External HDD's for home entertainment setup

Basically I've just bought a nice TV and home cinema system and want my pretty large library of DVD's and music plonked onto a HDD which will then be plugged into my player or console via usb (whichever works best really).

Any recommendations? Will 500GB be enough? How big are films on average when you rip them? I guess they will only get bigger what with blurays and such... but for now I don't mind my smallish bluray collection remaining on disc, its more the DVDs which are taking up all the space and are a hassle to look through.

This

Or this


Seem good value (were posted on hotukdeals) any good?

All help appreciated, thanks in advance.

 

...gah... annoyed... hit the stupid tab key to often... text gone... here we go again:
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I assume you are in the UK?

The problem with Iomega is they don't manufacture drives - so you do not know what is inside - I suggest you get Western Digital or Seagate - a few people had problems with Seagates on here though - so maybe Western Digital would be the better choice.

I would however recommend a 1TB drive rather than a 500GB drive - an uncompressed DVD is 4,5-9GB - so its not that much that you can fit on a 500GB drive, considering you don't want to fill it to the brim - also a 500GB is only 465GB (its 500 Billion Bytes)

 

Ok cheers for that, if I compress it would that decrease the quality much? I wouldn't be too worried about doing that with things like my Peep Show boxsets and other comedies but wouldn't really want to compromise the quality of something like Lord of the Rings etc.

And yep I'm in the UK, is there any advantage to having the ones which don't require being plugged into the mains? Other than having one less lead kicking around and a plug free? I'm tempted by them even though they are a bit more expensive but to be honest once its in my setup I doubt it'll be getting moved so its not necessary, just makes them seem more efficient/advanced to a noob like me.

 

Also I heard its better to have 2x 500GB than 1TB because of failures and data loss, but is that just people being a bit paranoid, or is it actually a real and common problem?

Obviously I'd rather go for the cheapest option UNLESS it means I risk losing my library and having to rip all my dvds over again which will take weeks as it is.

 

Well, compression.... some codecs are pretty good - some people say its no problem, other find it horrid... I'm not sure.

The other thing is, what is the quality at decoding.

Flac is a lossless audio codec - but higher compression does sound different because when you play it the decoder doesn't do a perfect job. (I tried that - and had a chat with someone) - So I'd rather say don't compress if you can afford it.

2,5" drives vs. 3,5" drives - well, the 2,5" ones (just USB) are smaller, obviously, they also tend to be more robust.
3,5" drives are cheaper and overall pretty safe if they don't move around - I have 3 of them... and one portable 2,5" drive... and a SSD in my laptop (which used to be a 2,5" drive)

Data loss - its a difficult point.
Ideally you could use a Windows Home Server, or HP Media Smart Server, and use hardware or software RAID to keep two copies of your data - its just a fair bit more expensive...

Now:
As long as the physical disc is intact there will always be some way to recover the data, it might be expensive though...

In terms of data security - if you want to be sure - Copy everything to one HDD - then make a complete image of that on a second HDD and place that on a shelf, maybe check every now and then - you have to trust technology to some extent.

2 drives with a copy each is more safe than 1 drive - but in the end - both can work for a decade - both can fail after a week...

 

Hmmm ok thanks for the help, I'll probably go for a TB HDD then, if I lose it all at some point then its not exactly the end of the world because I have it all on dvd anyway, just a bit of a pain... hopefully it should be fine though, I know loads of people who have done it, much better than having to search through stacks of dvds which all take up tons of space even in cd wallets trying to decide what to watch.

Hopefully the price of solid state hard drives will come down in a couple of years so I'll be able to transfer all the stuff I put onto this one to that.

 

Jam In Ben,

SSD prices will have to come down by an order of magnitude or more to make them cost effective storage solutions. I wouldn't hold my breath for that.

 

I think I agree here, the price of SSDs will fall - and we might see a couple of quick dips in the near future, but they'll take a fair while until they can compete with HDD prices.

For your HDD - did I mention a metal case would be best for a 3,5" drive?
On a 2,5" drive it doesn't matter

And thanks for the rep

 

Hmmm ok well I ended up going for this:



1TB cost £60 which I thought was good, it has metal casing and looks very snazzy, just hope the inner build quality is as good as the outer... cheers for the help guys!

 

Looks nice

Have a look at it with CrystalDiskInfo - it will tell you what drive it is
(in the form of the model number)