Which External Harddrive???

valve90210

valve90210

valve90210

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I am looking for an external hard drive top use for backing up work and photos etc, and maybe music though that's not a top priority.

Having looked around I think I have narrowed it down to 3 different drives and wondered if anyone has any experience of them.

The drives are:

Seagate Pushbutton Backup 400GB External Firewire/USB 2.0 8MB Cache Hard Drive (HD-036-SE)

Western Digital WDXUL4000KDNU Essential 400GB USB2.0 External Hard Drive (HD-068-WD)

and

Western Digital WDXF3200JBRNU Media Centre 320GB External Firewire/USB Hard Drive (HD-049-WD)


I have a few thoughts about these drives, which I am weighing up.

1) the Media Centre drive has a card reader which would be very useful for transferring photos from my camera, and the USB hub would also be very useful as I have several USB devices.

2) the extra space on both the seagate and the other WD drive would be nice, but it is at extra cost.

What are peoples thoughts on these drives and from peoples experience what are they like to use?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Valve
 
I take the pointon the warranty, that is something to consider, but looking at it froma cost point of veiew, it's not gonna make much difference, having just looked on this site it'll cost me much the same if I go with a Seagate, Would be less if I went with a WD drive of course.

Valve
 
Last edited:
back to the drawing board....

Right having spent the afternoon looking into this from the viewpoint of putting a drive in an enclosure I'm further from a decision than I was previously, so I've decided to start from the very beginning.

1) what I want the storage space for.

I want to use the extra space to back up work from my Graphic design business (aas well as backing up to DVD), and to back up my photographs (also backed up to DVD). This will allow me to clear a lot of space on my main data disk which will improve performance in Photoshop etc, while still allowing me access to old files if I need them.

2) How much storage needed.

I have my own business as a graphic designer which I intend to expand during the course of the year, this involves large numbers of high resolution photos etc and large graphics files. Also I am a keen photographer and intend to take loads of photos throughout the year.

As such I need as much storage space as possible.

3) Budget

I don't want to break the bank really, If I did I'd got for a huge Buffalo Terrbyte network storage thingy or similar.

4) connectivity

IIRC I have a spare USB2.0 connector at the back of my mother board, I also have 2 firewire connectors going spare, so either would be suitable.

5) Warranty

I hadn't really considered this until it was mentioned earlier in the thread. Having looked at the warranty on various external HDD, compared to those on internal IDE drives. This has made creating my own external drive much more attractive.


Options:

A) Seagate 400 GB - £184 + p&p

Pro:
huge storage
Good reliable make

Con:
Price, it is the most expensive of my considered options, and while it does include back up software for one button backing up, I have no intention of using this.



B) Western Digital 320GB Media Centre - £132 + p&p

Pro:
Includes card reader
Includes USB hub
safe power off feature
Good Price compared to Seagate

Con:
Less storage space compared to Seagate
1 Year Warranty

C) Western Digital 400GB - £156 + p&p

Pro:
Huge storage space
front mounted power button

Con:
1 year warranty
Price compared to Media Centre

D) Icy Box enclosure & IDE HDD

Pro:
Price compared to others could be lower depending on drive used - smaller drive
storage space - if large drive used
longer warranty on drive

Con:
Price compared to others is large drive used.
Smaller storage if cheaper drive used.
Power switch at rear of unit



Right now, looking at the options above I can't decide what to do. I think I have discounted the Media Centre drive cos I don't really need the card reader and hub, and the Seagate Drive as it's too expensive.

This leaves me with the Western Digital 400GB Drive which would give me masses of space but only a 1 year warranty, or putting my own together.

If I were to go down the route of putting my own together, to get the same amount of storage as the WD drive, it would cost me a similar amount or more but I would have the longer warranty.

One other thing which is making the decision annoying is that the WD drive has a power button located at the front, while the Icy Box has the switch at the back, now I know this is very minor but where the box is to be located is very awkward and to reach round the back of the box to turn it off which it would be most of the time, would be difficult.

I konw this is a huge post but I am really struggling to make a decision here and would like other peoples opions on what to do.

Thanks in advance for any help you can give me

Valve
 
My main reasons for it being switched off most of the time will be to discourage me from just using it as another storage area for crap and secondly to keep noise down.

I'm thinking putting a drive in an enclosre would be my best bet really what drive to get is my main question as a 400gig seagate one would be prettyy expensive and would it be worth the extra cost to just to have the extra warranty???

Valve
 
Right, after some indecision and rethinking, I'm pretty much decided on what to get.

I was thinking of a 400gb seagate IDE drive in an Icy Box enclosure, however, looking at it fresh today I realised that the 400gb drive is just over twice the price of the 300gb seagate drive. Meaning that if I were to buy s second 300gb drive and another enclosure in the future, I would have 600gb of storage for about £20 more than if I went for the 400gb drive now!!!

So my decision is to go for an Icy Box Enclosure, the USB 2.0 one, with blue lighting...though the lighting really is not important to me.

With a either:
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 300GB ST3300622A ATA-100 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-068-SE)

Or

Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 320GB 3200JB ATA-100 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-036-WD)


With delivery this will be just over £100 and will give me a good amount of storage space at a very reasonable price and with a good manufacturers warranty.

I think I'll go for the Western Digital drive as it's only another £5 or so and will give me another 20 gig of space, unless there's any reason not to go for this?

Valve
 
Thanks for the help mate, I'm gonna go for the western digital drive, along with an icy box enclosure.

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, I shall be using this drive as a back up for various business work. I will back everything up to DVD also and move it to this drive to allow me access to it all without having to search through numerous DVD's. This way if I have a drive failure, it won'y be too catastrophic as I will have everything on DVD still.

Valve
 
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