External hard drive

[C.B.]

I have two WD My Book 500GB firewire external drives. They are less
than one year old and the button on one of them has broken. Therefore, I
will not consider buying another external drive from WD.

I am considering one of the three following drives. They are all 7200
RPM and IEEE 1394 . I would appreciate any input considering which is the
best drive. Thank you in advance for any recommendations.

Seagate 500 GB FreeAgent Xtreme USB2.0/FireWire 400/eSATA External Hard
Drive

Seagate 500GB 7200RPM USB2.0/1394/ESATA; SEAGATE FREEAGENT PRO EXTERNAL HARD
DRIVE

LaCie 500 GB USB / FireWire / eSATA d2 Quadra External Hard Drive

Seagate 1 TB Firewire/eSata/USB 2.0 FreeAgent XTreme External Hard Drive

Verbatim 1 TB FireWire / USB External Hard Drive

 

[David B.]

None of them are the best, things break, that's the way it is, buy what you
want, taking into account storage size and warranty, it's not at all
impossible that what ever you buy could fail well before your WD did.

 

[Richard Urban]

If you were to purchase a good external eSATA enclosure and a mating hard
drive, you would save a bundle of money. If your computer is not eSATA
compatible you will have to purchase an add in card to drive the
enclosure/drive. This combination will work with any decent backup program.

 

[ray]

I have two WD My Book 500GB firewire external drives. They are less than
one year old and the button on one of them has broken. Therefore, I will
not consider buying another external drive from WD.

How long is the warranty? It's often one year - they may replace it for
free.

 

[CBoom]

Hello

I would never buy another seagate after what I went though with these
drives!

Western Digital is the best... For internal drives I love the BLACK series.

I have a review here:
http://computerboom.blogspot.com/2008/11/hard-disk-review-western-digital-black.html

Just some extra info...>>>>>>

You mention 7200 RPM but you also mention you want to use firewire...

firewire is too slow for the RPM to matter in this case..

unless you use eSata the RPM doesn't matter since usb2.0 and firewire busses
are slower than what even a 5400 rpm drive can serve (read & write)

eSata however is the same speed as if it was an internal drive!!! this is
the way to go!

Also interesting are some new externals that offer ethernet connections (in
this case I would go with a 1Gb ethernet model!)

 

[C.B.]

The warranty is for one year. However, I have had it for one year and two
days. I was told the warranty is expired and they will not replace it.
That's why I'll never buy anything from WD again.

 

[Earle Horton]

Can you remove the drive and install it in another enclosure or computer? I
can understand not wanting to buy from them again, but the drive is still in
principle usable.

Earle

 

[C.B.]

Thanks for the reply, CBoom. The computer came with a two port, IEEE1394
connection and is SATA 2. I have it connected via ethernet cable. There is
only one ethernet connection on the computer. Are there multiport ethernet
adapters available and if so would this work?

I have listed the motherboard specs below. The computer has a
MicrosoftiSCSI Initiator. I couldn't tell you whether or not AHCI is
enabled or if the SATA controllers are running in IDE emulation mode. I
assume they are running in IDE mode. I couldn't tell you. That's above my
head.

MOTHERBOARD:

Manufacturer Dell Inc
Model 0UW457
Version A03
Serial Number ..CN698616BI0D14.

Chipset Vendor Nvidia Corp
Chipset Model C51 PCI Express Bridge
South Bridge MCP51 LPC Bridge

CPU AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+
Cpu Socket Socket AM2 [Socket M2 ]
Processor UpgradeMax
CPU Speed 3000 MHz

System Slots 2 PCI

OnBoard devicesVideo
(Enabled) nVidia Integrated Video
Ethernet (Enabled) Broadcom 5754
Sound (Enabled) Sigmatel 9220 Audio

Memory SummaryLocation System
board or motherboard
Maximum Capacity 16384 MBytes
Memory Slots 4
Error Correction None
Use System memory
Maximum Memory Module Size 4096 MBytes

CHIPSET:

