HDD recommendation 2tb or up and usb3.0

[lordhutt]

I need to get some new back up drives.
I seem to remember back in the day that WD was the ultimate choice for a hard drive.
Although I have had a few myself fail me over the years.
Now it seems to be impossible to find anything with consistent reviews...weather it WD, Samsung, Seagate etc and no matter where you look... NewEgg, Amazon etc. there are multiple 1star and 5star ratings!... How can the same drive be perfect and totally suck at the same time!!!

Anyway, back to my question. What have you guys been using lately. I don't care about price... I want something totally reliable that works good (although I realize even the best drives will have a percentage of failures!)
Looking for 2 or 3tb and USB 3.0 since I have it.

I was just going to get the WD Mybook 3tb usb 3.0 but read a bunch of reviews about trouble with win7 64bit and the drive not working without using WD's software???... which I have no desire to use... I want to plug in my drive and see a letter in explorer, that's it.
What's the deal with these 'Lacie' drives? Never used one or know anyone that has although there seem to be some good reviews on it despite the higher price tag...

Anyway.... thoughts, suggestions....
Gonna get a beer whilst I await replies!

[jagabo]

2 TB drives (internal) go for as little as US$80 now. I'd go with that and avoid all the headaches of 3 TB drives.

3 TB drives require BIOS, OS, and controllers that support them. That's probably the source of all the 1 star reviews.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3981/western-digital-caviar-green-3tb-and-my-book-essent...ves-reviewed/2

[lordhutt]

Sorry, should have mentioned I was looking for externals.
2tb was actually what I was looking for.... I usually get online but wanted something today so I went to Best Buy and that is where I saw the WD 3TB for $150.

[edDV]

USB 3.0 is early and buggy. Your listed computer doesn't jive with USB 3.

[jagabo]

And many other devices don't support 3TB drives -- like the Western Digital WDTV media players.

[lordhutt]

And many other devices don't support 3TB drives -- like the Western Digital WDTV media players.

Oh yeah, was not aware of that. Not super concerned about 3tb. 2 or multiple 2's will suffice. Although the usb3 would be nice. My big dilemma at the moment is trying to decide on the brand/model.

[Poppa_Meth]

Buy a small NAS setup and put Samsung Spinpoints in it. You'll have a LAN connection to transfer data, which will be about as fast as you can get.

[PuzZLeR]

Regardless of money, I'd still wait on the 3's too for a bit longer such as USB 3.0 and 3TB - too, too premature. You will need beer for other reasons than relaxing with this today. As others mentioned, I'm perfectly happy with 2's, USB 2.0 and 2TB, today and for some time.

As an aside, blank BD media is finally becoming reasonably priced as well. BD burners are also now dirt cheap. Not that I'm cheap, but c'mon, $500 for a crappy burner and $30-$60/one 25GB disc (as was the case not too long ago) was stupid and insane for mass archiving.

[lacywest]

Okay ... I dont see anybody answering thee question ... for an external USB 2.0 hard drive ... what one has been reliable for you.

I've got 4 Maxtor 500GB and 4 WD and 2 Seagates [different models] USB 2.0 ... they are all 500GB and external USB 2.0 type.

One of my Maxtor 500GB drives ... a 5th one ... started having problems and has been put up on a shelf.

I am getting some good use out of them ... but eventually ... will have to think about replacing them.

I usually just go to Walmart or Target ... here in town and see what the prices are ... so guys what luck have you had ... are the Tera byte Drives good or do they tend to fail quicker than 500 GB drives ??

[jagabo]

Okay ... I dont see anybody answering thee question ... for an external USB 2.0 hard drive ... what one has been reliable for you.

I've never bought a external drive. Only external enclosures and put drives in them. Most of my external enclosures are Vantec NexStar 3 with USB, firewire, and eSata ports. I would recommend using green (low power) drives in these as they have no cooling vents or fans.

[lacywest]

Okay ... I dont see anybody answering thee question ... for an external USB 2.0 hard drive ... what one has been reliable for you.

I've never bought a external drive. Only external enclosures and put drives in them. Most of my external enclosures are Vantec NexStar 3 with USB, firewire, and eSata ports. I would recommend using green (low power) drives in these as they have no cooling vents or fans.

Okay ... I've got a Vantec enclosure but it is for a Pata drive.

The ones for Sata Drives ... I'm interested in the enclosures and infact I've got a two OKGear enclosures. They have been good for me.

Do any of the Sata enclosures say anything about going into Idle mode of some sort ... when windows is not wanting to use it ... to help extend the life of the hard drive inside ?? This is something I'm really interested in ... for sure.

[jagabo]

I know the USB2/Firewire version I have attached to my computer (XP Pro SP3) right now (via USB) does go to sleep after a while. I can hear when the heads park and drive stops and starts spinning. It's down to room temperature after a while.

[MJA]

Fantom is getting very popular

http://www.techbargains.com/product/fantom

[edDV]

I've never had one fail (Hitachi, Maxtor, Seagate, Western Digital) so can't be of help.

[lordhutt]

I generally wouldn't put this much thought into this. Although I have had drives fail in the past... EVERY company will have a drive fail. I would normally just get a WD or Samsung and be done with it. Was going to get the WD MyBook Essential 3tb usb3.0 until I read some of the 1 star reviews on Amazon. I usually ignore 1 star reviews as they are mostly people who don't know what they are talking about or someone who is just angry with the company for some reason.... but when 20% of the reviews are 1 star then I pay more attention.
http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Essential-Desktop-External/product-reviews/B0042...rBy=addOneStar

[lordhutt]

Ok, I should have known better than to listen to 1 star reviewers on Amazon. I bought the WD MyBook 3TB USB3.0.
Contrary to what is said in the reviews....I
Plugged in drive.... Win7 64 bit recognized instantly. It was loaded up with all WD's crapware backup software. Had it formatted in less then a minute, all WD's stuff gone with one giant partition. Transferred my first 200 gig in less then 30 minutes.
The drive works great. This drive will be getting slammed with files for the rest of the week. If I run into any issues I will post here.

Thanks for the replies.

[jagabo]

All 64 bit versions of Windows support >2TB drives. With USB drives you don't have a BIOS or SATA controller in the way.