portable harddrive reccomendations

delfranko

i'm wanna buy a 500GB+ portable harddrive, but i gotta get 1 thats tough as my last one died after being in my bag for a month while travelling. Iwas thinking of getting one of these Freecom toughdrives but wanted to know if anybody knows of any other good tough external HDD's. i only wanna spend about 125

Keano

Cannot go wrong with a Western Digital

Overheal

ive not ever had a problem with a western digital drive.

You should consider if you really need that much data while you travel. If you do, I would get a WD Passport, and treat it well. You can really stuff it into the bottom of a rucksack and hope it will be Ok. Put it somewhere logical and secure. Any drive will be fine as long as its not horribly abused.

Capt'n Midnight

check out for one that has a g-sensor or whatever it's called to turn off the drive as it falls


there is a mil spec , but that only applies to drives that aren't powered up


try to keep the drive horizontal when in use


treat it like eggs, put in a padded envelope is not a bad idea


always run the eject / safe to remove wizard before unplugging to avoid software corruption of files / folders / partition

windows may give you an option to make it run faster, if you choose this then pay special attention to the previous point, since it only runs faster by write caching which makes software corruption more likely in event of sudden removal

buy one with a longer warranty , the assumption is that it might last longer

don't buy one secondhand unless you get it really cheap and you wont' cry if it suddenly dies

Amalgam

Remember too, that if you buy the likes of Verbatim or an Iomega or a Lacie, the 'outer case' brand will not match the hard drive inside, it'll either be: Toshiba, WD (Western Digital) or.. if you're unlucky, a Seagate..

+1 for the Western Digital Passport.

dubmick

I am big fan of WD passports but I've just recently had a 500gb one fail on me after just three months. A replacement is on the way from WD as we speak. I've also heard the build quality isn't as good on the new models. See Amazon.co.uk reviews for more information.

Overheal

dubmick wrote: »

I am big fan of WD passports but I've just recently had a 500gb one fail on me after just three months. A replacement is on the way from WD as we speak. I've also heard the build quality isn't as good on the new models. See Amazon.co.uk reviews for more information.

So get one of the more trustworthy 320s.

always run the eject / safe to remove wizard before unplugging to avoid software corruption of files / folders / partition

Thats not bad advice but all it seems to do is check if you have any processes trying to access the files. If you were copying a folder it would tell you no, etc.

I find it a bit paranoid. I only do one thing with my drives and thats Copy and Paste. I could understand wanting to eject if you were running U3 or Portable Apps though.

dubmick

Overheal wrote: »

So get one of the more trustworthy 320s.

It's not really good enough though is it? Your average consumer would not know that the 320gb version is more reliable.

Redvers

I had a Seagate Free Agent Desktop fail after 6 months. Did a search and found many similar failures reported.

To eliminate the USB interface I dismantled it and connected it to the motherboard using a SATA cable but it still would not work. It spins up but thats all.

Capt'n Midnight

dubmick wrote: »

It's not really good enough though is it? Your average consumer would not know that the 320gb version is more reliable.

the main difference is the drive, inside not the usb controller, not the fancy box

problem is you can't see how reliable they are until they have been on the market for a while and even then it's all word of mouth


The Silver IOMEGA 320's had seagates inside - another batch may have had something different

Amalgam

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

The Silver IOMEGA 320's had seagates inside - another batch may have had something different

..and then it isn't just any Seagate that has a higher failure rate, generally just the recent batch when Seagate sourced\manufactured in China.

Personally, I'd see a 500GB laptop drive as being a bit more prone to failure\breaking, than a 320GB drive, regardless of brand. Specially if you're carrying it around in a College backpack, jacket pocket etc..