External hard disk drive?

adam917 2005-08-19 18:50:40 UTC #1

Hello. I'm looking at getting an external hard drive for part of my data archive that I plan to have archived on DVD-Rs, CD-Rs, & an external hard drive. I need something big & what Western Digital if currently offering doesn't seem bad for the price (320 GB USB 2.0/IEEE 1394 external, ~238 USD from New Egg incl p&p). I need the most reliable thing I can get too, so even if I have to step down a notch or two on size, I'll do that.

So, what do others here think about this? Is it safe to buy? Will it last me a while (=> 3 years) if treated right?

phil1 2005-08-19 19:47:47 UTC #2

i wouldnt buy a standalone external hdd for 4 reasons
a) they all have only 1 year warranty
b) most boxes are plastic (aluminium is better with heat disposition)
c) nearly all dont have a fan (which may extend the hdd life)
d) an ide hdd+external enclosure is always cheaper

i suggest youll get an ide hdd+external enclosure its much better,seagate have the longest warranty 5 years ,i suggest youll get one of these seagates
400gb seagate (251.50$)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148060
300gb seagate (160.50$)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148061
along with this external enclosure,
ams venus 3.5 external enclosure usb+firewire (53.99$)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817145657
in my opinion its the best 3.5 external enclosure its very easy to use as it have
a sliding tray+aluminum+80mm silent fan and it supports upto 400gb

with the 400gb+external enclosure it totals at 305.49$
with the 300gb+external enclosure it totals at 214.49$
anyway firewire is faster then usb (usb about 19 mb/s and firewire 33 mb/s) also its less resource hog then usb so its best to use firewire and if your motherboard dont have firewire a card is cheap (13-21$)

edit: oops accidently puted a 4 at the 400gb+external price got it fixed

rdgrimes 2005-08-19 20:22:14 UTC #3

I second the vote for an IDE drive with an external box. Get a 5" box that you can laos put a burner in, they come with fans and the drive will stay nice and cool. Stick with firefire too, preferably a Prolific chipset.

phil1 2005-08-19 20:38:06 UTC #4

you must have missed something hes talking bout a hard drive not a burner

rdgrimes 2005-08-19 20:40:13 UTC #5

:doh:
I'm not missing anything. The larger box runs cooler and gives you the option of using it for a burner too.

phil1 2005-08-19 20:43:36 UTC #6

your right my bad i guess you meant later with that "laos" which i couldnt understand

xtacydima 2005-08-19 22:32:54 UTC #7

http://club.cdfreaks.com/showpost.php?p=1081876&postcount=3

adam917 2005-08-20 07:22:17 UTC #8

phil_:

i wouldnt buy a standalone external hdd for 4 reasons
a) they all have only 1 year warranty
b) most boxes are plastic (aluminium is better with heat disposition)
c) nearly all dont have a fan (which may extend the hdd life)
d) an ide hdd+external enclosure is always cheaper

i suggest youll get an ide hdd+external enclosure its much better,seagate have the longest warranty 5 years ,i suggest youll get one of these seagates
400gb seagate (251.50$)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148060
300gb seagate (160.50$)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148061
along with this external enclosure,
ams venus 3.5 external enclosure usb+firewire (53.99$)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817145657
in my opinion its the best 3.5 external enclosure its very easy to use as it have
a sliding tray+aluminum+80mm silent fan and it supports upto 400gb

with the 400gb+external enclosure it totals at 305.49$
with the 300gb+external enclosure it totals at 214.49$
anyway firewire is faster then usb (usb about 19 mb/s and firewire 33 mb/s) also its less resource hog then usb so its best to use firewire and if your motherboard dont have firewire a card is cheap (13-21$)

edit: oops accidently puted a 4 at the 400gb+external price got it fixed

Thanks for all this info!

One question: Is that awesome enclosure USB 2.0 or only 1.1? As I heard that USB 2.0 is faster (400 Mbit/s) than IEEE 1394 ('Firewire'). Looks like I'm still getting this combination, then. If I have to get the IEEE 1394 adaptor, I'll get it. Thanks a million!

adam917 2005-08-20 07:24:47 UTC #9

Interesting adaptor(s). I guess these can be good for a temporary hook-up of HDDs.

rdgrimes 2005-08-20 07:44:49 UTC #10

USB2 is most deffinitely not faster than firewire, but much slower. The ratings are for burst rates. On sustained transfers, firewire can be as much as 50% faster than USB2. This is due to a higher throughput, and being a bidirectional connect. Firewire is also less buggy.

jasonl813 2005-08-20 09:20:05 UTC #11

I bought an IOGear 160GB USB 2.0/Firewire 400 drive around Christmas. At the time is was only $130. The IOGear drive line has a 3 year warranty and mine has a Western Digital drive in it. I use the USB interface and achieve 31MBps read speed and 20MBps write speed. The drive has been a workhorse for me and it is nice to be able to rip a DVD to the drive at a full 16X.

