Gaming Reliable 1tb external hard drive?

[Anakir]

I'm looking forward to purchasing a hard drive since my desktop is being filled up like no tomorrow. I have 500gb capacity and 20gb left.

I'm looking at this one at the moment:

http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetai...amp;catid=23795

But I also heard from quite a few reviews that it dies quite often. I'm wondering if this is a hardware problem or just defected batches.

There are also some reviews here from newegg: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/ProductReview...N82E16822148356


Are there any reliable external hard drives? Good price with long warranty? The warranty really catches my attention - its 5 years and I can extend it further with my credit card. I don't want one that dies on me within months. I'd like a 1tb as well. I could always wait a few months for the prices to go down even more and wait for reliable ones.. but then I'd have to sacrifice a lot of my media.

I'd appreciate any recommendations and help. Thanks.

 

[Cermage]

wouldn't trust seagate anymore. quality of their products have gone downhill after they bought out maxtor. if i were you i'd buy an internal wd drive and put it in a no name external enclosure.

 

[Joe88]

agreed, seagate = crap now

WD has their own external drives called my book

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?...N82E16822136186

 

[iwakura]

here's another vote for WD...I only trust their HD's lately.

 

[KDH]

I say go for a Western Digital My Book as well. I have two of their 1 TB essential models and they work great.

 

[Anakir]

wouldn't trust seagate anymore. quality of their products have gone downhill after they bought out maxtor. if i were you i'd buy an internal wd drive and put it in a no name external enclosure.

Is this method faster than the external drives?

-----------------------

Okay. I'm convinced to get a WD.. but WD doesn't seem to have good warranty. It's only 1 year. I heard lots of reviews where they do that because they know some of their External HDDs die pretty much a few weeks to months after a year.

I've been thinking about it too.. I might use part of it for Wii USB loader too. So is there a good 1tb that's reliable, fast speed (prefer 7200 rpm 480mb transfer rate)?

Edit: WD 1tb My Book seems to only run on 5400rpm. Not too sure though. I'm gonna need to do more research.
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/ProductReview...mp;Keywords=rpm

This one is 1tb but it isn't one of the My Book editions.
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/ProductReview...mp;Keywords=rpm

Any thoughts?

Edit: I found a better deal. $125 CAD. http://www.bestbuy.ca/catalog/proddetail.a...amp;catid=26259

But It seems like it really is 5400rpm and the 1 year compared to Seagate's 5 year warranty is still kind of.. meh.

 

[Cermage]

wouldn't trust seagate anymore. quality of their products have gone downhill after they bought out maxtor. if i were you i'd buy an internal wd drive and put it in a no name external enclosure.

Is this method faster than the external drives?

-----------------------

Okay. I'm convinced to get a WD.. but WD doesn't seem to have good warranty. It's only 1 year. I heard lots of reviews where they do that because they know some of their External HDDs die pretty much a few weeks to months after a year.

which is why i'd recommend getting an internal wd and then putting it into a no name external enclosure. internal wd drives have a 5 year warranty.

 

[Anakir]

wouldn't trust seagate anymore. quality of their products have gone downhill after they bought out maxtor. if i were you i'd buy an internal wd drive and put it in a no name external enclosure.

Is this method faster than the external drives?

-----------------------

Okay. I'm convinced to get a WD.. but WD doesn't seem to have good warranty. It's only 1 year. I heard lots of reviews where they do that because they know some of their External HDDs die pretty much a few weeks to months after a year.

which is why i'd recommend getting an internal wd and then putting it into a no name external enclosure. internal wd drives have a 5 year warranty.

You have yet to answer the question though. I wouldn't want enclosures if they run slowly. Externals are slow enough as it is so I don't want anything slower.

 

[Golfman560]

wouldn't trust seagate anymore. quality of their products have gone downhill after they bought out maxtor. if i were you i'd buy an internal wd drive and put it in a no name external enclosure.

Is this method faster than the external drives?

Yes, most externals only run at 5400RPM while most internals you get run at 7200RPM (Unless they're from a laptop, in which case they could be either)

However if the drive will only be used for the Wii 5400 is fine, but with a computer you'll probably want something a bit faster unless you have a laptop in which case you probably only have a 5400RPM drive. The external drives are fine as long as you aren't going to be copying 100GB files back and forth which will take awhile.

 

[noONE]

I've got this exact drive you're talking about:

"This one is 1tb but it isn't one of the My Book editions.
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/ProductReview...mp;Keywords=rpm "

It works perfect for me, I've had it since christmas and it hasn't struggled or anything yet, before that i had the My Book Essentials 2.0 500GB (since september 2008) which I now since May have set up to use with Wii (FAT32/WBFS, works perfect)

I got my WD 1TB for a bargain at the local store (Media Markt) for just 799SEK (~117CAD/108USD), they had some reduced price for a week, after that it went up again to 160CAD.
Also, AFAIK it is 5400RPM, but it doesn't really matter with external drives I think, you're still limited to about 400Mb/s with USB2, the small increase in seek time wouldn't really matter that much for storage, this drive is really compact compared to other externals too, which is good if you're going to move it around some, or just want it to occupy less space.

