the best harddrive brand

[slimpickins]

im looking for an external hardrive, around 250-400gig
can someone tell em what they think the best brand is, ive heard, seagate abd western digital are good, are all there drives good are there some bad models
it will be used to backup dvd's onto
thansk

[slimpickins]

looking at a western digital "my book" thats 500g, they also do a 400, 320 and 250

[redwudz]

Here you go. A couple of these should give you a little expansion room: http://www.seagate.com/cda/newsinfo/newsroom/releases/article/0,1121,3153,00.html

Personally, I use an internal type SATA drive in a external SATA case. If you have SATA on board your computer, you can't get much faster for an external drive. It will operate at the same speed as the internal SATA drive, but still be external and portable. Much, much faster than Firewire and USB 2.0. There are a lot of SATA external enclosures on the market and it's easy enough to assemble them using just about any SATA hard drive.

Here's one site with a few available: http://cooldrives.stores.yahoo.net/sataenclosures.html
And there are more if you do a Google search. You can also get a SATA PCI socket adapter that plugs into your internal SATA socket and cleans up the installation. Or if you need a SATA card, they are fairly inexpensive, even with an external socket.

[lordsmurf]

Western Digital or Seagate.
Nothing else.
Especially not Maxtor.

[computerchuck]

samsung. Never heard anything bad about them. I've used others maxtor, wd, seagate, but when I switched to sata ii drives, I read the user reviews like on n##egg.com, and it seemed like samsung had the least complaints about failure or DOA. And now there is a 400gb drive out, planning on getting 2 of those in raid. time to sell some ata 250gb maxtors now.

[budz]

Western Digital or Seagate.
Nothing else.
Especially not Maxtor.

Maxtor rulez! It really doesn't matter anymore since Seagate bought out Maxtor. If you get a Western or Maxtor hard drive from a retail store the warranty is only 1 year but if you buy from Newegg.com the warranties on the OEM drives are 3 and 5 years.

[waheed]

Go for redwudz's recommendation. Ive done exactly that. Using SATA for an external drive, cant get any faster.

The one I have has both SATA and USB2 ports so I can use the drive on another PC with USB2 that does not have external SATA port (which is very most likely).

The one I have from the webpage redwudz has provided is:

http://cooldrives.stores.yahoo.net/sahadrenwiou.html

Runs very cool and silent.

[Cobra]

Just moved you into the Computer forum.

I've had a few Maxtor hard drives, with mixed reliability. IBM/Hitachi drives - avoid at all costs.

I use either Seagate or Western Digital SATA drives now. The Seagates are very quiet drives.

[Bjs]

For the moment , dont touch western digital ... control card issue's , even poor platter assembly (sqeaky noise heard) ... stalled transfer's (waiting for something) ... I have returned many ... there now on banned list .

Samsung or seagate are best .

Maxtor , use the actual manufacturer's "new hd install" diskette to pre partition and format the drive for os choice ... do not use xp to do this .

In all our test's , xp partitioned and formated drive's run hotter than normal ... repartition and format using manufacturer's "new hd install" diskette work's better .

[chas0039]

Seagate has a 5 year warranty and I have experienced very good customer support. A clear winner.

[blinky88]

Bjs comment is spot-on. I was recently held up at the counter of my local supplies store by a chap returning 3 new WD drives, he wasn't very happy.

I have been using Seagate HDD exclusively for many years and have not had a problem of any description.

[JohnnyMalaria]

Seagate

[slimpickins]

hi, what do u mean partition and format with thje hd install, doesnt the external hardrive come re4ady to go, ive heard of partition but what exactly does it have to do with this, i assume u uys all know we are talking about external stuff here, in perticular the "my book" series by western digital

[redwudz]

They may be partitioned, but unlikely to be formatted as they don't know what format you want to use. The XP OS can format them, or you can use the software usually included with the drive. It's a simple process, but may take a while with a large +300GB hard drive. I use just a single partition on all my drives, others may use more than one. If you want multiple partitions, you would have to repartition the drive also, then format each partition.

[starwarrior29]

I bought this LaCie external hard drive from buy.com earlier this year and I just upgraded to a new computer a couple of weeks ago and it made the task of moving files to the new computer a lot easier.

[jollyjohn]

G'day
The last WD I had (and the only one), since new, made a a cracking noise and tickled your hand when touched. Clearly vibration from platters out of balance. The hole "can" made a drumming noise, more noticeable at night in total silence. Never again.
John