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Hard Drives (external)

gleneagles
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Hard Drives (external)

I'm looking for a new external hard drive, are most of the well known makes similar or are there any available charts which compare how reliable various makes are.?
Additionally some recent hard drives seem to include  a certain amount of SSD is this worth considering when getting a new external drive.
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ejs
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Re: Hard Drives (external)

I expect they're all fairly similar - in fact the 1.5TB iomega drive I got in 2009 and the 2TB hitachi external I got this year were supplied with the exact same 12V 1.5A power supply. Which is interesting, considering the specs for the drives within those externals both say they require max. 2A current at startup.
There's probably not much point having any amount of SSD behind a USB2 connection, the USB2 connection will still make it slow.
Here's a mini review of my 2 drives: the iomega drive (containing a seagate) is terrible, the hitachi is OK so far, although it lacks an on/off switch, and runs quite warm (50C) because rather than the usual tight metal case which would act as a heat sink, they opted for an extra fat plastic case, which probably traps a layer of air rather than serves any useful purpose.
dvorak
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Re: Hard Drives (external)

I've got two freecom and a seagate one, they've been very reliable.
I think if I were to recommend any it would be the freecom ones.
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JamesM
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Re: Hard Drives (external)

I have 2 seagate ext HDD's, both need their own power supply and they haven't let me down. I have had one for about 6 years (320GB) and the other (500GB) about 3 years. I use them to back up my photographs, they are only on for a short while after editing while I back up to them, then I turn them off again. I am looking at another seagate 1Tb but I am just waiting for the prices to drop to where they were before the Tsunami.
I got my Niece a western digital 1TB for her laptop to back up her school work and I have heard no complaints, so to me thay are all much of a muchness, the only reason I go for seagate is because the first computer I bought had an internal 420MB seagate drive and that was right as rain (I used to format it at least once a month and sometimes as much as 3 times in one day). So all my internal and external HDD's have been seagate ever since.
ReedRichards
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Re: Hard Drives (external)

Quote from: gleneagles
Additionally some recent hard drives seem to include  a certain amount of SSD is this worth considering when getting a new external drive.

No.  SSD drives can give spectacular performance improvements when used as the boot drive; as an external USB) hard drive I doubt you'd notice the difference.
CX
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Re: Hard Drives (external)

I've always been happy with Hitachi drives, although some of them run hot (certain models use their 7200RPM disks).
kmilburn
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Re: Hard Drives (external)

There is also another approach..
Rather than buying an External Drive,  you can buy the hard disk and an external caddy separately,  giving you more control over the choice of disk.
I've recently got one of these, Icy Box Hard Drive Enclosure For 2.5" Sata Hard Drive With Esata & USB External Connector & 3.5" Doc... and it's a good combination of a swappable drive (hot pluggable with BIOS support) that can also be used as an external drive.
Mav
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Re: Hard Drives (external)

For a long time I have bought internal drives but I stopped using external caddies as I found those with fans to be pretty useless at keeping the drive cool and the rest just got a little to hot for my liking.
I now use these with each drive I buy. Not as neat but they are hidden away from view.

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VileReynard
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Re: Hard Drives (external)

You mean it costs extra for the power supply?

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