External 1TB drive

[sidcos]

Hi,
Can anyone recommend an external (usb\firewire etc) Hard drive, around 1Tb mark?
Thanks

[TheReaFireblade]

External drives are all pretty much of a muchness, really
None of the more popular drives (i.e. Seagate FreeAgent/Western Digital MyBook etc) stand out as being head and shoulders above any other make/model.

But fwiw... I personally prefer to buy a standard internal drive, and stick it in an external enclosure.
It needn't cost any more doing it that way, and it has a few (what I consider to be) quite important benefits:

1. It allows you to choose the fastest drives available - from whoever is your preferred manufacturer.
2. You can swap out the drive quickly and easily when it's full.
3. You can often choose an enclosure with more/faster connections than offered on many external drives - i.e. eSATA/firewire.
4. There are any number of external enclosures which offer better cooling than most external drives.

[crazyfool]

yeh i agree with fireblade... buying a tb drive for a round the 90quid mark and then an enclosure for around 30 with be cheaper than buying a standard external drive and you have more choice over what you get

[NightshadowUK]

I just this month combined the following...

- 1TB Samsung HD103UJ Spinpoint F1 ~ £87.16
- Enermax Jazz EB307ES-B 3.5" ~ £30.54

... And I'm still in a state of awe. It's VERY quiet, lightening fast via eSATA, and fitting the drive took all of 15 seconds. Not only that, but the plug doesn't have one of those stupid power adapters.

[sidcos]

Dont know why I never thought of that myself..oh well I guess it's good to talk
I'll go with this.
Thanks all

[sjbuck]

agreed.

Plus you could wait a short time and get the new 1.5TB drives that are around the corner, only £140...

[arthurleung]

I would highly recommend the Western Digital MyBook. It use the WD10EACS drive in there which is the only drive around that runs at <7200RPM.

I have loads of external drives and my Mybook Essential 1TBs (also a Buffalo drivestation) are the only passive cooled one that doesn't need a fan to run 7x24.

Seagate FreeAgent is OK if you rarely access the disk since it can power down automatically.

[TAKTAK]

is the only drive around that runs at <7200RPM.

what about 5400RPM drives?... they are lower than 7200RPM..

or did you mean >7200RPM, in which case, what about 10,000RPM drives.....

[arthurleung]

what about 5400RPM drives?... they are lower than 7200RPM..

or did you mean >7200RPM, in which case, what about 10,000RPM drives.....

Rumors are that the WD10EACS is 5400RPM, which I don't know if its true or not. It runs cooler and more quiet than any other drives I own so I assume it is true. Since USB is quite limited in speed, unless you are using eSATA, otherwise I doubt >=7200RPM drive (or even >16M cache drive for that matter) will give any performance boost.

If you want real 5400RPM drives (or 4200RPM if you really want to), there are plenty of 2.5" drives for you to choose from.

My personal experience is that my WD Mybook is as quiet as my WD Passport if you put solid surface, i.e. the floor. If you put it on the table the MyBook generate relatively more humming that resonance with the table :S, but still less than other drives I have used.

[sidcos]

Cool, thanks for further info

[Betty_Swallocks]

The other advantage of putting your own together is that bare drives usually have a 3 year warranty whereas most external drives are typically only covered for 1 year.
Buy the bare drive and put it in an enclosure yourself and keep the extra 2 years warranty.