 

[Anakir]

wouldn't trust seagate anymore. quality of their products have gone downhill after they bought out maxtor. if i were you i'd buy an internal wd drive and put it in a no name external enclosure.

Is this method faster than the external drives?

Yes, most externals only run at 5400RPM while most internals you get run at 7200RPM (Unless they're from a laptop, in which case they could be either)

However if the drive will only be used for the Wii 5400 is fine, but with a computer you'll probably want something a bit faster unless you have a laptop in which case you probably only have a 5400RPM drive. The external drives are fine as long as you aren't going to be copying 100GB files back and forth which will take awhile.

Hmm. Okay, so getting an enclosure is good as well.

But I'm a nublet at these disk enclosure stuff. What are somethings I should know before getting an enclosure? Some questions I have from the top of my head are:

1. Do enclosures have a limit on the hard disk's capacity?
2. Does the size (as in physical size) of it matter? I see them being sold in different sizes so I'm assuming it does - getting the right size for the right hard disk.
3. What's a good disk enclosure?
4. Does the speed of the enclosure only depend on the hard disk or both the enclosure and the hard disk?

That's all the questions I can think of at the moment. Anything else I should know?

 

[Golfman560]

Enclosures don't have a size limit in GB, but they do have a physical size limit. Enclosures come in 2.5" size (For laptop hard drives) and 3.5" size (Fits either size hard drive). The enclosure itself just converts the hard disks IDE or SATA interface (What the computer would use if it was internal) to either USB, Firewire, or E-Sata. It also might have an external power device that needs to be plugged in or it uses a second USB cable as the power source.

As for good disk enclosures you'd have to ask someone else.

Enclosure doesn't have a speed, it is the speed of the hard drive.

 

[Anakir]

Enclosures don't have a size limit in GB, but they do have a physical size limit. Enclosures come in 2.5" size (For laptop hard drives) and 3.5" size (Fits either size hard drive). The enclosure itself just converts the hard disks IDE or SATA interface (What the computer would use if it was internal) to either USB, Firewire, or E-Sata. It also might have an external power device that needs to be plugged in or it uses a second USB cable as the power source.

As for good disk enclosures you'd have to ask someone else.

Enclosure doesn't have a speed, it is the speed of the hard drive.

Ah. That makes it very clear for me. Thank you for your answers. So I just need to find a 3.5" basically (doesn't really matter for brand since it's just a "shell" to transfer) and an internal hard drive. I have both firewire and 2.0 USB in my computer. I'd probably prefer firewire (400mbps) since its been said to have better "transfering time" than usb 2.0s (480mbps). I read that somewhere.. didn't really understand it but it sound persuasive lol.

I'll probably just take my parent's 500gb internal hard drive and buy an enclosure. I'm going to purchase the external hard drive before the sales end just to take advantage of it in case I ever change my mind.

 

[Anakir]

So I have an old external hard drive that doesn't work with the Wii's USB Loader. Is it possible to open up the external hard drive and switch it with another to make it as if its an enclosure? The warranty's already up.

 

[moose3]

I'd say to check and see if there is also a fan to go with those vents on the enclosure. From what I hear, external drives have heating issues if they are always plugged in and running with no cooling, hence only a 1 year warranty. So enclosures that have some cooling have a better chance of lasting.

Also, it only has a USB 2.0 connection if your computer supports something faster, Firewire, or eSATA, I'd personally say get an enclosure that supports your faster speed interface of choice as well as USB (in case you need to connect it to someone else's comp.

 

[Golfman560]

Pharoah, that Element you posted the link for can take a beating. I had one for about 6 months and treated it like shit and it took it. However one day I left it on inside my laptop bag (I just keep all the cables connected so I just pull the laptop out and everythings connect) and the thing fried its pants off. The thing melted inside the bag because it had no fan. If you go for the element keep it in a cool area.

I'd go for a 1.5TB drive and get an enclosure with a fan and a few different port options like USB, Firewire, and eSata. Always good to use the faster standards.

 

[Anakir]

Already bought an enclosure. There's no fan but I'll have it at a cool area and have a fan nearby. I use eSata to transfer - muchhh faster than usb2.0. I've got firewire too but no point where there's eSata. Thanks for the suggestions.

Ummm sorry to revive this topic, but I'm also in need of a fairly large external hard drive.

At the moment the local walmart has this model on sale: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16822136321

Known as Western Digital Element, it's 1TB for $99 CAD, which is fairly cheap. Do you guys think I should spring for it? Could probably pay a bit more and make my own external hard drive with more storage capacity, but it seems tempting to ahve a package that is already done. And newegg is selected refurbished Western Digital 1TB My Books for the same price, which one should I buy?

I would suggest something that gives you the option to use eSata if your computer supports it. Make sure it comes with USB 2.0 as well since its much more universal than eSata. The Western Digital 1tb for $99 is a pretty good price but if you have a hard drive that's been lying for a while - or hardly have files in - get that instead with an enclosure.

 

[moose3]

While I haven't bought one yet myself, I was eyeing this one: Rosewill RX-358-S. Has USB/eSATA, w/ fan, and $40 from newegg. Rating of 4-5 is about 90% from this and the silver unit, from about 700 reviews.