Posted by Kate Silvia on August 19, 2010 at 9:37 PM
I'm sure this has been covered before at some point...but going to ask anyway...what are your recommendations for external hard drives. Interested in 500gb to 1TB storage...fast transfer, MAC and PC compatible, does not need to be portable. I already have a 500 GB LaCie (5 yr old)that I have to re-format for a MAC (yes I switched from PC...Yeah!) and was looking at the LaCie d2 Quadra...and the reviews are "love it" or "HATE it" with terrible customer support. Any other brands out there I should consider that have a long track record of "Love it"? Would is just be easier since I already have a LaCie to get another as a double back up? Or is there something better out there?
We're using both Western Digital and Wiebetech. Very good performance, and we've never needed to test customer support for either. Knock on wood! And yeah, we're on Mac. Buy the Firewire versions and don't saddle yourself with any version of USB. The firewire is noticeably faster on Macs. USB claims quick burst rates, but for sustained jobs, firewire leaves USB in the dust.
Posted by Kah Kit Yoong on August 19, 2010 at 10:10 PM
I use the Lacie Quadra. I have about 10 Lacie HD's, never had a problem. You'll never get any brands where everyone loves them. People only pipe up when something goes wrong which it will if you're unlucky.
Posted by John Mumaw on August 19, 2010 at 10:40 PM
"You'll never get any brands where everyone loves them. People only pipe up when something goes wrong which it will if you're unlucky."
This is exactly right. Western Digital and Seagate are both reputable manufacturers. I've used drives from both with no problems at all.
Posted by conrad Rowe on August 19, 2010 at 11:46 PM
I my opinion LaCie, Seagate, Western Digital and Hitachi are the main ones. I have used all and have not had any problems so far. I use Mac's and I just bought 2tb LaCie External for holding Lightroom. Check out D65, they have some good information. I think I'll probably stay with LaCie at this point. Go with Firewire 800 the rest are to slow. Good Evening, Conrad
Posted by Jim DeWitt on August 20, 2010 at 1:10 AM
I've had a couple of drives fail me. In one case, the USB connector socket separated; in another, it just quit. As a result, I've bought an armored LaCie by Starck, and I'm quite pleased with it. Note: it draws power from the USB connection, so you need a laptop with decent amps through the USB port.
I've been using WD lately, have a non-portable and a portable - customer service is excellent. One drive was dropped while off and not connected and it failed to spin up. A call to WD tech support resulted in an email with RMA number, shipping label and instructions - a week later had a new, larger drive in hand. They replaced the 320 gb with a 500 gb. Another WD story - I have a Promise RAID 5 in my desktop machine, with 3 750 gb drives. One was flaking out occasionally, causing the RAID to go into rebuild mode. So I identified the culprit, asked WD for a cross-ship, which they did with a credit card number, and I was back to normal in a few days. They shipped a 1tb drive as a replacement.
WD does have several levels of drives - as do other mfgrs. For internal use I use the Caviar Black which is manufactured to a higher QC standard, and is more robust than the Green or Blue - it has a dual bearing, as opposed to the single bearing on the other models, and it has a 5 yr warranty. You pay slightly more for this drive than the others, but its worth every penny. The next bump up would be an enterprise level drive designed to be fault free and certified for 24/7/365 intense use in heavy transaction oriented servers. But those cost considerably more thant he Black series. I usually just buy the drive I want, purchase an enclosure, and call it a day. This is not necessarily cheaper, but it ensures that I don't end up with a crappy consumer-targeted hard drive and the right interface. But that's me.
Posted by Paul DeCesare on August 20, 2010 at 4:16 PM
I've used a 500GB and a 1TB LaCie Quadra D2 for almost two years and they have been flawless so far. The cases are built like a tank, they run as cool as can be, and they support USB, FireWire and most importantly eSata which makes them nearly as fast as an internal drive. The question is, what actual hard drive is inside the thing... LaCie? Or do they use WD or Hitachi? Haven't had the time to pop one open and look. Maybe I'll wait for the warranty to run out first, lol.
I also own several Western Digital Passports for portable backup, again, flawless for the last three years. In fact, I have 7 WD hard drives in my editing PC and they are all screaming along so far. Like Gene, they are all Caviar Blacks, except for the two RE3s I use for RAID0. ANYWAY, the point is, Western Digital has really turned it around quality and customer service-wise, so for portable backup, WDs are a decent choice too. All drives can fail, so can your camera, lol! Just make sure you take your best images and create a backup DVD too. No such thing as too many backups, and fortunately hard drives and DVDs are the cheapest storage on the planet. Wild fact: today, 1TB is about $100 (even less). In 1990, given the same price per gigabyte if it could even be made, the same drive would be over $10 million, seriously! So when you hit a good sale, get a couple of drives and be safe!
Discussion
7 repliesThanks.
Kate
WD does have several levels of drives - as do other mfgrs. For internal use I use the Caviar Black which is manufactured to a higher QC standard, and is more robust than the Green or Blue - it has a dual bearing, as opposed to the single bearing on the other models, and it has a 5 yr warranty. You pay slightly more for this drive than the others, but its worth every penny. The next bump up would be an enterprise level drive designed to be fault free and certified for 24/7/365 intense use in heavy transaction oriented servers. But those cost considerably more thant he Black series. I usually just buy the drive I want, purchase an enclosure, and call it a day. This is not necessarily cheaper, but it ensures that I don't end up with a crappy consumer-targeted hard drive and the right interface. But that's me.
I also own several Western Digital Passports for portable backup, again, flawless for the last three years. In fact, I have 7 WD hard drives in my editing PC and they are all screaming along so far. Like Gene, they are all Caviar Blacks, except for the two RE3s I use for RAID0. ANYWAY, the point is, Western Digital has really turned it around quality and customer service-wise, so for portable backup, WDs are a decent choice too. All drives can fail, so can your camera, lol! Just make sure you take your best images and create a backup DVD too. No such thing as too many backups, and fortunately hard drives and DVDs are the cheapest storage on the planet. Wild fact: today, 1TB is about $100 (even less). In 1990, given the same price per gigabyte if it could even be made, the same drive would be over $10 million, seriously! So when you hit a good sale, get a couple of drives and be safe!