[guyx1992]

Hey

I don't like to erase things, even if it's movies that I've watched already.
So I need a new hard disk. I want something above 500GB.
I would rather a 1TB cause that's really big and I won't hesitate to get HD movie packs.
What do you suggest?
I'm not sure if I want internal or external, how much does it take to transfer a 1GB file from a PC to an external HDD via USB2?
I would like an external suggestion and an internal one.
Thank you!!!

 

[Vayate]

Hammer storage for external. Their NAS and USB solutions are enterprise-grade and uncomplicated. For internal, Western Digital all the way. WD drives have never failed on me. The WD externals have some odd firmware stuff that I hear can prevent you from copying media to them; the hardware in them is good, but read the reviews carefully if you decide to go that route.

 

[shigzeo]

i love the look and abuse that can be taken from lacie drives. i am using the firewire 800/400 and usb2 version of their rugged series. for mere storage, no need to spend the extra dosh on fast reading/writing speeds. it might be best to assess what your budget is first and get the biggest that can fit that budget rather than listening to people who will make speed/needs decisions for you that are not based on your actual situation.

 

[Aslan123]

For Internal:

Quiet: Samsung F1 1TB. Still fast, very quiet, and quite a bit cheaper than the Caviar Black. As you appear to be just wanting something for storage, the Samsung seems to be the best choice.

Fast: WD Caviar Black 1TB. The transfer speeds are slightly lower than offerings by Samsung, Hitachi and Seagate, but random access times are much better. Also this drive has a 5 year warranty as opposed to the 3 year by the others. However, it costs around $20-30 more than the Samsung and Hitachi.

The Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.B 1TB is also a good drive with good performance. The price is similar to the Samsung F1.

The Seagate 7200.12 is also reputed to be good with high performance and low noise and power consumption. My only concern with Seagate is that their previous generation had major firmware troubles resulting in a lot of failing drives.

As for an external drive, if you do a lot of transferring back and forth with very large files, eSATA support would be beneficial; otherwise USB is fine.

 

[roastpuff]

I'd suggest either the Hitachi or the Samsung. I prefer those brands over the Seagate (given me trouble... 2 drives have failed overall in ~8 years out of 6 and needed RMA) and they're cheaper than the WD to boot.

 

[ljokerl]

In my experience, WD drives are the most reliable. They also offer competetive performance and prices to seagate, samsung, and hitachi.

For an internal, a 500Gb Caviar SE16 ($60 on newegg+fs) should suit your needs. WD customer service is good too.

For an external, I have both a WD elements and a MyBook. Both have cooling issues, which is not a problem for me (i keep running drives on top of my case, where the fans are). My roommate has a Fantom Green 1Tb ($80 after rebates), which I have to say runs much cooler. All 3 are pretty quiet though.

EDIT: Oh, you said MORE than 500Gb. A 1Tb should do it then. I stand buy the WD vote though.

 

[MCC]

I'm happy with my 1TB WD Black drive. There was a big performance boost over my old Seagate 7200.10- I just wish it were bigger as I keep having to delete things when it gets full. I might get a second drive and RAID them but I'll obviously want a 2TB backup system in place first.

 

[cbk9811]

What ever maker you go with get a enterprise version of the drive. It cost more, but it is worth every nickle you are spending. Also all hd break, its just the luck of the draw. Some break early some take forever to, someone above mentioned mirroring the drive which is also a good move. Buy a 2 bay enclosure, with raid 1 capabilities. And you should be fine.

 

[ljokerl]

Quote:

Originally Posted by cbk9811 /img/forum/go_quote.gif someone above mentioned mirroring the drive which is also a good move. Buy a 2 bay enclosure, with raid 1 capabilities. And you should be fine.

No offense, but buying dual drives and a (more) expensive enclosure is not the solution most home users are looking for. The OP is asking for a simple storage drive, and though I agree that enterprise drives are superior to regular ones (higher MTBF etc.) I cannot recommend it for home use. The price premium is just too unlikely to pay off.

