[kwitel]

Hey Ya'll,
Would like to start backing up my music/documents on an external hard drive.
Was wondering, do you have any basic tips for me?
What type of drive should I be looking for?
I do not have alot of money right now...would need something to just hold me over until I can spend a bit more.
Does the brand matter?
Any help/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Kwitel

 

[Veniogenesis]

I would personally avoid the "external hard drives" out on the market right now. They usually come with short warranties. My suggestion would be to get a nice and large Seagate internal hard drive and put it in a nice external hard drive case. That way you have more flexibility if you decide to put the hard drive inside your computer in the future and you also get Seagate's great reliability and 5 year warranty. Also, if you buy online, it's usually cheaper this way. Seagates can often be found with tons of rebates. Check out http://www.techbargains.com/ for recent deals.

 

[portaprokid]

Seconding Veniogenesis here, most ready-made external hard drives carry 1-year warranties (even those by Seagate) so getting a third-party enclosure and a Seagate hard drive would definitely be the way to go.

 

[IronLion]

In support of external HD's I use Lacie 250gb drives for music archiving at home and also to store video footage for editing at work. We have used these drives for years with basically no problems so far. Personally they are a great solution and are very easy to use.

 

[pedxing]

Buy the most reliable drive, preferably one that also runs relatively cool because most third party enclosures do not provide adequate passive cooling. Without good cooling, the life of the drive can be drastically reduced. I suggest an enclosure with a fan and a reliable power supply. Newegg has a huge selection of external enclosures.

Other things you might want to consider:
1) Noise from the hard drive. Some drives are much noisier than others. www.silentpcreview.com has reviews about hard drive noise.
2) Noise from the enclosure. Some enclosures have noisy fans while others may use quieter fans. Some enclosures may not use fans but instead use their chassis as a heatsink. From many reviews I have read, there are very few models that provide good heat dissipation without a fan.
4) While shopping for an enclosure, use common sense and read reviews (ie: how to insert the drive and user experience). I found a few models saying "passive cooling" and yet they surround the entire drive with rubber to keep the drive vibration down. Makes me wonder how the heatsink part comes into play if the drive is insulated in rubber. I also find that reading the installatoin manual at the manufacturer's web site can reveal a lot about the enclosure's design, especially the installation procedures.
5) Don't forget to buy a drive that matches your fastest interconnects. I think it is worth paying the extra bucks to get firewire support or SATA support. I had one silly friend who bought a USB drive and he only had a USB 1.0 on his laptop.

 

[Brieldo]

Having a laptop as my primary computer, and over 90 gigs of music on an external drive, I can definitely contribute to this thread.

The most important thing I've found when considering external hard drives is the selection of the enclosure with respect to the controller chip on the enclosure chipset. There are a great deal of chips out there that, while cheap, generally cause a great deal of headaches. Namely, I hold the Prolific PL-3507 and the Cypress-based chipsets in bad esteem. I've used enclosures utilizing these chips and I've had nothing but problems from them. Whatever enclosure you get, make sure it has an Oxford Semiconductor based chipset. They're faster, and a great deal more reliable.

Secondly, the hard drive you pick is important. I recommend Seagate drives because of hte 5 year warranty. They're readily available at very decent prices all over the internet.

Thirdly, the case construction. Don't bother with anything but an aluminum case that's fitting to the drive you have. For example, even with an aluminum case for a 5.25" drive that you fit a hard drive into, a great deal of heat will be trapped by airspace betewen the drive and the case. You want a case that fits the drive perfectly so heat is able to be dissipated by the case material. Plastic cases are just insulating boxes...avoid them.

Lastly, get a firewire-based enclosure. Firewire, though having lower overall maximum throughput, has much higher average throughput. Firewire data transfer speeds are not dependent on processor bandwidth in the way USB-based transfers are, so generally, they're much, much faster. If you dont have a firewire card, spend the 20 bucks and get one. If you have a tower, and wanna spend a little extra cash, get a firewire 800 enclosure and controller card. The speeds are ridiculous.

That's about it. Let me know if you have more questions. I currently have a dual OWC aluminum enclosure with 700 gigs of drives inside. It works very well, is fancooled, and has the Oxford 922 chipset. Im sold!

 

[neonextgenazn]

Just buy an internal harddrive. It's much cheaper and more reliable.