Bus/Dev./Func. Type Class Type Manufacturer Device Name Sub System Device
Vendor Sub System Device Name
00 / 00 / 00 PCI RAM Nvidia Corp C51 Host Bridge Nvidia Corp00
/ 00 / 01 PCI RAM Nvidia Corp C51 Memory Controller 0 Nvidia Corp00
/ 00 / 02 PCI RAM Nvidia Corp C51 Memory Controller 1 Nvidia Corp00
/ 00 / 03 PCI RAM Nvidia Corp C51 Memory Controller 5 Nvidia Corp00
/ 00 / 04 PCI RAM Nvidia Corp C51 Memory Controller 4 Nvidia Corp00
/ 00 / 05 PCI RAM Nvidia Corp C51 Host Bridge Nvidia Corp00
/ 00 / 06 PCI RAM Nvidia Corp C51 Memory Controller 3 Nvidia Corp00
/ 00 / 07 PCI RAM Nvidia Corp C51 Memory Controller 2 Nvidia Corp00
/ 02 / 00 PCI PCI to PCI Bridge Nvidia Corp C51 PCI Express Bridge00
/ 03 / 00 PCI PCI to PCI Bridge Nvidia Corp C51 PCI Express Bridge00
/ 04 / 00 PCI PCI to PCI Bridge Nvidia Corp C51 PCI Express Bridge00
/ 09 / 00 HT RAM Nvidia Corp MCP51 Host Bridge Nvidia Corp00
/ 10 / 00 PCI PCI to ISA Bridge Nvidia Corp MCP51 LPC Bridge Dell
Computer Corp00
/ 10 / 01 PCI SMBus Controller Nvidia Corp MCP51 SMBus Dell Computer Corp00
/ 10 / 02 PCI RAM Nvidia Corp MCP51 Memory Controller 0 Dell Computer
Corp00
/ 11 / 00 PCI USB (OHCI) Nvidia Corp MCP51 USB Controller Dell Computer
Corp00
/ 11 / 01 PCI USB 2.0 (EHCI) Nvidia Corp MCP51 USB Controller Dell
Computer Corp00
/ 14 / 00 PCI IDE (ATA) Nvidia Corp MCP51 Serial ATA Controller Dell
Computer Corp00
/ 15 / 00 PCI IDE (ATA) Nvidia Corp MCP51 Serial ATA Controller Dell
Computer Corp00
/ 16 / 00 HT PCI to PCI Bridge (Subtractive Decode) Nvidia Corp MCP51 PCI
Bridge00
/ 16 / 01 PCI Hi-Definition Audio Nvidia Corp MCP51 High Definition AudioDellComputer Corp
00 / 24 / 00 HT PCI to HOST Bridge Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Athlon
64 / Opteron HyperTransport Technology Configuration00
/ 24 / 01 PCI PCI to HOST Bridge Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Athlon 64 /
Opteron Address Map00
/ 24 / 02 PCI PCI to HOST Bridge Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Athlon 64 /
Opteron DRAM Controller00
/ 24 / 03 PCI PCI to HOST Bridge Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Athlon 64 /
Opteron Miscellaneous Control03
/ 00 / 00 PCI VGA Controller ATI Technologies Inc03/ 00 / 01 PCI Other Display Controller ATI Technologies Inc
04 / 07 / 00 PCI Ethernet Broadcom Corp BCM440x 100Base-TX Fast EthernetDellComputer Corp BCM440x 100Base-TX Fast Ethernet
04 / 08 / 00 PCI Other Conexant Systems CX11256 Software data fax modem
with SmartCP Conexant Systems04
/ 09 / 00 PCI OHCI FireWire Lucent/Agere Systems (Was: ATT
MicroElectronics) FW322/323 IEEE1394 OHCI FireWire Controller Dell Computer
CorpBIOS:

Property Value
BIOS Version DELL - 42302e31
)Phoenix - Award WorkstationBIOS v6.00PG
oC(Phoenix - Award WorkstationBIOS v6.00PG
o.(BIOS Revision 1.1.11)
o.(BIOS Revision 1.1.11)
BIOS Date 08/02/07
BIOS Web Page http://www.award.com
BIOS Vendor Dell Inc
Version 1.1.11
Release 08/02/2007
BIOS Size 512 KB
Characteristics - supports legacy USB
- supports ACPI
- Multi Processor supported by BIOS
- supports INT 10 CGA/Mono video services
- supports INT 17 printer services
- supports INT 14 serial services
- supports INT 09 and 8042 keyboard services
- supports INT 05 print-screen
- supports INT 13 3.5-inch/2.88M floppy services
- supports INT 13 3.5-inch/720K floppy services
- supports INT 13 5.25-inch/1.2M floppy services
- supports INT 13 5.25-inch/360K floppy services
- supports Enhanced Disk Drive specification
- BIOS ROM is socketed
- supports selectable boot
- supports booting from CD-ROM
- allows BIOS shadowing
- upgradeable (Flash) BIOS
- supports APM
- supports Plug-and-Play
- supports PCI
- supports ISA
DMI Version 2.4 @000F11E0

SYSTEM INFO:

