[narlus]

what is the best brand for a robust external HDD? my maxtor 300 has been in pretty much constant use (ie, power is ON) for 1.5 years, and is starting to make some noise...i've got the stuff backed up, but it's on a hodgepodge of ~130 DVD-Rs, and it would kinda suck to recreate what is on it if it suddenly died (plus the fact that i've made some incremental edits (mp3 tags, added artwork, etc) to a bunch of the stuff since burning the DVDs).

so, it would be easier to make a swap while the drive is still healthy, then basically just use it as a hibernating archival machine.

should i stay w/ the Maxtor, or take a look at Western Digital, LaCie, or others?

 

[binary visions]

should i stay w/ the Maxtor, or take a look at Western Digital, LaCie, or others?

My personal experience is that Maxtor is one of the least reliable drives. That's just what I've experienced through my own drives and the drives of my friends or at work.

You'll get 10 different people giving you 10 different answers on that, though.

Seagate and Western Digital are both very reliable drives. Seagate, however, goes above and beyond and offers a 5 year warranty on most of their drives. That's a pretty good deal, IMO. I've seen only a few of each brand fail, whereas I've seen a good couple handfuls of Maxtors go.

My recommendation: Western Digital or Seagate. I'm gun-shy with Maxtor after my last two drives from them have failed. I'm sure it was a fluke, but I just won't take that chance again.

I just picked up a 250gb Hitatchi drive for a pittance after rebate. 7-10 years ago they were notorious for failures (their DeskStar drives were nicknamed DeathStars) but I've heard excellent things about them in recent years. We'll see.

edit: Just re-read, and 1.5 years is way too short a time for that drive to be going. I'd chaulk that up to a lousy Maxtor experience if I were you. Drives should last a lot longer than that.

 

[narlus]

well like i said, it just started making a little bit of noise...not saying that it's gonna poop in the sheets at any minute, but i don't want to be unprepared...

are external drives typically rated for continuous service? because like i said, this is usually on 24/7.

 

[Connundrum1]

if you keep your drive running constantly like that and have important stuff on it. You ever thought of using a RAID array? you can get the 2 drives of the same size and mirror them so its always an exact copy of each other or different variations. of course it depends on your budget but you can try looking into it for the stability and just to give you peace of mind that your data is safe.

 

[binary visions]

well like i said, it just started making a little bit of noise...not saying that it's gonna poop in the sheets at any minute, but i don't want to be unprepared...

Yeah, but unfortunately, an escalation in noise is typically an indication of a pretty quick downard spiral

are external drives typically rated for continuous service? because like i said, this is usually on 24/7.

External drives are nothing but a standard hard drive shoved into a USB or Firewire enclosure. It may have come from the factory in the enclosure, but they don't produce special drives for 'em. They shouldn't require any more or any less care than a standard internal drive.

 

[narlus]

is the cooling efficiency of an external any different from an internal?

 

[narlus]

if you keep your drive running constantly like that and have important stuff on it. You ever thought of using a RAID array? you can get the 2 drives of the same size and mirror them so its always an exact copy of each other or different variations. of course it depends on your budget but you can try looking into it for the stability and just to give you peace of mind that your data is safe.

RAID doesn't work for me because of the drive sizes...it would be too much $, so i decided that DVDs were my best archival choice. like mentioned, though, it can't keep up w/ any incremental changes made since burning.

 

[binary visions]

is the cooling efficiency of an external any different from an internal?

Some enclosures have a fan but the cooling efficiency should actually be better with an external drive since it receives constant airflow. Properly set up, an internal drive could receive better airflow since you could set up fans to have constant moving intake/exhaust, but most cases aren't set up that well.

RAID is a nice piece of insurance, but it's not a backup solution. It protects against one thing: solitary drive failure. Power surge, fire, virus, etc. will just eat two drives instead of one. DVDs are a better way to ensure you have a backup. Especially if you can store a set off-site.

 

[Ciaran]

Seagate. Without a doubt.

Maxtor sucks ass.

WD is good, but it's tough to beat the Seagate warranty and that they are known for good drives. (particularly drives for servers)

 

[punkassean]

I have an older 40gb Maxtor and it's still rockin' solid (knock on wood )

It doesn't even have an on/off switch so it runs constantly by default.

 

[Ciaran]

I have an older 40gb Maxtor and it's still rockin' solid (knock on wood )

It doesn't even have an on/off switch so it runs constantly by default.

I have a couple of older ones that are also running strong. I also have a stack of dead ones. The PC's at work also have a stack of dead ones too. I think they were better about 4 years ago.

 

[Pau11y]

I've gone exclusively to Seagates for my storage and WD Raptor 10Ks for my OS drive. A 300GB Seagate SATA drive can be had for around $100.00 after rebate. Look on www.bensbargains.net, I see them all the time. You may be able to just crack the enclosure, move your maxtor to an internal, get the replacement and slap it in the enclosure, then move all your data to the new drive after format. I'd crack the case of the external to see how its wired up first tho, before buying replacements.


Edit: In case you can't tell, I'm all about ghetto riggin' fixes

Oh, speaking of RAID... Anyone want to buy a HP U2W 10 drive ext enclosure cube w/ redundant PSUs? I have all 10 sleds and cable too. All you'll need is a single channel RAID card and however many drives that gets you off and you can have SCSI RAID...woot woot Yeah, and since it's basically two stacks of 5 drives, you can have RAID 5 + 1 (RAID 5 mirrored - stoopid secure and a large waste of money for home user, but...). You'll need a dual channel RAID card for that I think.
Scored it from the boneyard of my last job, and it was in production when I pulled it so it works