WAcky Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 Hey all. The office I'm working in had decided to buy a couple of 1tb External HDD's and the decision is proving more than difficult. We're looking for an HDD with as close to 1tb of space as possible with a reasonable price tag, but the biggest draw card is an eSATA connection for much better transfer rates than USB or FW400/800. Initially I was looking a the Seagate FreeAgent Xtreem 1Tb which, on first impression, has everything we're looking for plus useful packaged software. The first reviews I read were positive but some of the user reviews floating around are less that desirable. After looking at a few others from different brands, this seems to be a simmilar trend across the board where reviews are good, but follow up user reviews speak of HDD's dying and having a horrible time rectifying the problem. The options which fit my needs and are of reasonable price are listed below. WD mybook 1tb home $239 WD mybook 1tb studio $255 (needs to reformatted for PC) SG FreeAgent Xtreem 1tb $265 Verbatim 1tb $165 Lacie 301315A 1tb $292 (not many real reviews on either lacie) Lacie 301826A 750gb $265 (32mb cache. Bigger cache the better?) Any thoughts or experience with any of these? I'm open to suggestions but these ones are easily available to me and fit my needs. Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mi75 Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 My comments are only relevant to the brand and not the size. I've had a SG FreeAgent for about 2 years, not the 1TB. I've never had a single problem with it. Its USB but I only connect it up and use it about once a day at most to do backup of a working folder and once a week for a drive backup. I was also looking at buying the one 1TB version pretty soon since space is becoming an issue. One criteque is that it does hummmmm quiet loud when connected, not an issue for me because I'll leave the room while it does a back up anyway. I'm not sure if thats a common trait for Ext drives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Mottle Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 I personally would not spend that much money for a enclosure/drive package when you can buy the enclosure and drive separately for much less. I have been using this enclosure: http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX20100(ME).aspx and a 1TB drive for about a year for my backups. I've used this enclosure itself for 2-3 years before I recently added a 1B drive.The enclosure has no fan, but is designed to act as a heat sink as it's all aluminum. Works like a charm. They also sell smaller 2.5" versions too for Notebook drives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shaneis Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 +1 for the separate items option. Cheaper - especially if you want to shelve a full HDD for archives and just replace it with another. Coolermaster also makes the eSATA external cases http://www.coolermaster.com/products/product.php?language=en&act=category&tbcate=32 They're easy to buy as well, stocked in most computer shops. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WAcky Posted July 22, 2009 Author Share Posted July 22, 2009 I was looking at the cooler master but its not as easy to find as it should be. I was also looking at the Antec MX1 but it appears that many people are finding the antec has a defective fan that gets louder and louder over time. The other option is the Vantec NexStar 3 (NST-360SU) I'll keep searching! Thanks for all the advice guys! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Twyman Posted August 2, 2009 Share Posted August 2, 2009 Hey, I would absolutely stay away from the Seagate FreeAgent Xtreme. Mine seems to have caused nothing but problems with my whole system(something that I didn't think an external hardrive could really do! apparently plug and play!) You only have to take a look at the Seagate forums to see that I am definitley not the only one experiencing problems. Something to do with dodgy firmware for the internal drive that can't be updated I believe. Plus it has some fancy built in software that turns itself off after 15 mins and in my case takes half your computers system files with it!! Definitely not a drive to be relied on which is what you need. Seagates support seems to be an absolute joke as well going on the posts that I have read regarding this matter. Have just ordered a new Lacie Rugged XL to replace it. MY old Lacie D2 has been great (just too small now) and when my power supply went lacie had a new one to me in a few days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jackb602 Posted August 2, 2009 Share Posted August 2, 2009 Other World Computing has a line of very well reviewed external drives. They're called Mercury Elite Pro and it looks like they're selling the enclosure with a 1TB 7200 RPM drive for $165. The drive includes eSata, FW800, FW400 and USB 2.0. I haven't bought this particular drive from them, but I've been buying RAM, drives and other enclosures from them for years without any trouble. Jack Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WAcky Posted August 3, 2009 Author Share Posted August 3, 2009 Hi everyone and thanks for all the suggestions. I decided to take Jeff's advice and go for an HDD with enclosure which has turned out a lot cheaper. I got the cooler master x craft 350 which on the box says it's only compatible with 500gb HDD's but on the site says its compatible with drives up to 1tb. Strange. Anway it was a lot easier to assemble than all the reviews I have read. It took me a while to set up and work out what works and what doesn't but it seems to be ok. I've yet to do any real testing as the offices new computers are sitting in the corner waiting to be hooked up and have all the networking worked out. The simple backup software is pretty good but it only seems to work with the USB connection and not eSata which is a tad disappointing. I'll get back to you with some results if I manage to get it all working... Cheers guys Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