Property Value
Manufacturer Dell Inc
Product Name Dimension E521
Serial Number HVDYHC1
Chassis Desktop
Machine Type AT/AT COMPATIBLE

Disk Space Disk C: 230 GB Available, 278 GB Total, 230 GB Free
Disk F: 434 GB Available, 465 GB Total, 434 GB Free
Disk G: 280 GB Available, 465 GB Total, 280 GB Free

Physical Memory 3326 MB Total, 1813 MB Free
Memory Load 45%

Virtual Memory 6886 MB Total, 5095 MB Free

PageFile Name \??\C:\pagefile.sys
PageFile Size 3626 MB
In use 115 MB
Max used 115 MB
Registry Size 20 MB (current), 682 MB (maximum)

Profile GUID {0f694440-6a70-11db-8eb3-806e6f6e6963}

The system clock interval 15 ms

 

[David B.]

Like I said, opinion, I buy nothing but Seagate, WD would be my last choice.

 

[Donald L McDaniel]

Like I said, opinion, I buy nothing but Seagate, WD would be my last choice.

Remember this: eSATA drives will NOT run at SATA speeds UNLESS setup
as RAID. IF you set them up as Legacy or IDE, they will run at IDE
speeds, sure as shooting.

Donald L McDaniel

 

[Donald L McDaniel]

Remember this: eSATA drives will NOT run at SATA speeds UNLESS setup
as RAID. IF you set them up as Legacy or IDE, they will run at IDE
speeds, sure as shooting.

Donald L McDaniel

P.S.
I have both Western Digital and Seagate drives in my machine at the
current time, and both are trouble-free 100% of the time; both give
the same quality of service.

So, if it's not the drive manufacturer which is the common factor, it
must be the transfer protocols: in our case, SATA/IDE.

 

[LesleyO]

I have two WD My Book 500GB firewire external drives. They are less
than one year old and the button on one of them has broken. Therefore, I
will not consider buying another external drive from WD.

I am considering one of the three following drives. They are all 7200
RPM and IEEE 1394 . I would appreciate any input considering which is the
best drive. Thank you in advance for any recommendations.

Seagate 500 GB FreeAgent Xtreme USB2.0/FireWire 400/eSATA External Hard
Drive

Seagate 500GB 7200RPM USB2.0/1394/ESATA; SEAGATE FREEAGENT PRO EXTERNAL
HARD DRIVE

LaCie 500 GB USB / FireWire / eSATA d2 Quadra External Hard Drive

Seagate 1 TB Firewire/eSata/USB 2.0 FreeAgent XTreme External Hard Drive

Verbatim 1 TB FireWire / USB External Hard Drive

http://www.maxtor.com/en/external-drives/external-hard-drive/

Maxtor One Touch 4 Plus; I use automated scheduling and drag-and-drop on my
500.
Lesley

 

[Donald L McDaniel]

I have two WD My Book 500GB firewire external drives. They are less
than one year old and the button on one of them has broken. Therefore, I
will not consider buying another external drive from WD.

I am considering one of the three following drives. They are all 7200
RPM and IEEE 1394 . I would appreciate any input considering which is the
best drive. Thank you in advance for any recommendations.

Seagate 500 GB FreeAgent Xtreme USB2.0/FireWire 400/eSATA External Hard
Drive

Seagate 500GB 7200RPM USB2.0/1394/ESATA; SEAGATE FREEAGENT PRO EXTERNAL HARD
DRIVE

LaCie 500 GB USB / FireWire / eSATA d2 Quadra External Hard Drive

Seagate 1 TB Firewire/eSata/USB 2.0 FreeAgent XTreme External Hard Drive

Verbatim 1 TB FireWire / USB External Hard Drive

having owned one of the Free Agent drives, I can attest to their
instability on the small rectangular base. they are prone to falling
over at the slightest touch or pull on the power or transfer cables. I
certainly don't suggest them for that one reason. So I suggest the
LaCie drive, it being stable on its base. If you have an e-SATA port
on your computer, the LaCie will be a premium, also having an e-SATA
port.

 

[CBoom]

Remember this: eSATA drives will NOT run at SATA speeds UNLESS setup

as RAID.

all you you need to have the SATA controllers in AHCI mode (as opposed to
IDE compatible), which includes a BIOS setting + drivers installed

 

[RalfG]

I had a pretty much similar situation with a Maxtor external. After a year
and a few weeks the external enclosure's electronics failed from one moment
to the next. The drive inside the enclosure and the files on it were
unharmed. I've had it mounted inside a 3rd party external drive case and
running almost constantly ever since.

IINM Seagate has a longer warranty on their drives.