"pro" hard drive brands recommendations?

[jaan 0]

i'm not a dunce nor a tech nerd, but anyone had consistently good experiences with any particular brand of high-end external hard drives (non-raid)? i've heard it's good to get one with a fan to be safe.

 

lacie and g-tech have earned their places on my list of mortal enemies. nearly all my cheap consumer drives have far outlived those bastards.

 

thanks in advance for any wisdomz.

Edited February 10, 2009 by jaan

[jaan 0]

anyone have experience with glyph drives?

http://www.glyphtech.com/

[Srek 0]

I'm currently very satisfied with about 20 2 1/2" 500GB drives i use for backups.

TEAC HD-15C-OTC

In sets of 4 they are running 24/7 for several days in turns, so far without a hitch.

They stay pleasently cool and even with USB 2 transferspeed is pretty OK.

eSATA is a bit of a drama since you will need either USB or an extra PSU to supply power.

 

Cheers

Björn

[Beaver 1]

I've been using lots of WD mybooks for externals. Nice looking, and they've been reliable for me. They make one for any interface you could want, including the sweet sweet delicious 3000 Mbps ESATA.

[b_foote1 0]

anyone have experience with glyph drives?

http://www.glyphtech.com/

I have two glyph drives they are seriously solid in comparison to Lacie or Gtech.

Edited February 10, 2009 by b_foote1

[a2visual 0]

I've been using lots of WD mybooks for externals. Nice looking, and they've been reliable for me. They make one for any interface you could want, including the sweet sweet delicious 3000 Mbps ESATA.

 

I use one as well, as do others around the office, and not a problem for any of us. I think next I'm going to look at a Drobo with some Seagate drives in it.

[b_foote1 0]

Yeah im looking at the drobo also to use at home. looks like a serious drive.

[jablinko 0]

i've dug this from firmtek since '05. its great to be able to quickly swap in and out sata drives. i used to raid them, dont really anymore.

 

need to be more on top of having a backup system though

 

lately i have just bought the cheapest sata's off of dealmac. 500gb for $65 or so

 

is shelving satas as backups going to shorten their lives?

[swaino 0]

For archiving, I've been using this:

http://www.geekstuff4u.com/accessories/hdd...uper-combo.html

 

with enterprise class SATA drives. I've only used it to pop a drive in, archive to it, then pop it back out...but so far, so good. It couldn't be easier to use. And that particular model has pretty much any interface you'd need. It works with notebook drives too.

[drnz 0]

Not too sure about the external case aspect, but Seagate enterprise class drives have the best MTBF stats and warranty specs...this coming form the data recovery guy that told me my Acom/WD external was toast.....do make sure your case has a fan, HDs don't like heat...

[the_Monkey 8]

Hitachi UltraStar drives.

They live in my eATA Mercury Rack Pro.

 

It was the best 4TB I could find for backing up my MacPro.

Very pleased with it.

 

-m

[parallax 0]

Dudes, for the record, ALL of these companies, especially in this price-range use 3rd party HD's with their own enclosure. The only thing you are buying is a possibly slightly better box-with-a-fan.

 

As HD's go, Seagate and WD are probably the main brands you'd want to go for.

Edited February 11, 2009 by parallax

[Duder 0]

Yeah, having a fan in the enclosure is a big plus.

 

For archiving, we moved to LTO4 drives (pretty expensive, but the tapes are cheap). They use these for backing up servers.

[aspekt 0]

I've been using WD mybooks for back up & have had no issues.

[Duder 0]

Just a note on WD Mybook 1tb drives (the ones with a single USB2.0 port). I had 2 die on me within a week so be wary. This was bought from Best Buy.

 

I think the more expensive the external drive is the better it is for you. Look for ones with multiple ports. Might not make sense.

[Guest Sao_Bento]

I keep a couple of these around for when you have to pry the HDs out of their cases because the power supply croaked.

http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/Products.aspx?C=1346