hi

im planning to buy 160 GB, 7200 rpm external hdd which connects to my
laptop. i have three choices first is Segate,second is Hitachi and
third is Western Digital. which one u think if of good quality and
which one can you suggest me to buy ?

but found some reviews like this one

"I bought this 160GB external hard drive an amazon in Dec, 2003 (based
on the good reviews it received back then) and it lasted exactly for
two years! A day before Christmas 2005 the drive would out of the blue
issue loud clicking sounds in the middle of the night and by the next
morning (when I discovered it), all of its partitions had become
inaccessible and the drive had died. With the warranty only lasting one
year (kind of tells you how much a company stands behind their
products) I'm basically left with an expensive lemon. With so many
reviewers on here now experiencing similar things in terms of
reliability with Seagate's products I am really wondering if this
industry should have more federal oversight that better protects
consumers from such failures."

hitachi gets hots as the drive is connected and works for long time and
heard that it bursts. and western digital also suffers the same
problem....

please help me as to what to go in for seems that all are not working
when used for long time... is there not external storage... which is
quality ??


thanks

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

Bill Todd <billtodd@metrocast.net> writes:
> I like Seagate ATA/SATA drives because they run cool and have a 5-year
> warranty.  You also used to be able to get some great deals on them at
> outpost.com if you were willing to wait for a special (I haven't
> checked recently).  Add $20 - $30 for a USB 2.0 case or connection and
> you've got external storage at well under $0.50/GB.

It seems to me that the cheap usb cases don't have cooling fans.  That
worries me.  I have a Seagate 160gb ATA drive in a slightly more
expensive USB case that does have a fan, and the drive and case still
get pretty warm when the drive is highly active.  I'm not sure what
alternatives to look for.  I haven't worried too much since I use the
external drive basically as a backup device, so it's powered down most
of the time.

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

Bill Todd <billtodd@metrocast.net> writes:
> I have wondered how much variation there might be in driver quality,
> though - e.g., whether some (less expensive) products might skimp on
> things like parity-checking transfers, or whether all the hardware and
> software comes from the same one or two manufacturers and thus doesn't
> vary in quality at all (save for ancillary elements like fans and
> power bricks).

The ones I've used don't involve any software.  There's just a chip in
the enclosure that presents the USB mass storage interface.
Everything after that is done by the host computer.  I'd like to hope
that stuff like parity checking is done by the chip, but I still
verify all my backups.

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

> I like Seagate ATA/SATA drives because they run cool and have a 5-year
> warranty.  You also used to be able to get some great deals on them at
> outpost.com if you were willing to wait for a special (I haven't checked
> recently).  Add $20 - $30 for a USB 2.0 case or connection and you've
> got external storage at well under $0.50/GB.
>

Be real careful when dealing with outpost.com. I recently learned (the
hard way) that some of their hard drives (seagate, that normally
carries a 5 year warranty) is only given a 30 day warranty. Nowhere in
the outpost.com website does it mention that.  My seagate 400gb drive
took a dump after 5 months and there is no recourse from either outpost
or seagate.

So, make sure that the "great deal" from outpost.com isn't a jar of
vaseline in disguise.

Outpost.com sucks.

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]