[Tfug] In need of hard drive info

[Jim March]

As far as a reliable drive, I like Western Digital in the #1 slot,
with Seagate shortly behind - not by much, if I saw a good deal on a
Seagate I'd grab it.

Maxtor is Seagate's "bargain line" and I personally avoid.  I've also
had recent trouble with a Hitachi and I don't have a lot of love for
Fuji.  Toshibas are supposed to be decent.

If you buy an external chassis from Simpletech, Buffalo or the like
you really have no idea what drive is in there.  Mind you, when I
bought a Simpletech external in '06 it turned out to have a nice
Western Digital drive inside, which I still own (chassis broke long
ago).  But it's still a crapshoot.

What else...OK YEAH, the Seagate "Freeagent" series externals are
wonky with Linux.  Not sure the details but basically it does a
non-standard power savings shutdown mode that causes a disconnect when
you're not actually pumping data in or out.  I think there's a fix of
some sort but I would still avoid...this does NOT apply to a Seagate
raw drive mechanism in a standard external case.

I can also tell you it's usually better to buy a raw drive and an
external case to bolt it into.  One thing you can usually get in
external cases is an E-Sata port, which will be faster than USB when
you upgrade to that port on your computer or add one.

Plus, the chassis will generally die long before the drive inside.  If
you have a warrantee separate on the drive mechanism and the chassis,
you can swap out the chassis for $20 and get a replacement later and
get the drive up and running with 10 minutes of screwdriver work and
drive to SWS and back.  If you buy an integrated external drive in a
chassis, opening it up voids the warrantee on everything, so you can't
back the drive up in it's dead chassis and you have to send the whole
thing with data intact back to whoever made it and hope they don't
either re-format it or steal your data.

You can also take an old computer case and wire it up with multiple
drive mechanisms, setting it up as a single large external drive stack
with the right USB adapters or similar gear.  That can be more
convenient than separate external drives each in their own chassis
with their own power supply and power cord.

Jim

On Fri, Dec 26, 2008 at 4:16 PM, keith smith <klsmith2020 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
> Hi,
>
> I need to add a second drive to two of my boxes for back up purposes only.
> I was looking on NewEgg and found prices have dropped more than I would have
> ever imagined.
>
> I'm wondering the best place in town to buy hard drives?
>
> Also I seem to recall cooling was a concern for larger drives some time
> ago.  I'm thinking 500 GIG would work.  Is cooling still a problem?
>
> What drives are the best these days?
>
> As you can see I'm really out of the loop.
>
> Thanks for your help and feedback.
>
> Keith
>
> ------------------------
> Keith Smith
>
>
>
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