External Hard Drive Recommendations

flapmaggot · Post by **flapmaggot** » Tue Nov 18, 2008 12:45 pm

Time for a new external HD to run my sessions. Anything cheaper than GLYPH that is reliable, fast -USB or Firewire? It's been a long time and I've been using a Seagate in an enclosure, which scares me and also have been running stuff from the internal hard drive as well

. Sessions are getting bigger and want to get something solid so that I can sleep better.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!

Thanks, Chuck

sparky · Post by **sparky** » Tue Nov 18, 2008 1:36 pm

"Glyph is pleased to offer Seagate hard drive mechanisms in our hard drive products. Seagate has the best reputation and the lowest failure rates that we've seen from any disk manufacturer " --glyph website.

Are you touring with these things or are they sitting on your desk? If they are just sitting there, there's no reliability advantage to these racked up HDs. They are the same disks inside any way. The cheapest *and* most reliable solution is just to use more than one disk so you have backups. You can get fancy (RAID two disks together) or keep it basic (run an automated backup program to copy your stuff to the backup drive every night). Even if you buy a racked up disk, the disks can randomly fail, so you'd still want backups.

GooberNumber9 · Post by **GooberNumber9** » Tue Nov 18, 2008 1:44 pm

You can UTFSF since this is definitely not the first time this thread has come up. I still love OWC Mercury Elite hard drives.
www.macsales.com

Poppatwang · Post by **Poppatwang** » Tue Nov 18, 2008 3:04 pm

GooberNumber9 wrote:You can UTFSF since this is definitely not the first time this thread has come up. I still love OWC Mercury Elite hard drives.
www.macsales.com

+1

timmymacdd · Post by **timmymacdd** » Tue Nov 18, 2008 3:17 pm

I use the cheapest hard drive for the money at the time I get to the store. But I buy as many as I can. Bang for the buck.....I try to buy whatever 300 bucks will get me......

I would rather have 3 crappy drives than one good one.......

I instantly back up anything good to dual layer dvd and another hard drive. ANd all bands that I record are responsible for their own drives and I let them know it right up front. It is only good for one week here.

But Hard drives can crash anytime........I wouldn't expect one to last over a year.....without making sure it is all backed up at least the important stuff. Generally though if you are planning on really keeping something it should be stored on dvd or even 2 dvd's otherwise you should classify it as important but be able to live without it if worse came to worse. It will be one of the funny things in 30 years to see what great files we have all lost......it won't be like VH-1 flashbacks where they pull out the old reels.....LOL

flapmaggot · Post by **flapmaggot** » Tue Nov 18, 2008 3:21 pm

Those Mercury Elite HD's seem to be the ticket, I knew the you guys would pull through. Thanks for the info on the Glyphs. The Mercurys are 1/2 the price of the glyphs too.

Thanks - Chuck

nopenopenope · Post by **nopenopenope** » Tue Nov 18, 2008 4:39 pm

I hope you haven't clicked "buy" yet....

here's a few things to look for:
Seagate drives (good brand)
Western Digital drives (good brand, especially the Caviar)
aluminum enclosures (dissipates heat WAY better than plastic)
aluminum enclosures with fans for multiple drive enclosures like RAID
Firewire 400/800
eSATA (if you've got it!)
low seek times on the drives
larger buffers = better. look for 32mb for a 1TB drive, 16mb is OK for a 500 drive, but try for 32mb

Avoid:
no-name drives (could be junk!)
plastic enclosures (cooks your drive, or needs a fan to keep it cool which is noisy)
USB (even though USB 2.0 offers a faster burst speed rate than Firewire 400, its sustained rate is too low for our work)

if you own a screwdriver, you too can build your own external HD - and it's generally cheaper. Seriously, it's really really easy. One or two plugs and a handful of screws. Just remember that ATA is not SATA. ATA is PATA. These are different interfaces for hard drives and are not cross compatible.

The drives you got linked to are pretty nice drives, but cost too much for what you get in my opinion.

timmymacdd · Post by **timmymacdd** » Tue Nov 18, 2008 5:58 pm

YEah I should have cleared that up too.......buy the cheapest name brand......western, seagate......

flapmaggot · Post by **flapmaggot** » Tue Nov 18, 2008 5:58 pm

JoshSites -Thanks for all the info. Base don your knowledge on this topic, Is it worth getting a PCIe eSATA card and run the external drive with that? Chuck

junomat · Post by **junomat** » Tue Nov 18, 2008 6:35 pm

flapmaggot wrote:Those Mercury Elite HD's seem to be the ticket, I knew the you guys would pull through. Thanks for the info on the Glyphs. The Mercurys are 1/2 the price of the glyphs too.

Thanks - Chuck

+1. I love OWC's drives.

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/

flapmaggot · Post by **flapmaggot** » Wed Nov 19, 2008 9:07 am

Sweet - Thanks for the recommendation - just clicked the buy button on the OWC drive and will report if there are any issues!

Thanks for the help! Chuck

percussion boy · Post by **percussion boy** » Sat Nov 22, 2008 1:37 am

flapmaggot wrote:JoshSites -Thanks for all the info. Base don your knowledge on this topic, Is it worth getting a PCIe eSATA card and run the external drive with that? Chuck

I'm not josh but . . . check out the speed at which eSATA moves data, vs. the common versions of firewire or usb . . . eSATA can fly . . . plus, the cards aren't much and you can get an eSATA drive that will also do usb, if you ever need it. ((However, note the short maximum cable lengths possible for eSATA.)

Hope this helps.

rwc · Post by **rwc** » Sat Nov 22, 2008 8:33 am

timmymacdd wrote: I would rather have 3 crappy drives than one good one.......

this is one of the worst things I have ever read!

My old boss would consistently buy the CHEAPEST externals.

Shitty chipsets, shitty enclosures, shitty ventilation.

He had a FULL SHELF of AT LEAST 10 that were dead.

And those were of the ones he KEPT.

You don't have to go nuts.

but don't buy junk.

this is your data.

get 3 decent drives. does your & your client's music deserve to be stored on crap?

rwc · Post by **rwc** » Sat Nov 22, 2008 8:35 am

Oh

PLEASE check out this forum.

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/hotdeals

Just put "GB" into your browser's find function.

This is the best place I know of, on the web, to find GOOD cheap shit.

allbaldo · Post by **allbaldo** » Sat Nov 22, 2008 3:23 pm

Another OWC lover here. I've got one pair (primary and backup) that I've been running for 5 years with no problems. I've got a bunch of their others too, and they've been fantastic.

Lately I've been using their "Neptune" line. Inexpensice, and still work great. I like to get pairs of the same capacity, so I can back up each night.

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