External Hard Drive....

I am trying to decide on one or more external hard drives. I owned a Maxtor which crashed within a couple of months and lost all the data from my old desk top which I had just re-formatted and had not yet reinstalled the data...

I have searched the threads here and it seems that quite a few people have had problems with Maxtor.

So I am trying to figure out what my needs are. At the minimum, I want a Hard drive that I can back up both my laptops on, on a regular basis. That requires at least 180 GB. I would like that to be portable, because I travel and stay for some length of time at places I go to and I always bring everything I need to restore my HD in case of failure of some kind.

The second need I will have but not yet is the capacity to rip my CD's onto a hard drive. I do not know how to do that yet. I have an MP3 player (iRiver) I have not learned how to use yet... (though I have had it for a year... ) and I realize that I want to start being able to download individual songs. I also will be replacing my bedroom mini-system with a unit that does not have a CD changer but does have the capacity to play MP3 and MP4 format. (I have no idea what MP4 means.) I do not feel the need to have that be portable. I will load whatever music I am interested in on my MP3 player when I travel (and when I learn how to use it... )

I know that getting an internal HD and buying a cover is much cheaper than getting an external outright... but I don't know if I want to hassle with that to save the money.

I also like the idea a 2.5 runs of of a USB port instead of an AC adapter.

It seems to me that to start I should get a very good quality 2.5 external that holds about 200+ GB's. Then when I learn how to rip and download music (take pity on an old lady) I can get another one for that purpose later and see what size I want. I think I have about 300 CD's right now... but I buy a minimum of about 20 a year.

So does anyone recommend a good high end 2.5 external had drive that has a good track record of not crashing?

Also any other thoughts?

 

First some questions, when you travel do you carry 2 laptops? Since there is no portable 180gb hard drive. You can buy the 120gb Fujitsu 2.5' (dont know how expensive but should cost quite a bit). It is the largest it comes in. I would seriously consider how much real information you need. The best solution is a 1.8' hard drive however capacity is limited to 60gb as far as I know. It is very portable. All you need to do is buy a 1.8' (same goes for 2.5') and stick it into an enclosure (pretty cheap off ebay).

As for ripping music I suggest you get an Ipod. With Itunes it is much easier to rip your entire CD library. Iv done it for my dad with around 500 CDs. Most of the CD information is gathered automatically so all I did was pop in the CDs one by one. Of course if you dont need it to be portable you can just stick a laptop into your entertainment system and have Itunes play the files.

p.s. I suggest you sell the IRiver and buy an Ipod. The Ipod (not to be rude) but is like dummy-proof. It loads the music automatically so it should be much easier for you. Both my parents use Ipods even though I detest their sound quality, however it does allow them to manage the songs themselves instead of having me do it for them. (I have a Cowon X5, which is pretty similar to Iriver in features.)

 

I have always thought Maxtor was an excellent hard drive maker. I used to sell computers back in the day and a Maxtor was a big draw for a pc. I dunno maybe times have changed.
When I bought my laptop, I took my old computer's hard drive, a 120 gig Maxtor, and put it in a case I got off amazon. It was simple to do and worked like a charm. The one I got is not portable in that it has it's own power cord etc, but it works great.
Yes getting a cover is cheaper but it's not that big of a hassle if you're worried about that.
I think you are looking for ones that are powered by the laptop's USB connection and I don't know what the size limitations are on something like that.
Anyhow good luck!

 

My suggestion: Installing an internal honestly normally totals all of unscrewing a couple screws, and plugging in power and the IDE/Sata cable and putting the screws back.

Cheaper wouldn't be the only reason to go that route. It allows you to get the exact drive you want, with the look of an external that you want.

2.5 externals are great if the amount of data you need to keep is smaller <120gig. other plus sides of a 2.5 is that they can often be powered off the USB bus which means you can carry it with you for use, without carrying a power cable. many of them have a slot where you plug in a 2nd USB cable simply to pull more power from the USB bus for the drive.

3.5s are almost always going to require external power.

and Edit: as far as drives I prefer Seagate

 

Thanks everyone for the info.

lixuelai: I don't take it as rude about suggestiong Ipod. The only reason I have not learned how to use my iRiver is not lack of ability but lack of time. I am a pretty busy person, professionally, but I also apprciate quality electronics.

