[aphinity]

hey all,

among other things, i def. need to get a new external drive soon. a 1tb drive is what i'm looking for. not sure if this is the right place to start this thread - noticed a lot of well-informed opinions around here though and would like to ask yours' on this subject.

i've been doing a lot of research and am currently leaning towards a g-tech or owc drive. i will be happy to pay a little extra for a high quality drive. the integrity of the drive is key to me and i don't foresee building one this time around.

i do realize that all drives die eventually. however, wondering if anyone has any shining recommendations for external drives/brands that are 1tb best of class.

(i've a got a powerbook g4 and a quad interface ext. drive would be cool w/ me for future scaling up. audio dimension: will be storing a big ole digital music collection and apple logic projects on the ext. drive)

thanks!

 

[aphinity]

q-tech: G-DRIVE Q

G-DRIVE Q - QUAD*Interface - eSATA, FireWire and USB Storage Solutions

owc:

OWC Mercury Elite-AL FireWire 800, FireWire 400, USB 2.0 Performance Storage Solutions up to 2.0TB at OtherWorldComputing.com

 

[hempcamp]

Quote:

Originally Posted by aphinity /img/forum/go_quote.gif q-tech: G-DRIVE Q owc: OWC Mercury Elite-AL FireWire 800, FireWire 400, USB 2.0 Performance Storage Solutions up to 2.0TB at OtherWorldComputing.com

I love OWC. Great customer support.

Their enclosure/drive looks great with a Mac -- I'm about to purchase a second enclosure as a dedicated media drive (current one is Time Machine backup).

One issue I have is that although the enclosure is well-made, it doesn't dampen the sound of the hard drive very much. In fact, I plan to replace my current WD drive with a newer "green" WD drive that runs at a lower speed to help cut back on the noise & vibrating my cheap Ikea desk!

--Chris

 

[aphinity]

Quote:

Originally Posted by hempcamp /img/forum/go_quote.gif I love OWC. Great customer support. Their enclosure/drive looks great with a Mac -- I'm about to purchase a second enclosure as a dedicated media drive (current one is Time Machine backup). One issue I have is that although the enclosure is well-made, it doesn't dampen the sound of the hard drive very much. In fact, I plan to replace my current WD drive with a newer "green" WD drive that runs at a lower speed to help cut back on the noise & vibrating my cheap Ikea desk! --Chris

can i ask what size & kind of WD drive you're getting?

 

[hempcamp]

Quote:

Originally Posted by aphinity /img/forum/go_quote.gif can i ask what size & kind of WD drive you're getting?

1.0TB Western Digital 'GreenPower' SATA-II HD... (WD10EACS) at OWC

Probably that one. The "green" WD 1TB.

And another one of these:

OWC Mercury Elite-AL Quad Interface eSATA... (MEFW934AL1KS) at OWC

Although if you're not picky about drive type and don't care about FW 800 or eSATA, one of these is much much cheaper at 1TB:

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other.../MAU4S7E1TB32/

And I might buy the enclosure from OWC and the drive itself from whomever has a good deal on it according to DealMac.com.

--Chris

 

[obobskivich]

i know, in owning a mac, you're used to spending a fortune when you don't need to, but I'd honestly forget about the whole "style" thing and save some bucks:
Newegg.com - 800GB and higher, External Hard Drives, Hard Drives, Computer Hardware

114 results, sorted from cheapest to most expensive, 800GB and above, enjoy

WD, Seagate, Fantom, Iomega, etc are all coming in less expensive than what you've found so far, as pre-assembled and warrantied parts

oh, and just to throw this out there, before anyone yells at me, there are only 4-6 actual hard-disk manufacturers in the world, all HD's are basically the same, specific "mac only" disks have not existed in nearly a decade, and even those disks weren't really "mac only", they were just SCSI or in some cases came pre-formatted with something other than FAT

 

[hempcamp]

Quote:

Originally Posted by obobskivich /img/forum/go_quote.gif i know, in owning a mac, you're used to spending a fortune when you don't need to, but I'd honestly forget about the whole "style" thing and save some bucks:

No need to get testy.

It's more than just style with an OWC drive, especially with their enclosures. You're getting a reliable, high-performance Oxford bridge chipset, a well-machined aluminum enclosure that dissipates heat without a fan, more connection options (and included cables) than most off-the-shelf retail drives, outstanding Mac and Windows backup and disk tool software, and unbeatable customer support and return policies.

You get what you pay for. (I frequently shop NewEgg too, but have never got the same level of customer support.)

--Chris

 

[obobskivich]

newegg's customer support is top of the line, so "you're doing it wrong", as far as "aluminum case venting heat", modern HD's don't really need to worry about heat dissipation, especially the GP series from WD, they simply don't roast (efficiency, R&D, etc)

and I'm not getting testy, I'm being honest, if this guy had a PC there'd be a dozen or more posts saying get a Seagate or Maxtor or WD, but because he's got a mac, things have to cost more for no reason

yeah, it may look cool and all, but who really cares, if you're spending $100+ more just to have it look neat

 

[jenneth]

I've used a few WD/Seagate external HDs before, they were all very good performers, and reliable too.

 

[alex1pdx]

I ordered the Western Digital My Book Pro II Edition 1TB Triple Interface Hard Drive from J&R about three weeks ago. They had a sale and I got it for $199. I am using it as a backup drive for my Macbook Pro. So far I really like it. I backed up my internal hard drive through Time Machine without any problems. I also transferred my music collection and movies/shows that I had on two other smaller hard drives.