I also decided I would build a 2nd external drive with a SYBA enclosure. I can only get 10MBps transfer to and from the drive via the USB 2.0 interface.

phil1 2005-08-20 10:08:41 UTC #12

http://www.iogear.com/main.php?loc=product&Item=GHD335C160 , preety good speeds the write speed probably could have go bout 10mb faster with firewire,as for the syba external enclosure that transfer rate sounds like usb 1.1 have you connected it to the motherboard usb or to a usb hub?

maybe you paid for extra warranty wherever you got it from or the warranty page on iogear got you confused (hasnt been updated since may 2002) iogear have only 1yr warannty if youll check newegg and google youll see that also according to iogear themself on the product page its 1yr
http://www.iogear.com/main.php?loc=product&Item=GHD335C160 , preety good speeds the write speed probably could have go bout 10mb faster with firewire,as for the syba external enclosure that transfer rate sounds like usb 1.1 have you connected it to the motherboard usb or to a usb hub?

edit when buying western digital hdds regulary it comes iwth 3yr but does that also apply to wds sold in external boxes? im not so sure bout that
edit2: wd 2mb buffer drives have only 1yr

jasonl813 2005-08-20 10:30:57 UTC #13

phil_:

maybe you paid for extra warranty wherever you got it from or the warranty page on iogear got you confused (hasnt been updated since may 2002) iogear have only 1yr warannty if youll check newegg and google youll see that also according to iogear themself on the product page its 1yr

http://www.iogear.com/main.php?loc=product&Item=GHD335C160 , preety good speeds the write speed probably could have go bout 10mb faster with firewire,as for the syba external enclosure that transfer rate sounds like usb 1.1 have you connected it to the motherboard usb or to a usb hub?

maybe you paid for extra warranty wherever you got it from or the warranty page on iogear got you confused (hasnt been updated since may 2002) iogear have only 1yr warannty if youll check newegg and google youll see that also according to iogear themself on the product page its 1yr
http://www.iogear.com/main.php?loc=product&Item=GHD335C160 , preety good speeds the write speed probably could have go bout 10mb faster with firewire,as for the syba external enclosure that transfer rate sounds like usb 1.1 have you connected it to the motherboard usb or to a usb hub?

edit when buying western digital hdds regulary it comes iwth 3yr but does that also apply to wds sold in external boxes? im not so sure bout that
edit2: wd 2mb buffer drives have only 1yr

Hmmm. No, my manual states a 3yr warranty. It's not their ION line of drives. It's the GHD135C160. Here is a place that still has them listed. http://www.computers4sure.com/product.asp?productid=1771611&iid=331

Guess I was lucky to grab one before they discontinued the line.

Both the IOGear and the SYBA are plugged into the same USB 2.0 controller on the motherboard. If it was USB 1.0 I would only be getting about 1MBps since USB has a max throughput of 11mbps.

phil1 2005-08-20 10:53:20 UTC #14

seems i copied & pasted my reply when i edited my post didnt notice it til now,anyway
lucky indeed,good point on the usb forgot bout that for a moment , i guess your external enclosure is faulty or the hard drive have issues and thats why transfer rate is so slow i suggest youll test the transfer rate directly without the external enclosure

jasonl813 2005-08-20 11:07:28 UTC #15

The drive in the SYBA enclosure works great plugged straight into an IDE controller. I think the enclosures are inherently slow. They are very cheap enclosures. They are reliable, but not speed demons. I have a DVD burner installed in the same model enclosure and the read/write speed maxes out at 8X.

Deer_Slayer 2005-08-20 22:09:18 UTC #16

Some benchies of my USB 2.0 hard drive!!!! I've never had a problem ripping to this drive @ 16x, or burning from it @ 16x! It's kept up with both my DVD-ROM ripping, and my 3500a with it's fastest burns. I'm EXTREMELY pleased with this enclosure, and it was only $30 from the local puter shop. I have a 100gb maxtor 8mb cache diamond max 10 in there right now that I picked up from best buy for $50. It's a LOT faster than what most of you guys report getting out of your USB 2.0 hard drives. It uses a Cypress chipset, which some people despise because they DON'T WORK with optical drives for squat. But as you guys can see, for a hard drive OMG!! I forget what brand this thing was but it's a small shiny black plastic box with a 40mm fan in the bottom taht is mostly plugged, and a little external PSU for it. I modded the bottom fan grill to actually allow some airflow by cutting it out with a hot soldering gun (stinky melting plastic :Z :Z :Z ) . Then I left the faceplate out and just stuffed some black foam in there. It looks good, and the hard drive stays cool. :iagree: :bigsmile:

drpino 2005-08-21 11:46:43 UTC #17

going against the grain of buying an external enclosure and internal drive separately, i've worked the shit out of this drive and it's been nothing but great...pricey, YES...but (FOR ME) it's been worth every penny (they've got a FW800 version now too for those select few of you with FW800 capability and Mac users):

Maxtor OneTouch II FireWire and USB

Maxtor OneTouch II FireWire and USB

Hard drive: 3.5 inch ATA with Ultra ATA 133 interface
Capacity: 250GB & 300GB
RPM: 7200
Cache buffer: 16MB
Average seek time: ≤9.0ms
Interface: 1394/FireWire/i.LINK and USB 2.0/1.1
[b]Sustained transfer rate (maximum):

[b]Bus transfer rate (maximum):

Operating temperature: 5Â°C to 35Â°C (41Â°F to 95Â°F)
Dimensions: 1 5/8 x 5 Â½ x 8 5/16 inches (41 x 140 x 210mm)
Weight: 3.1 lbs (1.38 Kgrams)
AC input voltage: 100-240 VAC
Input frequency: 47-63 Hz AC

phil1 2005-08-21 12:00:19 UTC #18

it only got 1 year warranty so how can you say that :doh: :Z

drpino 2005-08-21 12:09:56 UTC #19

true about 1 year warranty...i'll cross that bridge if/when i come to it

adam917 2005-08-23 11:54:13 UTC #20

What do all of you think about the Western Digital 3200JB (320-billion byte)? It has a 3-year warranty & seems to come up on PriceGrabber.com as 135 USD as the 'BottomLinePrice' from ZipZoomFly.com. I heard from plenty of people before, that WD equals reliability. So, think this is a wise buy?