Shopping for external hard drive

[Daave]

I'd like to purchase a USB external hard drive. I've got in front of me
various circulars from this past Sunday's newspaper. I'd like to hear
opinions on the following items on sale:

Seagate 200 GB internal hard drive (plus Enclosure): $74.98 (reflects
sale price and rebate)

AcomData (I'm not familiar with this brand) 250 GB USB 2.0 external hard
drive: $79.99 (reflects sale price and rebate)

Western Digital 2500 GB 7200 RPM internal hard drive: $79.99 plus the
cost of an Enclosure

Maxtor 200 GB external USB 2.0 hard drive: $99.99

Maxtor 200 GB external USB hard drive w/ OneTouch Back-up: $79.99
(reflects sale price and rebate)

Western Digital 320 GB My Book external hard drive: $139.99 (reflects
sale price and rebate)

Thanks in advance for your opinions.

 

[Paul]

I'd like to purchase a USB external hard drive. I've got in front of me
various circulars from this past Sunday's newspaper. I'd like to hear
opinions on the following items on sale:

Seagate 200 GB internal hard drive (plus Enclosure): $74.98 (reflects
sale price and rebate)

AcomData (I'm not familiar with this brand) 250 GB USB 2.0 external hard
drive: $79.99 (reflects sale price and rebate)

Western Digital 2500 GB 7200 RPM internal hard drive: $79.99 plus the
cost of an Enclosure

Maxtor 200 GB external USB 2.0 hard drive: $99.99

Maxtor 200 GB external USB hard drive w/ OneTouch Back-up: $79.99
(reflects sale price and rebate)

Western Digital 320 GB My Book external hard drive: $139.99 (reflects
sale price and rebate)

Thanks in advance for your opinions.

I'd want an enclosure with good cooling. I see a lot of enclosures
I would never buy, based on how they treat the drive. And even when
I do find an enclosure with a fan for cooling, I usually end up
immediately replacing the fan, with a good ball bearing fan from
my local electronics store. So I'm pretty picky about my enclosures.
Some enclosures have poor internal mounting options. Some have
crappy looking power adapters. But the prices are low :-(

Paul

 

[Rod Speed]

I'd want an enclosure with good cooling. I see a lot of enclosures
I would never buy, based on how they treat the drive. And even when
I do find an enclosure with a fan for cooling, I usually end up
immediately replacing the fan, with a good ball bearing fan from
my local electronics store. So I'm pretty picky about my enclosures.
Some enclosures have poor internal mounting options. Some have
crappy looking power adapters. But the prices are low :-(

And the big advantage in going this route is that you get the
full drive warranty on the drive itself, 3-5 years. None of the
packaged external drives have more than just 1 year warrantys.

 

[Contumeliorus Florius]

I'd want an enclosure with good cooling. I see a lot of enclosures
I would never buy, based on how they treat the drive. And even when
I do find an enclosure with a fan for cooling, I usually end up
immediately replacing the fan, with a good ball bearing fan from
my local electronics store. So I'm pretty picky about my enclosures.
Some enclosures have poor internal mounting options. Some have
crappy looking power adapters. But the prices are low :-(

Paul

My Ngear external enclosures don't have a fan but they are made of aluminum
so that helps a bit I guess. They are never on long enough to worry about
heat. I just back up my data to them then shut them off. I've got three of
them and they only cost $20.00 each.

 

[OSbandito]

I'd like to purchase a USB external hard drive. I've got in front of me
various circulars from this past Sunday's newspaper. I'd like to hear
opinions on the following items on sale:

Seagate 200 GB internal hard drive (plus Enclosure): $74.98 (reflects
sale price and rebate)

AcomData (I'm not familiar with this brand) 250 GB USB 2.0 external hard
drive: $79.99 (reflects sale price and rebate)

Western Digital 2500 GB 7200 RPM internal hard drive: $79.99 plus the
cost of an Enclosure

Maxtor 200 GB external USB 2.0 hard drive: $99.99

Maxtor 200 GB external USB hard drive w/ OneTouch Back-up: $79.99
(reflects sale price and rebate)

Western Digital 320 GB My Book external hard drive: $139.99 (reflects
sale price and rebate)

Thanks in advance for your opinions.

I like WD a lot better than Maxtor. Aside from that, I know nothing.