visual3d Posted August 3, 2009 Share Posted August 3, 2009 Get Western Digital Black Edition. Worth it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shaneis Posted August 3, 2009 Share Posted August 3, 2009 Hey, I would absolutely stay away from the Seagate FreeAgent Xtreme. Mine seems to have caused nothing but problems with my whole system Sheesh, Seagate's really dropped the ball this last year. What's the bet the HDD is a left over of the 7200.11 disaster from a few months back. It's a shame you can't upgrade the firmware though. Thought of boxing it and sending it back? The UK's consumer laws should cover you for a full refund/ exchange for equivalent. Yet another reason to buy the DIY external drives. The simple backup software is pretty good but it only seems to work with the USB connection and not eSata which is a tad disappointing. Try Bacula (free, as in beer) and available for Win32 and Win64. http://www.bacula.org/en/ Best of all is that it's not limited to single workstations or greedy licenses, so should your network /or needs change, you can just alter your backup strategy (and paths). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Twyman Posted August 3, 2009 Share Posted August 3, 2009 Sheesh, Seagate's really dropped the ball this last year. What's the bet the HDD is a left over of the 7200.11 disaster from a few months back. It's a shame you can't upgrade the firmware though. Thought of boxing it and sending it back? The UK's consumer laws should cover you for a full refund/ exchange for equivalent. Yet another reason to buy the DIY external drives. Hey, Yeah I think that's is exactly what it is. It is these HDD with the problems that are inside the Free Agent Xtreme (and other seagate drives I guess). But for Some reason Seagate are saying there is no problem with the External Drives even though people have broke theirs open (sealed case cannot be opended with being destroyed) to reveal the exact serial numbers of affected drives inside. Not sure why the Freeware cannot be updated for the externals, I guess it might be something to do with the built in software that will not work with Seatools or whatever it is you need to update the firmware. (which is probably why they do not want to admit anything!!) A complete balls up whatever way you look at it!!! I will being trying to get my money back, just waiting to receive my new drive before I wipe all the data that is on it. If not I will be joining the masses using theirs as expensive doorstops or paper weights Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WAcky Posted August 4, 2009 Author Share Posted August 4, 2009 After reading so many reviews and user reviews around different sites, I'm just amazed at the failure rates of almost all the External HDD's on the market. I just don't know how these companies are allowed to sell such shoddy products and deny. You look at their forums and so few of the support requests are answered with users also warning of terrible phone support. Really disappointing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SandmanNinja Posted August 4, 2009 Share Posted August 4, 2009 I've seen a product that interests me. It's a USB 2.0 "docking cradle" for SATA-2 internal hard drives. It sits on your desktop with a very small footprint (about the size of a PDA charging station) and you can drop internal HDs right into it. Great for back-ups of LOTS of data, as well as ghosting HD images. I might pick it up today. If I do, I'll let you know what I think of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Erstad Posted September 9, 2009 Share Posted September 9, 2009 I have been using this enclosure: http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX20100(ME).aspx and a 1TB drive for about a year for my backups. A coincidence can blow, it is not always funny or special. I was reviewing this thread, for no particular reason one day a week and a half ago. The very next day - Boom, my LaCie 250GB drive fails. Fortunately, the losses were not insurmountable, as this was in fact a back up drive primarily, so 90% is easily replaced the other 10% I will live without. So I too went with the Vantec Nexstar 3 with the WE Caviar Green 1TB SATA 2 7200. The green has a 3 yr warranty vs. the 5yr for the black, but this drives uses 50% of the power than the black. It will sit in a closet on for extended periods of time, which is why I went with it. I will use to to back up both Mac (pics & music) & windows (professional resources). So I had to partition and format for both NTFS & Mac Journal. All from NewEgg, and after rebate 125$. Not bad at all. Thanks for the tip for the drive enclosure, the hot ticket I think. You can use the drive as and external SATA (eSATA) with a provided adapter & patch cable for great transfer speeds. Scotty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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