Also, in response to the 2nd part of the OP's question:
There are several factors that affect transfer rates, including size of files, fragmentation, etc., but all other things equal and for general comparison purposes:
Internal (SATAII or PATA) Drive does about 60-70 mb/sec
External (eSATA) Does about the same as above
External (USB2.0 or Firewire) Does about 25-35 mb/sec

Those numbers are from my experience; you can find the theoretical speeds in the table on this wikipedia page.

 

[Vayate]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aslan123 /img/forum/go_quote.gif The Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.B 1TB is also a good drive with good performance. The price is similar to the Samsung F1. The Seagate 7200.12 is also reputed to be good with high performance and low noise and power consumption. My only concern with Seagate is that their previous generation had major firmware troubles resulting in a lot of failing drives.

Honestly, I'd never buy a Seagate or Hitachi hard drive. The Hitachis fail catastrophically in short order, whereas every Seagate I've ever seen has had massive performance-robbing seek errors that resulted in a slow and unusually painful death for the drive. Both those are from personal experience; the former from working on a college campus where Gateway switched us to Deskstars this year (we ended up having to replace nearly all of them) and the latter from private tech work.

 

[Al4x]

again from personal experience,

segate and WD is all i will buy,

ive had hitachis fail, think 2 toshibas were the worst

 

[cbk9811]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ljokerl /img/forum/go_quote.gif No offense, but buying dual drives and a (more) expensive enclosure is not the solution most home users are looking for. The OP is asking for a simple storage drive, and though I agree that enterprise drives are superior to regular ones (higher MTBF etc.) I cannot recommend it for home use. The price premium is just too unlikely to pay off. Also, in response to the 2nd part of the OP's question: There are several factors that affect transfer rates, including size of files, fragmentation, etc., but all other things equal and for general comparison purposes: Internal (SATAII or PATA) Drive does about 60-70 mb/sec External (eSATA) Does about the same as above External (USB2.0 or Firewire) Does about 25-35 mb/sec Those numbers are from my experience; you can find the theoretical speeds in the table on this wikipedia page.

Well i understand you doubt that it is not worth it, but i work with drives and arrays all day long. So after seeing what it cost to retrieve lost info via drive saver etc.... it all depends on the OP what he values his time as, re-ripping audio or trying to recreate photos, is a tedious task and if you have 500gb of either just put a dollar figure per hour to recreate and then see if its not worth the extra 40 or 50 $$...... All you need is for it to happen once and the 1000$ you spend to get your stuff back will make whom ever more cautious. All this is predicated on the info stored being valuable. If not, then good times.

And some of your numbers are off use the aja speed test and it will ball park numbers for you.

 

[ljokerl]

Quote:

Originally Posted by cbk9811 /img/forum/go_quote.gif And some of your numbers are off use the aja speed test and it will ball park numbers for you.

If you want to provide better numbers, be my guest. Like i said, those are from my experience, with my files, using windows copy and a stopwatch because windows copy is typical for most users (and I'm quite lazy). Also, I do not have a PATA drive to test, so I was guesstimating from memory.

If you want to continue arguing the cost efficacy of redundant arrays, we can do so via pm, or just ask the OP what he decides to go with reading the thread.

 

[cbk9811]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ljokerl /img/forum/go_quote.gif If you want to provide better numbers, be my guest. Like i said, those are from my experience, with my files, using windows copy and a stopwatch because windows copy is typical for most users (and I'm quite lazy). Also, I do not have a PATA drive to test, so I was guesstimating from memory. If you want to continue arguing the cost efficacy of redundant arrays, we can do so via pm, or just ask the OP what he decides to go with reading the thread.

LOL whatever man.......

To the OP you can go with something like a Caldigit vr or internally use a raid card and mirror the drives via a hard ware type raid. Software raids are okay but not as reliable as hardware. Good luck man

 

[nyjets28]

just get 1tb internal + one of these usb docking stations. easy, no cooling problems and can always just swap out hard drives when you want more storage.