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Reliable external hard drive

OK well i used to have 2x external hard drives to back up my precious data for my business. They were HP simple saves one was a 2TB and one was a 1TB, the 2TB was fine and fast but it wasnt big enough so i decided to get a 4TB for the future.


I invested in a Seagate 4TB external drive. a Few things i notcied:


- the drive is cheap sounding, when the platter accesses it sounds like cheap metal on cheap metal

- there is always a fan on in the drive to cool it

- which according to reviews i found AFTER i bought the drive (even though i a did a thorough search/reviews of the drive before i bought it!) is useless and WILL not sufficiently cool the drive and it will fail loosing the data contained thereon

- when i did a trasferr of some files (1TB's worth) it was fine, i then did on of 66MB and the drive froze and CRASHED, yes it actually CRASHED my mac! never, ever seen that in all my years of using one!


I refuse, REFUSE to use a drive that will utlimatly fail as well possibly crash and cause damage to my mac, my business machind an


I have tried and tried but i cannot find reviews of drives that are over 3TB unless its customer reviews which vary wildely. I just need to know which is good and which to avoid. Please help, if i want to send the drive back i need to do it within the next few days in roder to swap it/get a refund.

MacBook Air, Mac OS X (10.6.3)

Posted on Oct 17, 2013 1:39 AM

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14 replies

Oct 17, 2013 3:08 AM in response to zerofury

I have a LaCie "Rugged" external HD. It is small and fits into an available space on my desk. Purchased it at an Apple Store. Have had it for a couple of years now. Seems to be functioning fine. Had to use it once to recreate my money management program to return me to a time before I made an error. The process did what it was supposed to do.


Frankly, I hope I NEVER need to use it again. But, it is there.

Oct 17, 2013 4:19 AM in response to zerofury

When you look at drive failure statistics they are really scary. It's like 1 in 9 for year one...4-5 out of 9 by year 5. It's just the nature of low cost drives and low cost drives are all that is left. My best advice is to have 2 drives and ping pong between them. The external enclosure is what you pay for when buying externals from different companies. The drive inside is limited to 2-3 companies which are the only ones left.


So, buy enclosures that allow you to swap out the drive inside. Use two drives and ping pong between them.


Here is an example of my strategy:


One 3TB drive for TM

Two 3TB drives in external enclosures that I have scheduled CCC clones (they alternate, 2 days/week each)

Two 3TB drives in external enclosures that I have scheduled CCC clones (they are stored remotely and I alternate these 2X/month)


It's frustrating but no one relys on just a single backup drive.

Oct 17, 2013 5:28 AM in response to zerofury

Hi Zerofury,


Don't want to sound too negative because I feel for your concerns ... but the plain truth is, any response you get will be largely based on personal experience and as such relevant to their situation only.


From previous questions here, there is no cast iron candidate and you simply cannot 'refuse to use a drive which will ultimately fail' ... because they all will. I use WD after a bad experience with LaCie but note, chessie above is happy with LaCie.


I would certainly double up on the externals where your business is concerned but the cost of regularly renewing back ups will simply have to be met by the business expense sheet.

Oct 17, 2013 5:51 AM in response to zerofury

Statistics are a funny thing. We all have such low sample sizes that almost anything can be believed.


Here is my personal experience last year.


bought 20 drives from newegg. 3 were DOA, 1 died in 2 days, 16 still work. Put this another way, if 20 different people bought these drives from newegg, 16 would say "brand X is great", 4 would never buy "brand X" again.

Oct 17, 2013 5:56 AM in response to ssls6

I get that, i do, really. But it would be nice if there were some reviews out there that werent from 2011 when they appear in google searches, i bought this drive based on GOOD reviews and it also has an equal amount of bad as well, though it was considerably harder to find the bad for some reason.


im going for the samsung ones, my tv is samsung as is my blu ray player. Also the sky is blue.


may as well use that as a measuring stick for their quality, seems like its as good as system as any out there.


What a load of sh*t! this is 2013 for crying out loud, feel like were back to 1998 technologically.

Oct 17, 2013 6:31 AM in response to ssls6

Now im experiencing another issue.


I need to format the drive to send it back for a refund, but it had a backup of all my business/sensitive data that i dont want to be seen or recovered (not that anyone would want to, but just as a precaution.)


So i format normally, which takes about 2 mins. I then decide to do a ONE pass low level format to zero the drive, which i understand should take no longer than 5 hours or so. its done 2hrs now and its show that it has 1 day 12 hours to go and its increasing!! progress bar shows about 3% done.



W T F



seagate you suck the big one!

Oct 17, 2013 9:03 AM in response to zerofury

If you want a more reliable, long-term drive, forget the off-the-shelf brands that you typically find at electronic/computer stores.


For better, reliable Mac hardware, check out OWC (macsales.com)


http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB

They, usually, carry external drives that have better enclosures and use better quality hard drives inside their enclosures.

They have their own line of Mercury hard drives that are, typically, highly recommended.

If you find a drive you like, call them and ask what drives they use inside their enclosures.


Both Seagate and Western Digital make cheap drives and better, more expensive hard drives.

You typically get what you pay for.

Note that hard drives will, eventually, fail. It's not a question of IF a hard drive will fail, but WHEN!

Oct 17, 2013 9:37 AM in response to MichelPM

You'll find this interesting. I guess it is really down to 2 now.


Western Digital is one of the world’s largest producers of data storage devices. In fact, together with Seagate(NASDAQ: STX), these firms more or less have a duopoly in the industry after Seagate acquired Samsung’s HDD business and Western Digital acquiredHitachi’s, leaving the two firms with a combined market share of 87%. Western Digital has a market cap of nearly $11 billion, and its stock is up over 33% in the last twelve months. The stock yields about 2.2% and has a beta of 1.43.

Oct 17, 2013 9:37 AM in response to zerofury

We see questions and pleas for help about seagate and western digital external drives the most in terms of well known brand names. I'm not thrilled with western digital at all but admit that is based on very poor customer support a few years back. They may have become the leaders of service by now (doubt it) but I won't do business with them.


I built my own drives for quite a long time because the savings was substantial but eventually prices dropped faster for ready built than componenets. For a while I was buying Maxtor and LaCie external drives but had some bad experiences - Maxtor interfaces and LaCie quality control was just all over the place. Returned to building my own. I tend to stick with high quality Hitachi and Seagate drives in enclosures from Icy Dock and OWC.

Reliable external hard drive

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