80G just fits in your pocket. One thing to remember, the larger ones need external power through an adapter, while those less than 80GB usually are USB powered. Kinda dissapointed that my drive not that portable.

[eVoJJ]

VexXx Dogg, i agree with u...i had a WD My Book 500GB that was bought in the US in August 2007 and it Failed by February 2008 with 400GB of music that i collected...just not working at all...no access to my music .....Notorious Scullman, u can check out the LaCie d2 Quadra External Hard Disks....i know someone personally who has one..works great.

[RBphoto]

Oh, almost forgot, it formated for FAT file system, so I think files >4GB is a no-no. Trying to get around that.

[Swifted]

Oh, almost forgot, it formated for FAT file system, so I think files >4GB is a no-no. Trying to get around that.

...once it's Windows, then stick to NTFS.

[tool-band]

we use WD 1 tb to do back ups and i have no complaints
i have 6 of them in regular use since january no worries and they are very durable i have dropped on and no damage

[RBphoto]

Oh, almost forgot, it formated for FAT file system, so I think files >4GB is a no-no. Trying to get around that.

...once it's Windows, then stick to NTFS.

I meant it came out of the box with FAT. Don't know if I can re-format it to NTFS. I already put a lot of crap on it, more than my laptop drive, so to format that will be a pain now.

[Duane 3NE 2NR]

Portable:
WD Passport 320GB - Raptor has these at good prices!
No installation needed, single USB cable powered and its small.
Its like a large capacity thumb drive - not solid state though.

[bushwakka]

we doh get seagate here or wa?

btw...dem raptor 'thumb' drives is likely to be laptop drives...

laptop drives r slower than normal desktop hard drives, by a significant amt....so u shud forget abt the physical size and get the normal desktop drive (it'll cost u less 2) and get a 2.5" slim case for it....

[Strauss]

Any opinions on these?

Looking for a portable drive ~250-320GB

and an External ~500GB-1TB


I thought LaCie were very good till I started reading some reviews.

Any idea about Western Digital, Buffalo, and iomega?

You and I need to talk more and in person.

I realize your posts of late... software, hard drives, printers.

But no mention of macs

And if you not using Macs, I hope you running 64-bit Vista so you can get past the 3GB RAM barrier. (without patches).

[2NR Smurf]

Portable:
WD Passport 320GB - Raptor has these at good prices!
No installation needed, single USB cable powered and its small.
Its like a large capacity thumb drive - not solid state though.

yepp.....so just doh let it fall....

[ru$$ell]

side note,check this out,pretty affordable also:

[Cooper]

One of my co-workers ordered a SimpleTech 500GB from Amazon.com.....It was dead when he pulled it out of the packaging.....the company did however send him a replacement within a week.

[cornfused]

WD 80 works fine and is my back source for the lap top and 4 keys and 2 phones, not extensively used or dropped though, ........it looks cool too

[benko]

Oh, almost forgot, it formated for FAT file system, so I think files >4GB is a no-no. Trying to get around that.

...once it's Windows, then stick to NTFS.

I meant it came out of the box with FAT. Don't know if I can re-format it to NTFS. I already put a lot of crap on it, more than my laptop drive, so to format that will be a pain now.

Norton Partition Magic can convert Between FAT/NTFS without formatting, even resize and create multiple partitions and varying types without destroying contents

lol of course it is always best to backup before attempting.. usual worry would be if there is error on hdd, or with OS, or power loss etc, but it has been quite reliable for me in the past.

[bushwakka]

why r u ppl buying premade external drives?

jus go and buy a regular desktop HDD and buy a 2.5" enclosure for de ting!!!

[nareshseep]

With these portable harddrive, after you unplug it from your pc, give it a 3-5 minutes for the hard drives platters to stop spinning, then move it, yes these hd are portable, but when they are operating and you move it, or as you unplug it and you move it, there stands the chance of the hard drive being damaged.

[wagonrunner]

why r u ppl buying premade external drives?

jus go and buy a regular desktop HDD and buy a 2.5" enclosure for de ting!!!

[ilLegAl STREET iMporT]

IMO opinion...Western Digital is the best way to go....no problems with 2 250 GIG and recently started using a 500 GIG

[saxman642]

always preferred my drive and enclosure separate

Currently using a seagate 500GB in and Antec MX-1 enclosure:

http://www.antec.com/us/productDetails.php?ProdID=77150

the enclosure has proper cooling, unlike them cheap ones they have here. and i can stick in a 1TB drive in the future

If not that, then portables from the main drive manufacturers.

[Strauss]

I need one too and these are my choices (PC and Mac):

Time Capsule
http://www.apple.com/timecapsule/wireless.html


Iomega Ultamax 1TB USB2.0/FW800
http://www.amazon.com/Iomega-UltraMax-D ... 792&sr=8-4


I know i'm doing graphics so FireWire is the way to go for me, which is twice as fast as USB 2.0

[saxman642]

Firewire is not that much faster than USB in actual usage.

for graphics, I'd quicker go for e-sata over firewire where available

e-stat is as fast as any internal drive

[Notorious Scullman]

Ok, I was thinkin about one of these for portable.

http://www.amazon.com/LaCie-Rugged-Hard ... 08&sr=1-22



and one of these for external:

http://www.amazon.com/750GB-Drivestatio ... 595&sr=1-8

OR

http://www.amazon.com/Iomega-34270-500G ... 782&sr=1-4

OR

http://www.amazon.com/LaCie-301826U-Fir ... 99&sr=1-35

Images are getting out of hand, and I need to be able to access them FAST.

[Strauss]

Firewire is not that much faster than USB in actual usage.

WHAT in the world are you SMOKING?!

FireWire = 800 Mbits/second
USB 2.0 = 480 Mbits/second

Unless you and all living under a rock for the past 5 years.

[Strauss]

Ok, I was thinkin about one of these for portable.

http://www.amazon.com/LaCie-Rugged-Hard ... 08&sr=1-22



and one of these for external:

http://www.amazon.com/750GB-Drivestatio ... 595&sr=1-8

OR

http://www.amazon.com/Iomega-34270-500G ... 782&sr=1-4

OR

http://www.amazon.com/LaCie-301826U-Fir ... 99&sr=1-35

Images are getting out of hand, and I need to be able to access them FAST.

LaCie 301826U d2 Quadra !!!

And connect via FireWire 800

[RBphoto]

I tort firewire was the real flick?

I tort Strauss wouldah say it slower on PC/Windows than on a mac so that is understandable.

[Strauss]

The advantage Firewire (even the OLD pre-2003 firewire 400) has over USB 2...

- USB requires a PC/Mac in between devices to function. So if you OS gets bogged down, it will drastically affect transfers.

- FireWire (present and old 400Mb/s) can work directly between devices. e.g. Between a camera and hard drive, DVD player and Receiver, camera to camera, Playstations etc.

Therefore the sustained rates of Firewire transfers are faster, especially when dealing with huge graphic and video files.