You guys have convinced me to get an interanl and encase it. I realize I want a 2.5 so it will be easily portable. No I do not travel with 2 laptops. So I probably would get one external hard drive for each.

I will check out the Seagate... I am too pissed about the Maxtor. I have not had time to take the drive somewhere to get my data of it.

SO if people have suggestions as to where and what 2.5 internal HD's I should get and the best enclosures for it, I would be happy to learn.

 

I wish I could recommend a drive that would forever make you satisfied, but no matter who makes the drive, it will eventually fail. I would recommend the 2.5" solution, but this will limit you to 120GB, and expesive limitation it is. for the costs of "creating" a 120BG 2.5" drive will cost the same as a premade 400+GB 3.5", as long as you can live with the cord.
As far as mp3 ripping, all you need to do is insert the cd, there should popup a window asking you what action to take, choose rip, your media player should open and begin the task of ripping the tracks. Once ripped, you can just insert the usb mp3 drive and transfer the files from my computer to the mp3 player.
Maybe this link might help you,

http://portables.about.com/od/mp3players/ht/howtoripCDWMP10.htm

there are also more links on that page as well
GL, keep us posted

 

Since you were previously looking for 180GB+ as a minimum, I suggest you look at the Seagate Momentus 5400.3 160GB drive. Last time I checked, it was the largest 2.5" drive currently on the market.

I can't make any specific recommendations regarding an enclosure, but I feel it fair to make this observation which may be relevant to the failure of your Maxtor drive. The vast majority of external drive enclosure keep the disk constantly spinning, they never get spun down. As a precaution, I recommend unmounting and shutting down your external drive when not in use.

Another iRiver fan here. Have you tried looking around the excellent MisticRiver forums? A friendly, informative place... I've been a member there for around 2 years now.

 

Hi Justitia (^_^)

My little suggestion for an external enclosure is this...







It's some generic brand I got from eBay from seller big_bargain_depot. I checked and this person is still selling them for 0.99 cents, $9.99 shipping of course (^_~)~wink. This one is a favorite of six diff brands I've owned in the past. Currently I have five external HDDs, three are 2.5. The no name brand is the most compact of the bunch (you can see another generic one in the pic behind my hand). The transfer rates seem average, it comes with a little pouch and USB 2.0 cable and is bus powered. I don't know the limitation of the enclosure when it comes to HDD GB size. The one is the pic has a 60 GB inside.

Good luck on finding a cheap 2.5 HDD for them though.

EDIT: Forgot to add sorry about the Maxtor. I'm waiting on a 300GB Maxtor replacement for the 160GB Maxtor external that died on me after 4 yrs. I have an 120GB that's been running 24/7 for about 6 yrs now without any problems. Some hard drives are better than others, but eventually they will all fail. I did have plenty of warning before the 160GB Maxtor passed away. As soon as I get the 3.5 HDD I'll put it inside the blue Maxtor enclosure.

 

Thanks every one...

After reading a lot of reviews.... this is is what I am thinking of getting:

VANTEC NexStar3 NST-260U2-BK Aluminum 2.5" USB 2.0 External Enclosure, Onyx Black

HITACHI Travelstar 5K100 HTS541010G9AT00 (13G1591) 100GB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache ATA-6 Hard Drive - OEM

The enclosure because of the reviews.

The HD I got because a. the people seem to be having some problems with the 7200 rpm's running hot; b. the price gradient of the 100 GB was so much less than the 160 that it was worth it. It will cover anythign I need ot back-up on my ASUS z70va (15.4")which is my main laptop and the one I will travel with.

I will probably get another 80 GB for the HP Pavilion dv1000t (14.1") later on. Right now, there is almost nothing on it. I just use it for browsing and internet streaming mostly. But I am sure there will be a time I will want to travel with the lighter laptop and then I will start loading it with stuff.. (Though I am setting up my Palm Pilot to be a really mini-laptop... )

Do people think my choices look good?

 

I just wanted to tell people that I just got what I said I would order in the previous post... and it is great and perfect.

I am so glad people here persuaded me to get an internal drive with an enclosure. It cost me slightly over $100 for a Hitachi 100GB 2.5 drive & a really neat enclosure that is tiny and light weight and is powered by the laptop.

Thanks again everyone, for advising me....

 

The space per dollar factor is much better with an external enclosure. I built a 250 GB external drive for less than $120. Can't beat it.