New external HDD recommendations?

EMA747

EMA747

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Andy
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I'm in need of a new external HDD. Needs to be 1TB minimum and preferably USB3 but not essential. Can anyone recommend a good one? There are just so many on ebuyer etc that it's hard to know which to go for.

Thanks in advance. :)
 
I posted this on another thread:

I bought a couple of Buffalo 3 TB USB 2 drives - they're now £85 each, or cheaper than a bare drive. The USB 3.0 version is £113

USB 2
http://www.ebuyer.com/320355-buffalo-3tb-drivestation-desktop-hard-drive-hd-lb3-0tu2-uk

USB 3
http://www.ebuyer.com/282540-buffalo-3tb-velocity-drivestation-hard-drive-hd-lx3-0tu3-eu

Warranty is 2 years. You can find external drives with a 5-year warranty but they are more than twice as expensive. Logically the best thing to do is to buy the 2-year warranty drives and throw them away when they are 2 years old

Nick Froome
 
Thanks I will have a look into them.
 
USB3 being new is still quite expensive, eSata on the other hand isn't so new and eSata drives are as fast as the HDD inside your PC.
Usually an eSata external HDD will also have a USB2 port.

Each eSata port has it's own set bandwidth, whilst USB1/2/3 shares across all it's ports, so if you have eSata ports on your main machine then eSata would be a really good bet.
They used to be the reserve of top end motherboards, but I think they start to trickle down.


Brand wise, I don't touch anything that's not a Samsung or Western Digital. Samsung Spinpoint HDDs with liquid bearings, are very quiet. WD have always had the edge on speed and reliability.
My desktop uses WD, my media server under the TV uses Samsung :)
 
Last edited:
Lyonspride said:
The point really was to steer OP away from cheap stuff and point out the advantages of the two different drive manufacturers that I use for my stuff (and why), to most people a HDD is just a HDD.
Click to expand...
My post basically says drive manufacturers are a lottery. Just because brand X had a good 1TB drive doesn't mean it will have a good 2TB drive. There are only a handful of drive manufacturers (Samsung were sold to Seagate BTW) and they all have multiple factories - each with a different QC level...

Fundamentally, you should plan on drives failing.
 
Personally I'd buy a good quality enclosure and then add a disc of the size you need. You mention 1TB min, so go for that for now as these are dirt cheap. Then as your usage grows, upgrade to say, a 2TB, which will have dropped in price by then.

I use an Akasa USB3.0/eSata case. Turn the key and pop out the drive to swap it.
 
DuncanF said:
Personally I'd buy a good quality enclosure and then add a disc of the size you need. You mention 1TB min, so go for that for now as these are dirt cheap. Then as your usage grows, upgrade to say, a 2TB, which will have dropped in price by then.

I use an Akasa USB3.0/eSata case. Turn the key and pop out the drive to swap it.
Click to expand...
Where can you buy these Duncan?
 
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