Who has the best external hard drive and why?

[knobtwirler]

Lacie Little Big Disk? Something better?

[alex matson]

A while back, Tapeop favorably reviewed Pacific Pro Audio's external drives. Their ads have been around for years. I've never really heard much about them on this board, however...not sure why.

[parlormusic]

I never really understood why a Lacie HDD, or equivalent, is supposed to be better than mounting a reliable brand of HDD into an external drive case. It doesn't seem cost-effective to me.

[Glory_Morris]

I never really understood why a Lacie HDD, or equivalent, is supposed to be better than mounting a reliable brand of HDD into an external drive case. It doesn't seem cost-effective to me.

Yeah, me either. I have been using the same western digital mounted in an external firewire IDE case for 5 years. It makes a lot of noise, but that's the only problem I've had.

[dirty]

I've got a Lacie, a PPA drive, and a Western Digital in a case from MacSales.com. All have worked well for years.

Although sometimes, the Lacie doesn't like to share a firewire bus with other things. Only sometimes, though. Not sure what that's about.

A related question: Should the next external I get be a firewire RAID (like a G-RAID) or a SATA drive?

[inverseroom]

Which one's quietest?

[knobtwirler]

I never really understood why a Lacie HDD, or equivalent, is supposed to be better than mounting a reliable brand of HDD into an external drive case. It doesn't seem cost-effective to me.

Yeah, me either. I have been using the same western digital mounted in an external firewire IDE case for 5 years. It makes a lot of noise, but that's the only problem I've had.

This is why.

[Gentleman Jim]

Slightly off topic, but in the same ballpark:

I have also been using a Western Digital hard drive in a generic external enclosure for a couple of years. I lost the wall wart to the external enclosure not too long after I bought it.

Long story short, I tried another AC/DC converter (from a friend's external drive), and it worked. Then I had to give the drive back and I tried a bunch of random wall warts that I had laying around, including a couple that claim to be AC/AC adapters. Now I have my friend's external drive again but my generic enclosure won't work. I suspect it's fried.

Did I fry the enclosure or did I fry the actual hard drive? Any guessers?

thanks,
Jim

[digitaldrummer]

Slightly off topic, but in the same ballpark:

Did I fry the enclosure or did I fry the actual hard drive? Any guessers?

thanks,
Jim

have you tried your friend's AC adapter again? otherwise, take the drive out and mount it internally to see if you can still acess it.

[digitaldrummer]

I never really understood why a Lacie HDD, or equivalent, is supposed to be better than mounting a reliable brand of HDD into an external drive case. It doesn't seem cost-effective to me.

there are lots of cheap plastic enclosures out there that have questionable interface circuitry as well as enclosures that don't dissipate heat well and may shorten the hard disk's life (as well as other components in that enclosure). I actually have a couple myself but they are mostly used for backup so I don't leave them on all the time. if i was recording audio to them i'd go for a better quality enclosure. As far as the internal drives - WD, Seagate, etc - there really isn't a whole lot of difference there when you compare apples to apples.

also, some enclosures have better mounting suspension and will take a bit more vibration or shock (from tapping or dropping, etc). Others have multiple interfaces. Firewire is always recommended over USB - even though USB 2.0 has a theoretical transfer rate higher than firewire 400, fw400 outperforms it becuase it is more cpu efficient. but sometimes its nice to have both for flexibility.

Mike

[GooberNumber9]

As an IT professional, I've had a lot of bad experiences with LaCie hard drives. I would never buy one myself.

I was just holding an OWC Mercury Elite Pro and it's a great drive. It has Firewire 400, 800, and USB 2.0 interfaces, an Oxford chipset, and it's very quiet. They are priced around the same as the major competitors in the market, and they come from the factory formatted HFS+. Several studios in the DC area use them, which is how I got turned on to them.

That OWC is not actually mine. I mount drives in a removable enclosure, but the enclosures that I have are loud. The advantage of them is that they are also the caddies for the Alesis HD24, so I can change how I use a drive just by formatting it either NTFS (for normal data) or Alesis' proprietary format for the HD24.

Todd Wilcox

[knobtwirler]

As an IT professional, I've had a lot of bad experiences with LaCie hard drives. I would never buy one myself.

I was just holding an OWC Mercury Elite Pro and it's a great drive. It has Firewire 400, 800, and USB 2.0 interfaces, an Oxford chipset, and it's very quiet. They are priced around the same as the major competitors in the market, and they come from the factory formatted HFS+. Several studios in the DC area use them, which is how I got turned on to them.

