Which 500gb external drive

geeza · 26 Dec 2007 at 12:24

Which is a better external drive, the LaCie Black 500GB USB2.0 External Hard Drive or Western Digital Elements 500GB?

Thanks

WD Elements

Dimensions (WxDxH): 12.5 cm x 20.4 cm x 3.6 cm
Weight: 1 kg
Capacity: 500 GB
Interface Type: Hi-Speed USB
Data Transfer Rate: 480 Mbps
Average Seek Time: 8.9 ms
Spindle Speed: 7200 rpm

Lacie

Hi-Speed USB 2.0: up to 480Mbits/s (60MB/s)
Hi-Speed USB 2.0: up to 34MB/s
Cache: 16MB
Fan: fan-free operation
Software: LaCie '1-Click' Backup Software (Windows XP/2000, Mac OS 10.x), Silverkeeper backup software (Mac OS 9 & 10.x), Silverlining Pro Utilities (Mac OS 9)
Size: 1.6 x 3.3 x 5.5 in. / 40 x 85 x 140 mm (WxHxD)
Weight: 1.4 lbs / 650 g

This is also around the same price

Seagate 500GB Barracuda eSATA 7200rpm 16MB cache External Hard Drive with PCI eSATA Card

"the eSATA External Hard Drive, PCI card and cable work together to achieve five times faster transfer speeds than either USB or FireWire 400 connections."

However -
Drive Transfer Rate
300 MBps (external)
Spindle Speed
7200 rpm

Is this eSATA thing a marketing stunt?

helmutcheese · 26 Dec 2007 at 12:40

I have a WD My Book Premium 500GB ES (USB2.0 and ESATA), its great, but there is new models now and I aint read into them as much.

I would take ESATA if your PC supports.

geeza · 26 Dec 2007 at 12:56

Just seen i can get the LaCie 1TB External drive for £139 at my local place. Is it worth it?

Humate · 26 Dec 2007 at 15:22

i have a 3*WD mybook 500GB and 1*WD elements 500GB. Personally i think that the elements is better built. The mybooks are made of cheap plastic, where as the elements are much more rugged. So i would recommend the elements, but i have never owned a lacie drive.

slipd · 26 Dec 2007 at 17:39

Hey guys,

I'm also in the market for a 500GB external atm - to be honest tho, I've only been considering the Freecom Classic? It's price attracted me

I'll only be using the drive for backing up my systems on a fortnightly basis, so it won't be particularly hammered?

The WD drives seem popular here, so I might start looking at them?

Btw, are these external drives powered entirely by the usb cable? They don't need mains or anything?

Cheers,

SW.

helmutcheese · 26 Dec 2007 at 17:46

No, the 3.5" HDD's are powered by a Mains PSU as they are 12v, only the 2.5" are 5v so run of USB.

If you were using ESATA, it needs powered regardless as ESATA carries no power only Data.

Slackworth · 27 Dec 2007 at 01:13

Take a look at the WD MyBook Home range.

gamesaregood · 27 Dec 2007 at 01:48

I would really look at eSATA drives as they are so much faster...

Here are the HD Tune results from my Seagate eSATA based drive connected to my Asus Motherboards eSATA connection ... although this drive also came with a PCI eSATA card!!!!

Mines a : 500GB Seagate ST3500601XS-RK External eSATA 7200rpm 16MB Cache with 2 Port eSATA Controller PC/MAC.

HD Tune: SATA ST3500641A Benchmark

Transfer Rate Minimum : 29.4 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Maximum : 61.7 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Average : 48.8 MB/sec
Access Time : 28.2 ms
Burst Rate : 114.1 MB/sec
CPU Usage : 6.2%

slipd · 27 Dec 2007 at 12:32

helmutcheese said:
No, the 3.5" HDD's are powered by a Mains PSU as they are 12v, only the 2.5" are 5v so run of USB.

Okay thanks mate - I may need to do a bit of re-organising now: I'm totally out of power sources

helmutcheese said:
If you were using ESATA, it needs powered regardless as ESATA carries no power only Data.

I think my mobo came with an esata blackplate, but I haven't actually seen any external drives that use it? Or am I just not looking hard enough

I'm guessing esata is a lot faster than usb2?

SW.

badbob · 27 Dec 2007 at 12:33

If you have more than one computer on your LAN, or devices that can access data elseware (media streamer, Xbox etc) I'd get a NAS.

helmutcheese · 27 Dec 2007 at 12:59

WD My Book Premium 500ES on Silicon ESATA Asus Striker E.

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Faster then some get internally.

geeza · 27 Dec 2007 at 17:40

Picked up a LaCie 500gb drive today for £70. First impressions are really good, didnt need any drivers and its quite fast. I reformatted it to NTFS. It takes around 30seconds to copy 1gb

Is it worth me installing the one click backup software?

rocketman · 28 Dec 2007 at 19:02

Slackworth said:
Take a look at the WD MyBook Home range.

I'm after a new 500gb one of these. Do you know Slackworth when o/c will have these in? Might go for a 750gb depending on price.

Slackworth · 29 Dec 2007 at 14:30

500GB are not going to be around for a little while as they are fixing an issue they were having.

rocketman · 29 Dec 2007 at 19:43

That's a shame, need an external with eSATA. Will have to wait a while then

farooqm · 4 Jan 2008 at 10:41

Slackworth said:
500GB are not going to be around for a little while as they are fixing an issue they were having.

What issue are they having ???/ Just curious as I'm looking to buy a drive about now....

helmutcheese · 5 Jan 2008 at 01:40

Well buy the WD My Book Premium ES 500GB (the one with the 2 Blue Circles on front), its USB2/ESATA and has no issues, also hits 68MB/Sec for me.

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=224&language=en

slipd · 8 Jan 2008 at 11:44

What about this: http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.j...651e010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD&locale=en-US#

eSATA and I can get it for £64 delivered

SW.

DB_SamX · 23 Jan 2008 at 19:41

Apologies for the hijack but a related, proabaly dumb question: some external HDs have backup software installed on there. Am I right in assuming that the next best thing is just running a backup program (free off the web) to save stuff to the ext HD or is it not possible?