 

[hempcamp]

Quote:

Originally Posted by obobskivich /img/forum/go_quote.gif yeah, it may look cool and all, but who really cares, if you're spending $100+ more just to have it look neat

You avoided half the points I made and threw it all to style again. Reliable and fast Oxford chipset with multiple connection options, and bundled high-quality software (not just bloated trialware).

You're not spending $100 more just for good looks from OWC. You're paying for a quality product with top-notch customer service that you just don't get from mega-retailers. If you don't understand that (because you have no first hand knowledge of it), fine, but don't try to boil it down to a tired old Mac-vs-PC argument over "style." That just makes us yawn.

I also highly recommend the WD external drives, by the way. They also look stylish and perform well, but don't have the connection options I prefer (FW800) at the same price point of the Mercury Elite. I have a great WD Passport for portable use. I don't recommend the Maxtor external drives -- flimsy build, the one I had died after about 2 months of light use.

--Chris

 

[obobskivich]

um, first of all, I doubt he's got interfaces for all the inputs, second of all, do you even need anything beyond USB? really, i mean really, be honest here, you dont

and if you need firewire, oh look, you still dont need to spend $100 more

and do you even know what you're talking about "high performance oxford chipset", yeah, ok, sure, lets keep pasting random crap we find on obscure tech websites and being "unique" with our hitler avatar, just because we wanna push something thats over $100 more expensive for the same part

honestly, you have no clue what you're talking about, basically any HD will perform like any other HD (prove me wrong, prove to me that any current 7200 RPM HD has any many lead over any other disk, by say, 15-20 MB/s, prove it right here and now with independent information), meaning that going to FW800, FW400, USB 2.0 (which, and here is where I'm not 100% sure, but doesn't the G4 NOT have USB 2.0 based on its age?) and whatever else, thats great and all, ANY of them will provide enough bandwidth for the current speed available on modern 7200 RPM disks


so yes, you really are spending $100 more for good lucks, oh, and I'm sorry "great customer support"

also, who is we? stop associating yourself improperly with the rest of the world, logical fallacies are obnoxious to read dude

 

[hempcamp]

Funny how even when you try to help people, others jump in the thread and try to turn things into a nasty PC versus Mac debate.

Yawn. The children own head-fi these days.

--Chris

 

[obobskivich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by hempcamp /img/forum/go_quote.gif Funny how even when you try to help people, others jump in the thread and try to turn things into a nasty PC versus Mac debate. Yawn. The children own head-fi these days. --Chris

yeah, ok, i'm totally a kid

just because your "help" consists of letting the dude waste money

grow up.

as far as this AWESOME oxford chip, here's the datasheet and information from the manufacturer:
Oxford Semiconductor: Storage controllers: OXU924DSB
http://www.oxsemi.com/products/stora...F924DSB_PB.pdf

here's information on what modern HD's can do:
Charts, benchmarks 3.5" Hard Drive Charts, Average Read Transfer Performance

so, its actually going to bottleneck the HD's

now, this wouldn't be a problem, except you're spending $100 more for this

now lets look at the EVIL non-stylistic drives from "mega-retailers" (aka, the actual hard drive companies who build the actual disks themselves), and their performance:
Charts, benchmarks External Hard Drive Charts, Average Read Transfer Performance

now, most of these are at or around 80 MBytes/s as well (OH NO! THEY'RE EVIL THOUGH, UNCLEAN, UNCLEAN), and then look at those LaCie's that are pushing even faster


OH
and did I mention that Ox is quoting 80MByte's in RAID0, which is striping for performance:
AC&NC | RAID.edu - RAID Levels - RAID Level 0 - RAID 0 (so you can learn something new today)

now, to quote AC&NC "I/O performance is greatly improved by spreading the I/O load across many channels and drives", meaning that a single disk will probably perform worse than 80MBytes/s

which would put it down in the 50-70MByte range, with the rest of the children on the block, like I said, its all about style and your personal inclanation to spend more, as a mac owner, thats your perogative (and before you say, but mac has better hardware, which company uses the latest Intel processors and chipsets in their systems? because I know it isn't Apple)

I'm not at all saying the OWC drive is a demon, I'm saying its a bloody waste of money just to have something that looks mac-ish, if it was $10 or $15 more, who would care, but its nearly $100 more, for no gain

if you really want to cry about their customer service that much, i'm sorry if you've had bad experiences with newegg in the past, however, as is newegg's policy, contact them, they'll try to make it better (i've never heard of them shafting someone, and if someone does get a bad drive or have a sour experience, they usually do whatever is within their power to fix it (if your definition of customer service = "i get free things and my ass kissed", then no, newegg is not that, they're fair))

but I know, just discrediting me as a child, and speaking as if you represent the whole of head-fi, is the totally awesome way to do things, this is actually the professional way to do things, there's even a list of other tactics you might wanna try: List of fallacies - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

and life goes on

 

[freckling]

Quote:

Originally Posted by hempcamp /img/forum/go_quote.gif Funny how even when you try to help people, others jump in the thread and try to turn things into a nasty PC versus Mac debate. Yawn. The children own head-fi these days. --Chris

You call him a child instead of refuting what he says with information. No offense, but you look like the child here.