Best External Harddrive?

[nurv]

I am looking at external harddrives to use on my laptop, for my video projects in ASB next year.Right now I am looking at the LaCie triple interface 250GB one that runs 289$. What better ones are out there that include the triple interface and have upwards of 200GB storage. thanks

 

[BlueRacer]

if you want to save some money just buy an enclosure and a hd... usually a lot cheaper than buying a premade external hd... ive got a 120gb in a bytecc enclosure using usb2.0 and it works perfect for my back ups and such... just my .02

 

[BoyBlunder]

if you want to save some money just buy an enclosure and a hd... usually a lot cheaper than buying a premade external hd... ive got a 120gb in a bytecc enclosure using usb2.0 and it works perfect for my back ups and such... just my .02

LOL, i have the same enclosure/hdd combo!

but as he said, just go with an enclosure/hdd combo. it'll be a lot cheaper.

 

[ameoba]

What's a good external enclosure? Looking for some 4-drive setups (USB or Firewire, SCSI would be nice but too damned expensive) that we can slap in 4 EIDE/SATA 250GB drives in and use for a backup system.

 

[E4g1e]

I've found that the LaCie is one of the very few external hard drives that even have three interfaces (you pick which one to use for your system, however, as you cannot use more than one interface on that drive at a time). Most do-it-yourself external combos that consist of an internal hard drive and an enclosure offer only one interface at a time.

The biggest advantage of that LaCie drive is that the triple interface will allow you to transport your external hard drive between multiple PCs that may have different interfaces. The disadvantage is that this flexibility comes at a significant price premium - nearly $100 more than a DIY "external" combo.

 

[accidentalsuccess]

i have an 80 gig netdisk. It connects to usb 2.0 OR ethernet. Yup, it's an "on the cheap" NAS drive. The "cheap" part is that you have to have their software installed to see it over ethernet ('cause it doesn't have a true internal server). Still, this is VERY VERY nice for me because I can plug it into the network and it pops up for all my boxes. These things also support RAID (through their software, I believe, but not bad for redundancy/backups, which is what I use it for).

 

[Ice Czar]

"on the cheap" NAS drive. .

DNAS (Direct Network Attached Storage)
Its a pity they are all 10\100, if they started releasing Gigabit DNAS....
implementations of USB and Firewire vary considerably in actual throughput
wish theyd start puting eSATA ports on laptops

another caution, any mobile HDD should be treated like nitro
the 3.5" form factor isnt nearly as robust as the 2.5" laptop form factor
never bump or move the HDD during operation, and transport it with extreme care
and dont trust it for storage, keep it backed up at all times

cut and paste

USB Considerations

Originally posted by lessthanjakejohn
The USB standard is in a state of flux, with vendors often using their
own interpretation of the words "full" and "high". At one point, "full
speed" referred to USB 1.1 operating in a USB 2 port at the 12Mb/s
maximum of USB 1.1. "High speed" referred to the standard maximum speed
of USB 2, 480Mb/s. The USB organization has a statement to the effect
that one should determine what is being stated by a vendor from the
vendor itself if there is any doubt about what is being advertized.
This is important since some vendors were using the term "USB 2
compliant" to mean USB 1.1 would work, while customers were interpreting
it as "USB 2".

The USB standards organization still recognizes that Full Speed and Low
Speed refer to USB (formerly known as USB 1.1) transfer rates, and
High-Speed refers to Hi-Speed USB (formerly known as USB 2) at its
maximum transfer rate.

http://www.usb.org/info/usb_nomenclature

The USB-IF's naming and packaging recommendations for low- or full-speed
USB products, as listed on this web site state that such products can
carry only the basic version of the USB logo, which simply states
"Certified USB." We state clearly that manufacturers should avoid using
terminology such as USB 2.0 Full Speed, Full Speed USB or USB 2.0. These
formal recommendations were published to the USB-IF membership and
posted on this web site in August 2002.
[end quote]

Originally posted by PassMark
As there was some discussion about USB speed (Highspeed/FullSpeed), I thought I would mention that there are a number of other factors that impact USB speed. While USB 1.1 vs USB 2.0 is the most important, as already pointed out, USB 2.0 supports FullSpeed (12 Mb/s) and USB 2.0 may only operate below this speed. So it is imporatnt to know whether your USB 2.0 port and device are capable of HighSpeed.

Other issues that impact USB speed include: the manufacturers host controller implementation, point of connectivity to the host controller (e.g. A connection via the PCI bus will insert a bottleneck to achieving High-speed rates. My testing of PCI connected ports show they typically have a much slower maximum speed of 100 - 130Mb/s compared to typically 250Mb/s to 330Mb/s when directly connected to the motherboard, cabling (you might be surprised how much re-transmission is occurring - slowing things down), the device driver used, implementation of the USB device and the implementation of the application software.

This information is based on reliability testing and benchmarking carried out on the recently released USB 2.0 loopback and benchmark plug from www.passmark.com/product/usb2loopback.htm

additional interesting thread
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=745447

USB (1.1?) Basic Technical Summary

considering that for video, you need a specific throughput for capture and editing...
choose carefully