Portable hard drives your take?

[dapoller]

My limited experience with hard drives is that they can be very fragile.

Are external portable hard drives much better for durability/reliablity?
Any particular brand recommendations with good warranties?

I need about a 500gb approx. drive, external. Cool if it could be both
external and mountable internal, but not absolutely neccesary. Mainly I
want something that is durable and can take travel and handling.

What say you?

 

[Rod Speed]

My limited experience with hard drives is that they can be very fragile.

Most find that they lose hardly any drives at all now with internals.

Are external portable hard drives much better for durability/reliablity?

Considerably worse, actually. There's a reason that most manufacturers only
have a 1 year warranty on externals and a 3 or 5 year warranty on internals.

Any particular brand recommendations with good warranties?

There is just one external with a decent warranty currently.

I need about a 500gb approx. drive, external. Cool if it could be
both external and mountable internal, but not absolutely neccesary.
Mainly I want something that is durable and can take travel and handling.

The externals that are 2.5" drives are durable and can take travel and
handling, essentially because they are laptop drives in an external case.

 

[Arno]

My limited experience with hard drives is that they can be very fragile.

Are external portable hard drives much better for durability/reliablity?

Not really. Drop them and they are dead. Happened to me. Also having
them fall over from a standing position to theior side while running
can kill them.

Any particular brand recommendations with good warranties?

There are no good warranties in the HDD market, as they will
not recover your data.

I need about a 500gb approx. drive, external. Cool if it could be both
external and mountable internal, but not absolutely neccesary.

Not available on the market anyways.

Mainly I
want something that is durable and can take travel and handling.

What say you?

One option is to get a 2.5" enclosure and a FLASH drive.
Expensive, but the only truely non-fragile option out there.

You can also get a ruggedized USB key, like the OCZ ATV (reportedly
has high failure rates, though mine still works ell), the Corsair
Flash Survivor or the Corsair Flash Voyager. Personally, I use a
Super Talent Pico Mini stick and carry it around inside my wallet.
Ordinary USB sticks are already relatively rugged, compared to HDDs.

Alternatively, you can try to get a ruggedized HDD enclosure,
like the Freecom ToughDrive Sport, but I would not trust
them too much. One test sais something about "easily pried
open" and a "thin rubber sheet" buffering the HDD.

Arno

 

[Percival P. Cassidy]

Not really. Drop them and they are dead. Happened to me. Also having
them fall over from a standing position to theior side while running
can kill them.


There are no good warranties in the HDD market, as they will
not recover your data.

This is typical for warranties of anything. If a water shut-off valve
fails and floods your house, the manufacturer probably will send you a
new valve but will not pay to install it or compensate you for the
damage to your property.

Perce

 

[Arno]

Arno wrote:

This is typical for warranties of anything. If a water shut-off valve
fails and floods your house, the manufacturer probably will send you a
new valve but will not pay to install it or compensate you for the
damage to your property.

So there are no good water valve warranties either. Althoigh
a valve failure is a rare event, while a HDD death is not.
Your point?

Arno

 

[Rod Speed]

Percival P. Cassidy wrote

Arno wrote

This is typical for warranties of anything. If a water shut-off valve
fails and floods your house, the manufacturer probably will send you a
new valve but will not pay to install it or compensate you for the
damage to your property.

They dont get any choice on that last in countrys with a decent legal system.

 

[Ed Light]

A Corsair thumb drive I had was susceptible to becoming usuable from
anomalies dealt it by software and/or hardware. Haven't had that yet on
a USB hard drive. I could make a new partition on the thumb drive and
use it again, but eventually it was too messed up to hold a good format.

So I would never use a thumb drive as sole backup. If using one to take
data on a trip, I would take two.
--
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[Arno]

A Corsair thumb drive I had was susceptible to becoming usuable from
anomalies dealt it by software and/or hardware. Haven't had that yet on
a USB hard drive. I could make a new partition on the thumb drive and
use it again, but eventually it was too messed up to hold a good format.

So I would never use a thumb drive as sole backup. If using one to take
data on a trip, I would take two.

That is actually what I do.

Arno