WD Ext Hard disks, others to recommend ?

[dgillilan]

I am considering purchase of an external hard disk, with hopes of backing
up two PCs onto the one ext hard disk unit. I would like to have both USB
and
the firewire connections as options as I'm told firewire is a bit faster
than USB 2.0 , and
am considering Western Digital. I saw two posts on this forum with
nightmares
with a Maxtor ext hard drive, so I have ruled them out. I see that the
Acomdata units have some sort of "specific to Acomdata" software that may
not
be very useful and their website indicated "cannot use on two PCs",
and I see that Seagate has some type of watered down software as well that
will
not allow for options such as what to back up, etc. , unless you pay for a
software
upgrade.

Has anyone used a WD ext Hard drive, with firewire, or if not, with the
USB 2.0 ? I would want an external hard drive of approximate capacity from
160 gb to 250 gb. Any comments on the software with these WD disks and if
one can back up two PCs onto the same WD ext hard drive using partitions
on the ext hard drive? Any comments on other brands of ext hard drives
that you could recommend for the above uses I hope to perform?

Thanks for any help.

 

[answers]

Let me explain the setup I have: I have two external hard disks.
1. AcomData Enclosure with 300GB Hard Disk
2. RaidSonic IcyBox enclosure with 160GB Western Digital Disk

I use it as spare capacity and also for backups of the system. For
backups I use the tool provided by Windows and a third party freeware.
Undecided as to which is better. My main reaqson for the above setup
is price. It was much cheaper to buy the components and put them
together. The retail versions of the external hard disks were much
more expensive.

The AcomData enclosure was very hard to get hold of but it comes with
both USB 2 and FireWire and is IDE interface. The RaidSonic IcyBox is
USB 2 only and is SATA interface. My experience with Western Digital
hard disks is not a good one. The one I am using is a replacement, the
original one just died and was brand new. Maxtors and Seagate are the
best. Seagate is much better, but can be pricey.

For my purposes I cannot see differences in performance between USB2
and FireWire on my AcomData enclosure. It may be small to notice.

To use on two PCs what about two partitions on the disk for each PC,
exclusively. this may help. Also explore the backup option provided
by Windows or your operating system and any other freeware. The
freeware allows you to burn onto DVDs etc so they should be able to
dump it into a another hard disk.

Hope this helps. Good Luck.

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