External drive-buy or build?

  • Thread starter Deleted member 12106
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Deleted member 12106

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Whats the way to go?

I plan to do an external setup soon, the part that appeals to me is that some claim the drive lasts longer this way, as the drive shuts down when it is not in use.

I would like to get something in the 500 gig range.

I am leaning more towards a pre-fab unit, prob a WD.
 
Building your own will often be cheaper. A lot of enclosures keep the drive spinning while the computer is off anyway, and any benefit you may have heard of coming from that is just a rumor. I would think that the hard drive turning off and on with the computer would wear it down just as fast, if not faster.
 
Get an internal drive. The only benefit of external ones is mobility.

Internal drives are cheaper, faster, last longer, and have better cooling.

I highly doubt repeatedly shutting down a hard drive will make it last longer. If anything, it'll probably kill it faster.
 
The reason I am interested with the externals is because I would like something mobile.

As for an internal drive lasting longer, I got 4 here I need to RMA, I need another drive so I can attempt to back-up the data thats on them. I know 2 are nuked for sure, 1 has a broken sata port:eek: and the other just disappears from the system after about 30 min:( Those 2 drives have stuff thats irreplaceable, 1 has at least music from the last 10 years thats impossible to find, and the other is all digital photos that can never be replaced.:eek:

Maybe I should be looking more at backup solutions:p
 
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