External Hard Drive: Any Preferred Manufacturer?

AggieMike88

AggieMike88

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The original "I don't know it all" of aviation.
I need to get some 1TB external Hard Drives as back up devices...

Any recommendations on brands/manufacturers and sources?
 
If your computer can support USB-3, get one that can support it. I'm using WD backup external drives & I have an online NAS, too.
 
wsuffa said:
If your computer can support USB-3, get one that can support it. I'm using WD backup external drives & I have an online NAS, too.
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I recently purchased 2 Seagate 1TB drives (USB3) for $65 each on Amazon, encrypted them using TrueCrypt and backed up photos/docs etc using SafeSync, keep one in work as an 'offsite' backup and one at home and swap them out every 2 weeks with fresh incremental backups.

Also have a 2TB LG NAS and a 2 TB Seagate External (usb3) plugged into the USB port on the back of the Netgear router, basically creating another NAS.
 
I can tell ya the failure rate on the Western Digitals is significantly higher on our server farm than Seagate or Hitachi. I don't put them in servers anymore. Maxtor is somewhere in the middle of the pack but seem to often spec out faster than they should be. An interesting side effect.

I think Jesse has some hard numbers on his farm too.

The key to all of them is to keep them cool. All those fancy power saving gadgets in the BIOS that ramp the fans up and down? Screw 'em. Fans run at 100% and we eat the minimal power cost and noise for far fewer failures of components. Our server racks sound like jet engines and that's fine by me.
 
denverpilot said:
I can tell ya the failure rate on the Western Digitals is significantly higher on our server farm than Seagate or Hitachi. I don't put them in servers anymore. Maxtor is somewhere in the middle of the pack but seem to often spec out faster than they should be. An interesting side effect.

I think Jesse has some hard numbers on his farm too.

The key to all of them is to keep them cool. All those fancy power saving gadgets in the BIOS that ramp the fans up and down? Screw 'em. Fans run at 100% and we eat the minimal power cost and noise for far fewer failures of components. Our server racks sound like jet engines and that's fine by me.
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My failure rate for WD and Seagate are comparable. Just had a WD RE4 die in my NAS after 26,000 hours. 2 others like it are still running strong.

There are only 2-3 companies that produce drives any more. My recommendation is to buy several backup units and rotate them.
 
I have a two bay Netgear RAID external that's been trustworthy for the past several years.
 
I don't think brand matters that much... it's luck of the draw. Although I'm still partial against the IBM "deathstars", but that's probably undeserved.
2.5" or 3.5", usb 2 or usb 3, size and speed are the variables.
I personally go for the 2.5", as they get power through the USB. You can look for 7200rpm if you want faster, but they'll usually be 5,400.
Watch it, some 2TB (and greater) units have weird internal formatting that make them NOT compatible with the built-in Windows Backup
 
I have a couple of WD "My Book" 1TB NAS boxes that I've been using for about two years. They just sit on the network and do their jobs. They are not fast, but for backup they are very adequate. I am quite satisfied. IIRC they were in the neighborhood of $100 each.

I did have one problem where an LED monitor light became intermittent. No issues with the drive itself. WD service was outstanding. They shipped a replacement drive in advance of my return so I could transfer my data. The whole process was friction free and IIRC didn't cost me a dime.

Both my wife's and my computers automatically back up to one of the NAS boxes. I also have all of our photos on the drives, keeping copies on both.
 
As many have pointed out there was massive consolidation in disk manufacturing. IBM=Hitachi.

Netgear and LaCie mentioned above, don't make disks, they make disk enclosures. Most enclosure manufacturers don't make firmware, they just customize Linux and embed it.

Many of the enclosures can be reloaded with full-er versions of Linux to do roll-your-own additions of features.

Buffalo was popular for that for a while. Don't know about now, the Linux hack-du-jour hardware device changes monthly if not weekly. Often the enclosure manufacturer just grabs the work done by bored geeks in the open- source community and adds it as a "brand new feature!" in their next enclosure.
 
denverpilot said:
As many have pointed out there was massive consolidation in disk manufacturing. IBM=Hitachi.

Netgear and LaCie mentioned above, don't make disks, they make disk enclosures. Most enclosure manufacturers don't make firmware, they just customize Linux and embed it.

Many of the enclosures can be reloaded with full-er versions of Linux to do roll-your-own additions of features.

Buffalo was popular for that for a while. Don't know about now, the Linux hack-du-jour hardware device changes monthly if not weekly. Often the enclosure manufacturer just grabs the work done by bored geeks in the open- source community and adds it as a "brand new feature!" in their next enclosure.
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I must be missing something since I have several external Lacie drives. http://www.lacie.com/us/more/?id=10149
 
I have a My Book unit and am very happy with it.
 
LDJones said:
You missed the fact that if you open your Lacie drive you'll find a Seagate, WD or some other mfg's drive. They don't make disk drives.
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There ya go. It's kinda like saying you bought a Chevy diesel pickup truck. Kinda, but that engine was made by Isuzu, not Chevy. ;)
 
Jonesy, if you want to cut to the chase, there are few manufacturers at all, basically two or three from My understanding period. I think the question was or an external drive which I interpreted to be enclosure with a drive.
 
asgcpa said:
Jonesy, if you want to cut to the chase, there are few manufacturers at all, basically two or three from My understanding period. I think the question was or an external drive which I interpreted to be enclosure with a drive.
Click to expand...

Who needs an enclosure? ;)

You obviously haven't been to the "computer from a dumpster" school of "I'm broke, but I need a bigger hard disk". ;)
 
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