2TB External HD

bluemachaveli

Picked up a 2TB Seagate External Drive in Maplin, Limerick this morning for €99.99.

Not a bad price for a retail store.

EoghanConway

Astonishingly good price for maplin.

Kev_ps3

Same offer in Harvey Norman

sgarvan

2TB Iomega Prestige Desktop Hard Drives €99 from Peats

http://www.peats.com/cgi-bin/catalog.cgi?view_product=1&id=27358

MarkR

I'm going to get one of these over the next few days. Any particular reason why I should choose one over the other?

MrSparkle

sgarvan wrote: »

2TB Iomega Prestige Desktop Hard Drives €99 from Peats

http://www.peats.com/cgi-bin/catalog.cgi?view_product=1&id=27358

Thanks sgarvan, one Christmas present sorted anyway.

fermeen

MarkR wrote: »

I'm going to get one of these over the next few days. Any particular reason why I should choose one over the other?

The Seagate (aaarvve norman) has a 2 year warranty and the iomega (peats) a 3 year warranty

amacachi

Are the Seagate ones not the ones that have a high failure rate? I'm asking because I don't know, so no-one bear this post in mind when deciding. :pac:
Does anyone know if either has a power switch on them? My main bugbear with the HD I have is the lack of power switch.

slave1

As a variant of the many hard drive threads this past week or so, Aldi have an external USB 3.0 powered hard drive on Sunday, Dec 5th for €80.
Note....USB 3.0

Kev_ps3

slave1 wrote: »

As a variant of the many hard drive threads this past week or so, Aldi have an external USB 3.0 powered hard drive on Sunday, Dec 5th for €80.
Note....USB 3.0

sweet I just got a new laptop with USB 3.0. Must pick one up:)

BostonB

Always have a backup. So consider having two drives of the same capacity rather than just one.

MarkR

Kev_ps3 wrote: »

sweet I just got a new laptop with USB 3.0. Must pick one up:)

No usb3 devices in my house yet. :-) What laptop did you get?

Kev_ps3

MarkR wrote: »

No usb3 devices in my house yet. :-) What laptop did you get?

Dell XPS 15
http://ireland.dell.com/ie/en/home/Dell-Laptops/xps-15/pd.aspx?refid=xps-15&s=dhs&cs=iedhs1&~ck=mn
799 one

serarra

slave1 wrote: »

As a variant of the many hard drive threads this past week or so, Aldi have an external USB 3.0 powered hard drive on Sunday, Dec 5th for €80.
Note....USB 3.0

Yes but note as well that is only 1 Tb, not two as the other ones. And the hard drive itself will not be any faster, as the transfer rate of the hard drive itself never exceeds the maximum speed of usb2

Kev_ps3

serarra wrote: »

Yes but note as well that is only 1 Tb, not two as the other ones. And the hard drive itself will not be any faster, as the transfer rate of the hard drive itself never exceeds the maximum speed of usb2

Im confused.
I just read a bit about usb 2.0 vs 3.0 and its says 3.0 is clearly faster

Jimdagym

Kev_ps3 wrote: »

Im confused.
I just read a bit about usb 2.0 vs 3.0 and its says 3.0 is clearly faster

The USB is faster, but it's throttled by the transfer rate to the actual hard drive.

Ricky91t

Jimdagym wrote: »

The USB is faster, but it's throttled by the transfer rate to the actual hard drive.

So although it's USB 3.0 it's actually no quicker than 2.0... That seems to be pretty sneaky!

Would an SSD have 3.0 transfer speeds?

Jimdagym

Ricky91t wrote: »

So although it's USB 3.0 it's actually no quicker than 2.0... That seems to be pretty sneaky!

Would an SSD have 3.0 transfer speeds?

Indeed it is sneaky.
USB 3.0 operates at 4.8 Gb/s where current SSD's use SATA 3 Gb/s. But as you seen in the posts before, it all depends on whats on the end of the cable.

Caveat: I stand to be corrected on the fiigures. I'm no expert on this.

thebullkf

slave1 wrote: »

As a variant of the many hard drive threads this past week or so, Aldi have an external USB 3.0 powered hard drive on Sunday, Dec 5th for €80.
Note....USB 3.0

i assume its backwards compatible with USB 2,1.1 ..?

it doesn't mention it on the MEDION site

alexlyons

Sorry now, USB 2 is 480Mb/s, Thats Megabits not megabytes.