 

[Tech Zero]

Reality folded in on itself, and somewhere the following words from
"Paul" appeared in history:

I'd want an enclosure with good cooling. I see a lot of enclosures
I would never buy, based on how they treat the drive. And even
when I do find an enclosure with a fan for cooling, I usually end
up immediately replacing the fan, with a good ball bearing fan
from my local electronics store.

Also Paul, double check the air flow if it does have a fan.

I have a EZ link NAS enclsure heer, and even though it has a "good"
fan there is no air holes anywhere on the entire case. I ended up
removing the plastic frount while I was loading it (via USB) to keep
the drive from over heating.

--
__ __| | __ __| | __ /
| \ -_) | -_) _| \ / -_) _| _ \
_| _| _| \___| _| \___| \__| _| _| ____| \___| _| \___/

Lossing quality sleep to help others online since 1997...

 

[Ed Medlin]

And the big advantage in going this route is that you get the
full drive warranty on the drive itself, 3-5 years. None of the
packaged external drives have more than just 1 year warrantys.

On that note, I just found out something that you may or may not know
about. I was recently building a system and needed a 300g SATA drive and was
going to go to Best Buy and just get one. I stopped at a freind's computer
shop for some coffee and a BS session and he told me he could sell me one
for less than Best Buy's price and it had a 3yr warranty. It was a plain
boxed OEM drive and right there was the 3yr warranty from WD. He said that
if I had problems, he just takes the replacement drive from stock and
returns the bad one to WD and they replace it. I saved about 30-40 bucks
too. I guess I will give the local shop a bit more business in the
future.....

Ed

 

[Rod Speed]

On that note, I just found out something that you may or may not
know about. I was recently building a system and needed a 300g SATA
drive and was going to go to Best Buy and just get one. I stopped at
a freind's computer shop for some coffee and a BS session and he told
me he could sell me one for less than Best Buy's price and it had a
3yr warranty. It was a plain boxed OEM drive and right there was the
3yr warranty from WD. He said that if I had problems, he just takes
the replacement drive from stock and returns the bad one to WD and
they replace it. I saved about 30-40 bucks too. I guess I will give
the local shop a bit more business in the future.....

I buy drives using a pricewatch service now. They're that much of a commodity now.

I do stick with samsung drives tho, basically because they are quieter
and run cooler than some of the alts and are decently reliable.

I gave up on WD basically because of the stupid jumper scheme with the ATA drives.

 

[Ed Medlin]

I buy drives using a pricewatch service now. They're that much of a
commodity now.

I do stick with samsung drives tho, basically because they are quieter
and run cooler than some of the alts and are decently reliable.

I gave up on WD basically because of the stupid jumper scheme with the ATA
drives.

I have also had good luck with Samsung drives. The only problem I have is
that they are not available locally, at least in this area. Yea, the jumper
scheme has been a PIA with WDs in the past. It is kind of getting moot
today. With decent cooling I have very few problems with them. Every once in
awhile I will get a WD drive that is a bit noisy, but all in all they are
ok. I stay away from Maxtors like the plague.

Ed

 

[Rod Speed]

I have also had good luck with Samsung drives. The only problem I have is that they are not
available locally, at least in this area.

Yeah, that's the main problem with them, they arent as available.

I never buy hard drives locally so its irrelevant to me.

The other quirk with samsungs is that they tend to be a bit later
with the largest sizes, currently 500G is the max you can buy.
No big deal for me, I usually buy the size thats the best $/GB
and that 3/400G currently so thats irrelevant currently.

Yea, the jumper scheme has been a PIA with WDs in the past.
It is kind of getting moot today.

Yeah, cable select works fine and obviously irrelevant with SATA.

With decent cooling I have very few problems with them.

Yeah, only had one die, and that was in a system which
had had a Seagate die in too, so likely its the system.

Every once in awhile I will get a WD drive that is a bit noisy,

Yeah, one of the last of the non fluid bearing drives developed
one hell of a bearing howl. I wouldnt put up with it myself,
fortunately its not my system so I only hear it when working on it.

but all in all they are ok.

Yeah, tho I dont use mine anymore, just because I demand very
quiet systems and buy quiet cpus and power supplys to get that.

I stay away from Maxtors like the plague.

Yeah, me too. Initially it was because the warranty situation
was a pain in my country, you had to return it to Singapore
using a receipted shipping mechanism which made the return
economically unviable. It turns out that they require good
cooling so I wont touch them for that reason now too.