That OWC is not actually mine. I mount drives in a removable enclosure, but the enclosures that I have are loud. The advantage of them is that they are also the caddies for the Alesis HD24, so I can change how I use a drive just by formatting it either NTFS (for normal data) or Alesis' proprietary format for the HD24.

Todd Wilcox

If Lacie had not come out with the d2 design, they would go bankrupt with their other totally crappy drives, like the Porsche design and the pre-d2 drives that came in gigantic silver plastic enclosures. You just have to do your research and know a lemon like something stupid called a "Porsche drive". I bought a d2 after being thoroughly disappointed with the previous incarnation of Lacie external drive. After I saw that Bon Jovi can record and mix an entire record strictly running FW400 off two lacie d2 drives that are both dead silent and built like tanks, I knew what to do. That drive is still a champ, but technology is changing for the better to smaller drives and better designs. Sure those OWC enclosures are nice in that generic PC kind of way and they work, but if you are gonna get creative with making that drive inside the most comfortable to last you years without failing and using premium enclosure materials with respect to heat dissipation, noise, and high quality interfacing, please do it right is what I say to these companies, don't just follow the pack from last year's innovations.
The Little Big disk seems to therefore be a continuation of proven design, but it's just a bit of a copout to me, borrowing on old successes, and there must be a new innovator out there worth considering. I want my drive to kill for at least 5 years. I come from the world of tape where I expect my music to still be there after I put it down.

[parlormusic]

I never really understood why a Lacie HDD, or equivalent, is supposed to be better than mounting a reliable brand of HDD into an external drive case. It doesn't seem cost-effective to me.

Yeah, me either. I have been using the same western digital mounted in an external firewire IDE case for 5 years. It makes a lot of noise, but that's the only problem I've had.

This is why.

I can still do the same thing. They have a nice looking case and it's probably quieter than what I have, but I doubt that they make their own "high performance" hard drives. Any glitches in connections that I have had were due to using a cheap PCMCIA firewire card. I don't see how their setup will outperform what I have. For reliability and long life, I do believe in using quality aluminum cases to keep things cool.

[knobtwirler]

I never really understood why a Lacie HDD, or equivalent, is supposed to be better than mounting a reliable brand of HDD into an external drive case. It doesn't seem cost-effective to me.

Yeah, me either. I have been using the same western digital mounted in an external firewire IDE case for 5 years. It makes a lot of noise, but that's the only problem I've had.

This is why.

I can still do the same thing. They have a nice looking case and it's probably quieter than what I have, but I doubt that they make their own "high performance" hard drives. Any glitches in connections that I have had were due to using a cheap PCMCIA firewire card. I don't see how their setup will outperform what I have. For reliability and long life, I do believe in using quality aluminum cases to keep things cool.

Of course they don't make their own drives. The thing that is gonna sell me is "fit like a glove" integration of a quality drive with a custom enclosure. I would consider cheaping out and buying a generic enclosure with a loud fan and plastic on the outside with a lame attempt at heat control by using a thin steel wraparound between the drive and the plastic, but I just can't make myself do it. I'm with you on the aluminum enclosure, and I like your adamant attitude about not buying some company's drive hype. what do you recommend that conforms to your standards?

[parlormusic]

I never really understood why a Lacie HDD, or equivalent, is supposed to be better than mounting a reliable brand of HDD into an external drive case. It doesn't seem cost-effective to me.

Yeah, me either. I have been using the same western digital mounted in an external firewire IDE case for 5 years. It makes a lot of noise, but that's the only problem I've had.

This is why.

I can still do the same thing. They have a nice looking case and it's probably quieter than what I have, but I doubt that they make their own "high performance" hard drives. Any glitches in connections that I have had were due to using a cheap PCMCIA firewire card. I don't see how their setup will outperform what I have. For reliability and long life, I do believe in using quality aluminum cases to keep things cool.

Of course they don't make their own drives. The thing that is gonna sell me is "fit like a glove" integration of a quality drive with a custom enclosure. I would consider cheaping out and buying a generic enclosure with a loud fan and plastic on the outside with a lame attempt at heat control by using a thin steel wraparound between the drive and the plastic, but I just can't make myself do it. I'm with you on the aluminum enclosure, and I like your adamant attitude about not buying some company's drive hype. what do you recommend that conforms to your standards?

I feel like I'm hijacking this thread, so I'll be brief. I don't recall the brand of drive enclosure I have, but the drive does fit fairly well in there and I've had ZERO problems with it for over a year so far. I guess that anyone should do their research to see what actual user feedback there is out there. I have a 120GB Seagate 7200RPM drive in there. I only wish that WD had IDE versions of the 10,000 RPM Raptor. I have 2 of those in my desktop DAW and am loving those sreamin' demons!