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    Portable Backup HDD: Western Digital My book or Seagate Freeagent

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by AzalnRex, Aug 11, 2008.

  1. AzalnRex

    AzalnRex Notebook Consultant

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    I am searching a "regular user" (mainly music,pdf, doc back up) external portable HDD - since my oldie averatec 5400 has only a 40GB HDD.

    Searching around i ended up on this two options:

    Western Digital My Book Passport 160GB
    or​
    Seagate Freeagent Go 160GB


    Anyone got any idea/used one of them?
     
    AzalnRex, Aug 11, 2008
    #1
  2. KUNFUCHOPSTICKS

    KUNFUCHOPSTICKS Notebook Consultant

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    Stay away from Seagate/maxtor products.
     
    KUNFUCHOPSTICKS, Aug 12, 2008
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  3. SlimShady

    SlimShady ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒ&

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    My WD Passport died about a month after purchase.............drive is still working and now lives in my laptop, the enclosure circuit card is what died. I'd go with the SeaGate GO based on my experiences.
     
    SlimShady, Aug 12, 2008
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  4. mattbieg892

    mattbieg892 Notebook Geek

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    From my experience with the passports, my only problem was power. WD provides a single USB 2.0 Cable to connect between your computer and the drive. As drive space was consumed, the drive became increasingly slower to index files when first plugged in. This may have been more of a problem with Vista, but the nonetheless the problem was still with the Passport not having enough power to perform vista's index of the drive.

    Anything with the 2 USB Ports for the drive cable would be better IMO. Provides more power to the drive via an additional USB 2.0 Port.

    But other than the Power thing I loved the WD. I'm still using it as an internal in my HP right now and it's been pretty flawless so far.
     
    mattbieg892, Aug 13, 2008
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  5. GuanYu

    GuanYu Notebook Enthusiast

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    Personally I like Seagate HDs, I currently have 4 of them and none of them have ever broken down ...

    edit: including a FreeAgent
     
    GuanYu, Aug 13, 2008
    #5
  6. Jaycee8980

    Jaycee8980 Notebook Deity

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    Neither....Go with a Toshiba :)
     
    Jaycee8980, Aug 13, 2008
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  7. SlimShady

    SlimShady ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒ&

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    I have a Toshiba 160Gb 7200 and a WD 160Gb 7200, benched them both in my laptop and the WD blows the Toshiba away. I think I posted the Toshiba benchmarks earlier in the Show your HD tune thread.......will try to get one posted in here of the WD. Of course for external it seems as though most tend to hover around 22-25 MB per second so I'm not sure it's really relevant anyway.
     
    SlimShady, Aug 13, 2008
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  8. SlimShady

    SlimShady ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒ&

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    Added HR Tune pic.
     

    Attached Files:

    SlimShady, Aug 13, 2008
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  9. Jahanzeb

    Jahanzeb Notebook Enthusiast

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    WD is the best, so just go for it. I have dropped my Passport many times and it's still in the shape...

    Just remember to disable indexing, it will go great...
     
    Jahanzeb, Aug 13, 2008
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  10. AzalnRex

    AzalnRex Notebook Consultant

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    Thx folks for the input.

    I got the WD my passport essentials. Looks beautiful, it´s small and compact.

    Let see how it handles.
     
    AzalnRex, Aug 15, 2008
    #10