Which External Hard Drive to store Data

Hello,
I need to store permanently 300+ Gb of Data. I will burn some of it on DL DVD. Any issues with it ?
I want to store it on Hard Drive.

1. Should I store it on internal or extermal Hard Drive ?

2. Which external Hard Drive should I buy ?
-Western Digital 500 GB My Book Essential
-Iomega Desktop Hard Drive 500 GB
-LaCie Desktop Hard Disk 301285U 500 GB
-Seagate FreeAgent Desktop 500 GB 3.5"
-Maxtor OneTouch 4 Plus 500 GB 3.5"
-OTHER ?

In user feedback (on sites like amazon) all drives are reported as have failed.
WD,Seagate,Maxtor are more popular but more reports of failure.

Please advise.

Thank You.

 

Look at newegg. Its reviews are pretty good. But remember the more devices that are sold the more bad reviews there will be. You always have a back up for data (if it is not already stored on you PC). So if it is for storage get 2.

 

1. Both solutions are ok, so long as they are external. That would either mean a true external HDD or an internal HDD in a Hard Drive enclosure. If you plan on getting the second, pick a good enclosure (heat and powering issues come to mind)

2. Always take user reviews (especially from Amazon) with a grain of salt. There will always be problems that arise due to user incompetence ... of which that particular user will passionately and solely blame the device for. An example would be, in a non-computing environment, underwater cameras or housings. I've read numerous complaints/bad reviews saying the product isn't waterproof or that leaks happened, but usually the problem would lie in their failure to properly check if everything was totally sealed, O-rings greased, and that no minute particles were trapped in between. Try to gauge first if the review is sensible or if the buyer is just blowing off steam. Hate reviews almost always never delve into specifics and will, more often than not, reveal the reviewer's limited knowledge.

In short, there will always be honestly crappy products, badly shipped products, individual dud units of well-made products, and incompetent buyers ... but ... the more reviews you see online, regardless of tone, means that the product is widespread and is selling well enough. As for dark horse products, they are a 50-50 thing which I wouldn't usually recommend (there can be exceptions). In a PC/Laptop setting, I always prefer my parts branded (and with a wide repute at that).

I use Seagate for my HDDs, while my friends have WD Passports as portable externals. They have never given us problems so far.

 

Thanks.
I will use both DL DVD and external hard drive for long term permanent storage of 300+ Gb of Data.
How long will it take DL DVD to degrade to an extent to make DVD un-readable ?

Which is the best choice for permanent storage WD, Seagate, LaCie, Iomega ?

 

WD is by far the most reliable. Of all the hard drives I have went through. I see most problems with Maxtor/Seagate products. If there was a central HDD failure data collection, for sure the statistics would tell you Maxtor/Seagate drives have highest failure rate.

Just about a week ago, my Seagate/Maxtor 500GB 1touch Backup completely died.

 

It would also depend on the specific type of HDD and I have to say that I both agree and disagree with Kungfu's choices.

I have 4 Seagates. Two of them are desktop internals. One is 80gig and the other 320. The third and fourth are my 160gb portable FreeAgents (laptop and desktop). All of them, despite the errors my desktop has gone through ("field testing", upgrades, power fluctuations, etc), are still up and running with nary a bad sector or even the slightest weird sound/click. My 80 gig Barracuda is the oldest of the bunch and is approaching 6 years of service. It used to be my primary drive back then, but I have long since switched. The 320 is nearly 3 years old while both FreeAgentGos are almost in their first year.

Maxtor, before it merged with Seagate, also gave me headaches and I'm with Kungfu on this. I find it the worst of the lot. I had one back in my secondary school days. After a couple of bad sector readings in its first year, the hard drive just failed one day. I had to do the cold treatment to retrieve my data (and most of which were already corrupted).

Western Digital is also my other choice, especially for external drives. And they are reliable. My friends swear by it and if I plan to acquire more storage space, I will most definitely get a WD passport.

In the end though, it will still be a case-to-case basis and its life expectancy will depend on the amount of care or fuss that you shower on it.



As for the exact DVD lifespan, I honestly don't have a clue. You have to factor in the type/brand of media, humidity, storage conditions, and how often the DVD gets read. I've had CDs and DVDs last for 4++ years and some only for 6-7 months (although I'm sure it was just a bad batch of Verbatims). And for posterity's sake, I burn my crucial data in the current reasonable format every year (or every two years) since there might come a time when the old format is rendered obsolete (i.e. Floppy).

 

Thank you all for replies !
I have decided to use following permanent backup/storage solution:
DVD+R (Single/DL as needed) + TWO (500Gb each) external Hard Drives.
DVD, HD-1 & HD-2 store same data.

I have purchased one Western Digital 500 GB My Book Essential (USB 2.0 only).
Please advise make/model for other ? LaCie ? Iomega ? ... WD again ?!

I feel it is a good idea to have multiple partitions in external Hard Drive (perhaps based on storage type). Comments ?

Thanks.

 

If these are important files you might want to consider a more expensive but more secure solution.

The REV Removable solution of Iomega is very good for long term back ups. The hardware is more expensive and you need to buy specific "discs" that are expensive, but when you consider the safety, reliability and peace of mind, then it is well worth it.

 

I am not sure about what drive to get either, but I am looking into this, http://www.buy.com/prod/seagate-fre...pm-firewire-external/q/loc/101/204110108.html

It looks pretty good at that price, but I have read some bad reviews on it, though all the pro reviews are good for the drive.

 

to be exact i can honestly say that dvds as well as cds have very small life-span... you can break one in less than a few seconds my dogs can easily destroy all the scratch-proof media by tdk et al in a fracture of a minute ;P

 

For long term storage, are bigger external HD (eg WD MyBook) better than smaller external (eg WD Passport) ?

Bigger external HD have standard IDE/SATA HD which can be removed and connected to PC, while smaller external HD are laptop HD. Is this correct ?

 

at my opinion.
WD mybook essential HD [big square 1] only has 1 year warranty.
WD passport has 4 years warranty.

thats the different.

anyway, i prefer smaller external HD.

 

I have had a WD 500 my essential external HD for about a year now without any problems. (Mine has the LED circle in the middle of the face of the unit and the new ones have a Led line in the middle,I would like to know what the differences are) I also know that the 500 gb essential is on sale at best buy for $89 thru the end of today and I am considering getting a second one. I think that If you keep DL Dvd's clean and in the case they should last indefinitely.

 

Take a look at the DriveStation by Buffalo, a Japanese brand, imo they're better than the MyBook.

http://www.buffalotech.com/products/external-drives/

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Description=drivestation&x=0&y=0

They can come with Hitachi or WD drives, it depends on the production batches.

 

By the way, ever thought about getting a NAS instead? The duo drives Buffalo LinkStation Pro Duo cost just sightly more expensive than if you buy the two drives on its own. It can run on RAID-0 and RAID-1, it has both Gigabit Ethernet and USB 2.0 interfaces. You can even add additional storage by attaching a USB 2.0 hard drive. The built-in software and interface are excellent and very easy to use.

http://www.buffalotech.com/products/network-storage/linkstation/linkstation-pro-duo/

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822165075

 

WD My books are the worst out there. Just google it and find out all of the problems people are having with them. I have a 500gb WD My Book and after 8 months of use, it decided to just completely die with no signs of failure or wear. I lost a lot of valuable pictures on there and will never by another WD product again.

 

thank's for tips