Sata II is 3Gb/s which is 3000Mb/s

USB 3 is 4.8Gb/s which is 4800Mb/s

So yes, USB 3 will be limited by the hard drive being used, but it is still possible to achieve 3Gb/s. You will not be limited to USB 2 speeds unless you use a USB 2 device or port. Bear in mind real world speeds will be slower due to other parameters, but this is the case with all transfer methods, including USB 2.

The are new SATA III drives out that can support a maximum of 6Gb/s and they would get full use out of USB 3, but in that case, USB 3 is not letting the drive go as fast as it could. You could need the SATA III drive connected to a motherboard that supports SATA III (6Gb/s) to get the fastest transfer rate possible with the devices.

Bear in mind, that the abbreviates for transfer rates are case sensitive.

Kb - Kilobit
KB - Kilobyte
Mb- Megabit
MB - Megabyte
Gb - Gigabit
GB - Gigabyte

That list is in the order slowest>fastest

inforfun

serarra wrote: »

Yes but note as well that is only 1 Tb, not two as the other ones. And the hard drive itself will not be any faster, as the transfer rate of the hard drive itself never exceeds the maximum speed of usb2

True, might only be 1TB but as far as i can see it is a usb powered HDD. Much handier to carry around with your laptop than one that has a seperate power supply. And 80 for a 1Tb ext HDD is a pretty decent price i think.

ALiasEX

A power adapter is mentioned here: http://aldi.medion.com/multimedia/en1/ie/?refPage=aldi

Is it likely to be compatible with USB 2 hardware out of the box?

fleet

USB 3 will be quicker, but not much.

USB2 has a real throughput of about 40MB/s (note the capital "B", allowing for overheads)

Modern hard drives will easily sustain 70-90MB/s

So it could be as much as double the speed if it's giant files you're transferring.

BostonB

Kev_ps3 wrote: »

Im confused.
I just read a bit about usb 2.0 vs 3.0 and its says 3.0 is clearly faster

You're limited to the speed of the hard drive.

serarra

Kev_ps3 wrote: »

Im confused.
I just read a bit about usb 2.0 vs 3.0 and its says 3.0 is clearly faster

The bus is faster.
But not the device.
It is like having a bicycle (it would be the hard drive)
You ride it in a local road, at one speed.
Then you go into the motorway (By the way, don't go into a motorway in a bicycle!! :-P). The bus (The road) allows you to go faster, but it does not matter, as the hard drive (the bike) cannot go faster than you were already riding it.

Now, there are probably a couple more improvements as ncq and things like that in the usb3 hard drive, but don't expect a big difference. And we are talking almost the same price, for twice the capacity. I would always go for the bigger one.

Qwerty?

MarkR wrote: »

I'm going to get one of these over the next few days. Any particular reason why I should choose one over the other?

Waiting on an answer to this too - which one would be more reliable? regardless of warranty (which is useless if a HD fails - you data is still gone)

BostonB

Qwerty? wrote: »

Waiting on an answer to this too - which one would be more reliable? regardless of warranty (which is useless if a HD fails - you data is still gone)

If you have a proper backup, it wouldn't matter if a HD fails.

Qwerty?

BostonB wrote: »

If you have a proper backup, it wouldn't matter if a HD fails.

it would matter- as you've have to go and buy another drive, and back up the 2TB again to it.

Which is why I'm wondering which one is more reliable

BostonB

You get a replacement drive from the warranty and let your backup, sync continue as normal. Its not like you have to watch it copying stuff across, it would do it in a few hours in the background. Its a non event with a backup.

But if as you say a drive fails and you lose your data. You've no backup. You want to sort that out.

http://www.storagereview.com/php/survey/survey_mfr.php

MarkR

Qwerty? wrote: »

it would matter- as you've have to go and buy another drive, and back up the 2TB again to it.

Which is why I'm wondering which one is more reliable

I'm going to go for the iomega one. Even though I do back up to several locations, it is still a pain in the arse to rma hardware, but I reckon there is little enough in the difference between the two.