[901-Memphis]

The WD Caviar Black 640 is the fastest drive if you want a sata drive with that much storage. They are the quickest dual platter hard drives, and you can't beat them for storage drives, or even for a main boot drive, everyone should know that the WDCB 640 is the king of Sata drives right now.

A lot of people that don't need that much space are going for the velociraptors, but thats a bit expensive for a lot of space

 

[Vayate]

Quote:

Originally Posted by shigzeo /img/forum/go_quote.gif for mere storage, no need to spend the extra [cash] on fast reading/writing speeds.

QFE. RAID is a very complex way to solve a problem that the OP does not have.

 

[olblueyez]

I have a new model Buffalo Network storage unit, never was overly excited about Buffalo products but I have to say I am extremely pleased, right down to the replaceable fan, scilence, and decent software.

Buffalo Technology - Products - DriveStation™

Newegg.com - Computer Hardware,Hard Drives,Internal Hard Drives,1TB and higher,7200 RPM,32MB,1TB,

BTW, internal will always be much faster than external. Not by a small margin either. Anyone says other wise (based on your application needs) is full of crap.

 

[Makenshi]

The dual platter 640GB WD also gets my vote for fastest throughput. However, I would look more into reliability than just raw speed when getting a really large drive for data. The only problem is, obviously, that you can't really get an accurate gauge of a model's reliability without massive census base. Google has done a massive reliability survey (estimated ~830k drives) but declined to release the data. However, they did note that they use Hitachi hard drives. For what it's worth, I've been using the 3 Platter 1TB Hitachi DeskStars for about 2 months and they still haven't failed on me yet.

The only one I would say to stay away from is the new Seagate Barracudas. I bought and exchanged 3, and every time the hard drive makes VERY LOUD seek noise that resembles a failing bearing. From what I've read, it's a very common firmware problem with no way for the end user to fix.

As far as USB2 speed goes, they max out at about 32MB/s, which is pretty much in line with the 400Mbps port standard.

 

[macbug]

Seagate dug themselves into a bit of a hole with their latest 1TB offerings, in fact it's probably the biggest defective harddrive incident since IBM Deathstars (Deskstar, which is no longer owned by IBM but rather Hitachi). A friend claims that his friend who works at Google did their studies and found that newer generations of 1TB in general are nowhere near as reliable as the 750 and down counter parts, however if I had to get a drive I would go with Western Digital. Be it the black or the green.

Why? Because of their RMA policy. 5 Years ago I had to RMA my WD 80GB because it was emitting a high pitched whine, and they do cross shipping where you provide them with your credit card, they charge you the price of the replacement and then ship you it. You take your new drive, transfer your data over and then send your defective back in the same box and then they refund your credit card charge. I've been sold ever since - unless I can find drives for cheaper

 

[analogbox]

I've had Seagate, Maxtor, WD and Samsung in my PC and it was only WD that died within 2 years. (two of them) My Maxtor 320GB is going strong at 8+ years, seagate 70GB drive at 6+ years, and Samsung 500GB at 4+ years. If I had to pick one brand, I'd pick Samsung.

 

[MCC]

Macbug brings up a good point on WD's RMA service. I once cross-shipped a WD RE2 drive and received a brand new unit in exchange instead of the usual refurb. I might have just been lucky though or it could be that they only ship out brand new drives on their enterprise products. Hard to say either way.

 

[ucrags84]

it's just so much easier to have an external HD. Now you can get obscenely large storage sizes, and essentially make 1TB portable. Why not have both the portability and storage?

Going internal might give a bit more speed, but use the system HD for programs and the external for media.

I'm happy with my Seagate Freeagent Extreme 1 Terabyte external HD.



On another note: please check out my audio blog ( external also, hehe) at
I'm a student, and getting paid for this, thanks!
Hearingz

 

[Nebby]

I just want to say Seagate also does cross-shipping at a fee.

 

[Makenshi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ucrags84 /img/forum/go_quote.gif it's just so much easier to have an external HD. Now you can get obscenely large storage sizes, and essentially make 1TB portable. Why not have both the portability and storage? Going internal might give a bit more speed, but use the system HD for programs and the external for media. I'm happy with my Seagate Freeagent Extreme 1 Terabyte external HD.Hearingz

At the risk of going slightly off topic, I believe the OP mentioned that he wants to store HD video files on the hard drive, and I cannot imagine needing to move those MKV files around a lot, unless you have like 60" TVs sitting in 3 different rooms or something.

 

[guyx1992]

Actually I want to use the external HD to store stuff on it and probably MKV2VOB files so my PS3 could read them. The speed doesn't really matter me, I guess a USB2 solution is okay. I really want it to be reliable and won't die on me after a year.

 

[Nebby]

Isn't the PS3 limited to reading FAT formatted drives?

 

[iriverdude]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ucrags84 /img/forum/go_quote.gif it's just so much easier to have an external HD. Now you can get obscenely large storage sizes, and essentially make 1TB portable. Why not have both the portability and storage? Going internal might give a bit more speed, but use the system HD for programs and the external for media. I'm happy with my Seagate Freeagent Extreme 1 Terabyte external HD. On another note: please check out my audio blog ( external also, hehe) at I'm a student, and getting paid for this, thanks! Hearingz

NAS's are even better, can read data from any computer or audio playback device in your house, no worries about partition system, or USB losing data problems.

 

[olblueyez]

Quote:

Originally Posted by iriverdude /img/forum/go_quote.gif NAS's are even better, can read data from any computer or audio playback device in your house, no worries about partition system, or USB losing data problems.

I could not be happier with mine if I tried. It even has a USB port to add another external drive and you can also use the USB as a print server. Its about the size of a 4 port router, maybe a bit thicker.

http://www.buffalotech.com/products/...tion-ez-ls-cl/

 

[iriverdude]

So does mine, also torrents, FTP server, twonky/itunes/slimcenter server, DNLA server (Xbox/PS3) web server. I've got a couple of NAS's, they're far more expensive than USB drivers but I don't have to move them about or unplug them. Once setup on my NAS any other device can access them.

I've lost data on USB drives, I'd hate for something similar happen to the 3TB of data I have.