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  1. VH Wanderer Ai Haibara's Avatar
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    I've been considering buying a WD USB external drive, basically the 320/500GB ~$100 drives you see on the shelves at Best Buy, Target, etc. But I have a few questions...

    Are they generally reliable? (Of course...)
    Do I have to have software installed in order to use/manage them? (Not formatting, but general use.) I'd basically like to be able to use it with my non-Windows systems as well (the systems don't have a problem with NTFS, as far as I'm aware), but requiring a manager to be installed under all those different setups would be something of a pain.
    Being able to use it with my Phillips 5990 would be nice - but that would also mean I'd have to format it as FAT and partition it, which I'd rather not do, anyway. But I'll probably end up getting a WDTV, so... it should work with that, right? :P
    If cameras add ten pounds, why would people want to eat them?
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  2. Mod Neophyte Super Moderator redwudz's Avatar
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    I have three or four external drives and they all work fine with my WD Live.

    The Fantom brand external drives did use the arguably better quality WD HDDs, not sure if they still do. But they are generally cheap and have a decent metal enclosure. Most are now 'Green' drives to reduce power usage, so they run fairly cool. I also have a WD passport 2.5" drive that works well and runs off the USB power. No dependability problems with any of them. I don't use my Philips 5990 much any more since I got the WD Live, so I don't have any FAT32 formatted hard drives, just USB sticks.

    With most of those external drives, I reformat them with a PC to NTFS if they're not already. Some have manufactures crap on them I don't need and some came as FAT32 formatted. Nothing added otherwise to the drives.

    My understanding is that S.M.A.R.T. disk checking doesn't work with USB, so if they are going to fail, about all you may hear is some final clicking.
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  3. Always Watching guns1inger's Avatar
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    I am running 1 x 1TB WD 2.5 inch Passport, 1 x 750GB WD 2.5 inch Passport, 1 x 500 GB ASUS (WD) 2.5 inch, 1 x 320 GB WD 2.5 inch passport and a 1 TB Verbatim (WD) 3.5 inch. The 1 TB and 750 BG passports sit on the WDTV, the 500 GB sits on the PS3, the 1 TB 3.5 inch does backup duties on the desktop, and the 320 GB passport does backup duties on a laptop. I also have a 320GB 3.5 inch WD 'book' drive that has been running smoothly for a few years now. All get regular workouts (especially those hosting videos) and all have been very reliable.

    I used to use Seagate portable drives, but these have not proven themselves very reliable, although the Seagate fixed drives have always been good.

    The Seagate vs WD portable drive issue has been borne out anecdotally at work as well, where we have had to return 9 out of 12 Seagate portable drives within 18 months of purchase, but all 9 WD portable drives have been fine. We now only purchase WD portable drives, and recommend the same to users. If friends or family ask me what to buy, I always suggest WD 2.5 inch passports.
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  4. VH Wanderer Ai Haibara's Avatar
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    I haven't been confident about Seagate drives in quite some time - I've had too many internal Seagate drives fail on me, for that. Plus, I've been hearing failure stories about the USB external drives, as well, so I don't think I'll consider those, either.
    If cameras add ten pounds, why would people want to eat them?
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  5. Mod Neophyte Super Moderator redwudz's Avatar
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    USB external drives normally don't have cooling fans, and that probably reduced the drive life expectancy in the past with the higher speed drives. But with all the 'Green' drives out now and in common use for USB external drives, not as big a problem. They commonly use a lower speed, 5400RPM instead of 7200RPM, and that seems to have reduced the heat output and improved their longevity. With USB 2.0 transfer speeds, not a problem with the slower drives.

    Another major factor with any HDD is how much it has been tossed around in storage and shipping. NewEgg in the past has been guilty of causing the premature death of quite a few drives from faulty packing and shipping, IMO. Other companies have probably done the same. The large capacity drives are especially susceptible to shocks and have to be packed properly and treated gently during shipping as they are very easily damaged.

    I got a couple of 2GB Samsung HDDs recently, and they also seem to perform well. Some members have had good luck with the Hitachi drives. Even WD has put out some models and versions of drives that seem to have a overly high failure rate. But with any drive it depends on where it was produced, the engineering design, and the quality control at the manufacturing plant, along with good shipping practices. I tend to go with drives with longer warranties. They may die just as early as a short warranty drive, but at least the replacement is cheaper when still under warranty. But a standard rule for me, 'Don't put anything on a HDD that you can't afford to lose', and then even a failed HDD is not a major disaster.

    I have well over 30 HDDs of different brands, vintages and capacities running at present in different PCs and it's been over a year since a major failure, so I think the average failure rate has decreased a bit, at least for me compared to my past experiences.

    Sorry for the rant.
    Last edited by redwudz; 27th Dec 2010 at 20:46.
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  6. VH Wanderer Ai Haibara's Avatar
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    No, I don't mind the rant. I didn't even think to ask about potential issues with cooling, to be honest.
    I'll just have to remember to bring along a pocket fan or a laptop cooling board just for the drive. (Yes, for anyone who's wondering, I'm kidding. )

    Do most of the drives require a manager in order to work with/transfer files to and from the drive, though? One of the ones I've seen was the WD MyBook, and I think that either that one or the Passport did require such a setup, at least according to some posts I'd read (can't even remember if it was on VH...) about two or three years ago.
    If cameras add ten pounds, why would people want to eat them?
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  7. Explorer Case's Avatar
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    I have a WD Elements Desktop 1TB disk that acts just like any disk, no managers involved, just recognized as a USB storage device by drivers in the OS. I reformatted it to HFS+.

    Many WD external drives come bundled with backup managers, though. But there is no requirement to use or keep that software.
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