3 External Hard Drives DEAD since Dec 2010...

Are most external hard drives just unreliable...?

Each time one died, I bought a different brand and the same thing happened. I take very good care of them too! Always wrap it in its case when I'm done using it and then keep it in a nice clean dust-free drawer until I need it again. Room temp has always been 15-25c.

So my question is: is there a particular brand I should aim for that's also affordable? Please list top reliable brands if you can.

Cheers!

 

really!?

I only ever bought one almost 2 years ago and I got the cheapest I could find which was a toshiba 160gb drive.

Still working perfectly.

 

What are the brands you got?
LaCie is known to be a better-than-average brand.
Personally, I only bought one external HDD and it was in 2008, I got the cheapest possible (a comstar) and oddly enough it's still running strong.

 

1. Seagate
2. Apricorn
3. Iomega

 

Voodooi, When I worked for a major utiltiy (circa 2007) we deployed 30 Toughbooks with Firelight Smartdisks - USBFLB80 - attached to the lid. They were used in the field by Construction crews and I only recall 1 failing over the course of 2 years. I am not recommending this drive, I am sure you want more capacity. It just seems bizzare that 3 failed on you.

Did all 3 fail while connected to the same machine?
What capacity do you need?

 

I have a Western Digital My Passport 320GB that I bought about two years ago and I don't have any problems with the drive. Only real problem is that my cousin bent the end of the cable that goes into the drive, so whenever I use it, I have to press down on that end of the cable, else it'll loose connection. I never do anything special to protect the drive, other than not tossing it around the room, obviously.

 

Are you sure they died? I once thought an external drive died when upon further inspection it was simply its power supply not giving it enough juice.

 

My Lacie 1 TB external (all black) from 2008 is still going strong.

 

how do you mount/dismount the drives?

Are the drives physically bad or is windows calling for a reformat?

 

500GB and beyond

First failed on my G53JW, second on my G73JW-3DE and third on the one in my sig. I did also use the first and second in the Mac LAB @ school.

@LaptopNut
Absolutely To confirm, I had a compu tech/engi buddy that looked at them.

@privatejarhead
Also had one with a loose connection and I replaced the enclosure/wire with a new one and it worked flawlessly ...at first

@newsposter
After the first one died, I started using safe ejection for the following second and third. Didn't help prolonging their lives at all. Windows had never given me reformatting options as the drives simply died and never functioned again.

 

Well like I said in my first post LaCie are known to be great HDDs.
I also heard nothing but good things about the Seagate GoFlex, but if you want to make sure, buy a Samsung Spinpoint 1TB HDD on newegg and a HDD enclosure.
For few dollars more than what you would have paid for an external Hard drive, you will have one of the most reliable Internal Hard Drive!

 

I hope you never fix my computer, bad luck stay away! jk

I've had this Seagate FreeAgent 250GB for nearly 4 years, been through a few drops and bumps, and it still works fine. Maybe they don't make them like they used to, but given most of the time I game on my desktop I've been used to internal drives.

I mean studies/statistics show that nearly all manufacturers have the same failure rates, and are within 1% of each other. What matters is the warranty from who you buy and that is why I highly recommend Western Digital, their RMA process is good.

 

Lacie, Iomega and Apricorn are not harddrive manufacturers. They're resellers... they re-package a hardrive of their choice... I know lacie and iomega have seagates inside. So you should probably spend money on something reliable and then buy an external enclosure of your choice rather than buy something already packaged by one of the resellers, you'll end up spending less money also. Build your own external HDD. WD Scorpio Blue is a good external HDD choice in my opinion. You can always do the HDD inside the optical drive bay thing.

 

TwiztidKidd,

Well said - most probably all were Seagates inside...

 

The only external I've had fail on me was during a blackout, and it was the only component that wasn't hooked up to a UPS. Have you checked your home power for strange voltage? A UPS is always a good idea in any place where you haven't had a professional electrician inspect your wiring and breaker box.

The externals I currently have in rotation haven't failed on me in 5 years [knock on wood], but I've only purchased one so far - an iomega. The rest (3 or 4) are my old desktop drives, either in enclosures or running bare through a multi-port adapter like this one: DriveWire Universal Hard Drive Adapter or a dock. They don't stay connected or powered on perpetually though, only when I need them.

 

A seagate drive does not work on a wd passport elite external USB enclosure I'll tell you that much. I removed the WD scorpio blue and put a seagate in and the seagate drive just beeps like it doesn't have enough power or something. I don't know if it's the drive or the external interface but they just don't work. So that's not an option. I know Toshiba and Hitachi both work on the WD external interface just fine.

 

I think you misunderstood me.. oh well.

Anyway, in my experience Seagate drives don't work well period.

 

No sir, I didn't and you are 100% correct. To OP did you try to RMA or RTV any of the hard drives that failed under warranty, I'm guessing they were under warranty since they're less than a year old. Did they give you a hard time about this process? We'd like to hear your feedback.

 

I have a 250gb western digital, 3-4+ years old and working just fine.
500gb iomega/*seems to be a samsung m-series* about half a year old and working fine.

 

I've had a Seagate FreeAgent 250GB purchased for 90 bucks 4 years ago, still works like a charm. And my Seagate MomentusLP 640GB has been going good in my Z61t for nearly 6 months, no hiccups.

Maybe you were referring to Seagate's disastrous Barracuda firmware scandal, that I can agree with you on.