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External hard drives

Started by Famous Mortimer, December 31, 2011, 01:52:14 PM

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The Plaque Goblin

Are there any brands I should avoid?

rudi



BlodwynPig


biggytitbo

The Samsung s2 1tb portable can be had for around £80 and they're ace. Very small, quiet, realiable and crucially no external power supply needed making it truly portable.

Dark Sky

Quote from: BlodwynPig on February 02, 2012, 07:05:13 PM
Seagate

I have a 1TB Seagate I bought for about forty quid two years ago, and it's been brilliant.

Now I've written this it'll probably explode tomorrow.

BlodwynPig

Quote from: Dark Sky on February 02, 2012, 10:23:41 PM
I have a 1TB Seagate I bought for about forty quid two years ago, and it's been brilliant.

Now I've written this it'll probably explode tomorrow.

Wait for the death rattle. Mine didn't break, but was fucked for a while and then resumed working. But after reading a few forums, decided I better purchase something else. All these things have a limited lifespan anyway, meaning at one point you will face heartbreak, unless you can get the data off a broken HD.

NoSleep

I had a problem with a couple of Freecom external drives, but it was the drive cases that failed (delivering only USB 1.1 speeds after a year or so) and the re-housed drives ("Initio HD400LD Media") are still going strong.

Famous Mortimer

The ones I bought are now down to £88 on Amazon (2TB, nice-looking, quiet).

CaledonianGonzo

How many external hard drives used to back up back ups of data (and to back up those back ups) is considered too many?

Wilbur

Quote from: CaledonianGonzo on February 03, 2012, 10:16:56 AM
How many external hard drives used to back up back ups of data (and to back up those back ups) is considered too many?


5718*

*Unless you are Google

BlodwynPig

I'm getting a 48 TB, 512GB RAM HPC cluster[nb]at work[/nb]

NoSleep

Quote from: CaledonianGonzo on February 03, 2012, 10:16:56 AM
How many external hard drives used to back up back ups of data (and to back up those back ups) is considered too many?

It's irrelevant if all the backups are at the same location.

CaledonianGonzo

True enough in the event of a fire or flood or something - but I'm thinking more in the terms of the drives themselves failing through old age/overuse/poor build.

NoSleep

Wear and tear is the main problem, and connecting old formats to new machines.


Dead kate moss

http://www.maplin.co.uk/1tb-freeagent-goflex-desk-external-hard-drive-396163

Why not a 1TB FreeAgent GoFlex Desk External Hard Drive

£79

(plus Free standard UK delivery - Can be delivered within as little as 90 minutes)

Jim Jarmusch

Its not portable and needs a power supply. The Toshiba uses one USB cable.

You can get 1TB desktop drives for £49 in Sainsburys. If you're not bothered about USB 3.0.

biggytitbo

You can get the GoFlex 1.5tb portable drive that uses usb power for £129. Hardrives are like TV I find, no matter how big the one you buy is, you always wished you'd got the bigger one.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

#49
I bought a £500 gb one about 4 years ago for £60. It's only this year when I discovered I'm down to my last 49 gig on it that I thought I need a bigger one.
/
What is it with storage- how come so many years can pass and the price for similar storage is still so high? (even bearing in mind flooding, the drop in price has been glacial, same with mp3 players and their capacities)

I got an 8 gig flash drive for 20 quid, again about 4 years ago, and they still seem to be about £12/£15 today. That's RUBBISH.

Between 1994-2000, computer memory increased by about six times for the same price.

brat-sampson

Picked up a Samsung 1TB just before christmas (at the possible height of the price boom it seems now...) runs like a dream though with no additional power cable needed and nicely quiet. Deciding I want to grab a file from the PC to view on the PS3 to actually watching it now takes around maybe 1 minute (file-size depending slightly) Would still suggest waiting a bit if you can what with the flooding apparently just starting to clear up so prices will probably go down in a few months. I was just unlucky to have an old one pretty much die on me at a bad time.

Zetetic

QuoteBetween 1994-2000, computer memory increased by about six times for the same price.
I think it's fair to say that HDD storage has dropped by far more than that. This suggests that at the end of 1994 it's still (just) over a $1 per MB, while by the end of 2000 if you've got a similar number of dollars available it's less than a cent per MB.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

Thanks!

A shame it seems to not have progressed as much between 2006-2012.

Zetetic

I believe that there are technical limitations on hard disk storage for the time being, so increasing size has to come by increasing the number of platters - hence no great savings in recent history. Anyone correct me on this?

I think one interesting thing to take away from that guy's tables is how steeply the cost/storage rises at the bottom end.

Shoulders?-Stomach!


Jim Jarmusch

Can anyone recommend a NAS that will host my iTunes library for a couple of Macs and Apple TV's?

My current setup is a 2TB Western Digital My Book Studio II firewired to my always on iMac. It's a bit of a nuisance now that it's coming to the end of it's lifetime and constantly freezes.

I don't have any old PC towers laying around to make a server. We're not all like that.



Ignatius_S

Quote from: Jim Jarmusch on July 09, 2012, 11:35:33 AM
Can anyone recommend a NAS that will host my iTunes library for a couple of Macs and Apple TV's?...

If you're considering an enclosure and adding the drives yourself, QNAP has recently been strongly recommended by a friend, who's an IT technician – one of his colleagues uses them for himself and various clients.

Jim Jarmusch

Do you know if that supports streaming movies and tv shows?

I think there's a limitation with the Apple TVs when it comes to networking hard drives.

Ignatius_S

Quote from: Jim Jarmusch on July 09, 2012, 12:37:43 PM
Do you know if that supports streaming movies and tv shows?

I think there's a limitation with the Apple TVs when it comes to networking hard drives.

Yes, streaming that won't be a problem – but you'll need your computer to be on as well, in order for the Apple TV to access the data (which I believe is the case for any NAS system). Also, you might want to check the compatibility of the generation of Apple TVs you're using. The servers also support Time Machine (I know you didn't ask about that, I think it's still worth a mention).

On the Apple.com forums, there's a lot of positive feedback about QNAP servers and there seems to be a fair bit on the company's own forums about using them with Macs – worth a look.

Artemis

I've had an Iomega eGo 500gb for ages now. Totally portable, USB 3.0 and runs almost silently. A superb buy. Only wish I got a 1tb model.