What external drives do you like (Mac/firewire)?

[nightfly]

With the flooding in Thailand and my hardrive filling up I figure now is a good time to buy some more storage.

In the past I've used the LaCie D2, with the triple interface USB/Firewire 400/Firewire 800 and been pretty pleased and so am inclined to get another but I've seen bad reviews of the latest incarnation of this drive. Some sort of firmware problem.

What do you guys like? Do you prefer buying the drive separately from the enclosure or using one of those docs where you can just pop in any internal drive like a piece of toast? Not sure how good those are for long term storage. I don't fill drives too fast.

Using this for a Mac, firewire preferred.

 

[gavinlg]

Western Digital externals have been very good to me.

 

[f16sunshine]

LaCie now has a Thunderbolt port offering. It is also USB2/3 and Firewire compatible. I'm thinking this next. My machine does have a thunderbolt port. Even if it did not I would still look for one simply for future compatibility. Reviews are mixed. Performance is tip top but the fan is a bit loud. I don't think I would let that stop me for a BU drive.

 

[Pablito]

g-drive for the best
or
WD for economy

LaCie has a spotty reputation for reliability especially among video users, in video the drives really get a work out.

 

[pggunn]

Another vote here for the G drives.

 

[flip]

I usually go to newegg.com, buy an ICY DOCK case (I currently like the FW800/USB model) and mount a well-reviewed internal 2T or so drive to put in it. Cheaper, better, known reliability. In contrast, buying a prefab external gives a known quantity for the case and potentially variable internals at a higher price. Putting one together is 15 minutes well spent.

P

 

[peter_n]

I make my own so separate purchases of components. I use Hitachi Enterprise-class drives. Pretty much the best from a MTBF perspective.

 

[shambla]

If you are looking for a portable external HDD, rather than a larger desktop drive, then you could try the new WD My Passport Studio - I picked up the 1TB version a couple of weeks ago and have been very impressed so far.

It's got USB2 and FW800 (note that the cheaper "non-Studio" version only has USB) and although the latter is predictably much faster than USB, it's sometimes useful to have USB too. Build quality is excellent, with the whole enclosure made from a big chunk of milled aluminium and it also seems from the review at storagereview.com that the enclosure is very easy to open if you want to swap the drive in the future for something bigger/faster.

 

[lynnb]

I'll second Peter's recommendation to choose enterprise-class drives, what ever enclosure you're using. HDD failure is not nice if you haven't backed up recently. I speak from experience. Consumer-grade external drives have lower MTBF.
I hope you have a backup drive, even if it's not a RAID setup. If you use LR you can import simultaneously to two drives. That's peace of mind.
For a single drive I'd look for an enterprise drive in a quality enclosure. Preferably one that's forward compatible i.e. Thunderbolt.
I import scans and files simultaneously to two Pleaides FW800 enclosures fitted with WD Caviar Black drives. They have higher MTBF than WD Green drives.
In future I'd go with a Thunderbolt RAID box which allows you to swap in larger capacity HDDs as your storage needs grow.

 

[nightfly]

Thanks everyone. My next drive after this one will be thunderbolt when and if they actually come out with and I purchase a 15" Macbook Air. For now Firewire is fine.

Since I've had luck with Lacie's and this is sort of a temporary solution, I picked up a refurbed LaCie D2 1tb for $100 off the Lacie site. Cheaper than an enclosure and a drive and it's the older model that didn't have so many complaints about firmware issues.

Next one will be an enterprise drive in a Thunderbold enclosure when (or if) Thunderbold becomes more common. Just wanted something to get me through the predicted drive shortage coming from the Thailand flooding. This one is a backup for my Macbook Pro hardrive and a place to store my scans so if it failed, I'd still have main drive and my negs and Dropbox. Also going to retire my older, full drive with my scans and maybe pull the drive itself and store it just in case.

 

[rybolt]

Just to add an option; I have been very happy with the Seagate Free Agent Go for the Mac. It comes with both firewire cables plus usb2 and a dock if you want to use it. I have the 500gb unit and use it for travel backup. It's very small and, aside from getting a little warm when plugged in for several hours, it works great.
I had several consecutive Western Digital drives go bad so I decided not to use them again. My experience with WD drives appears not to be typical, though.

 

[peter_n]

In future I'd go with a Thunderbolt RAID box which allows you to swap in larger capacity HDDs as your storage needs grow.

Me too. I'm getting impatient waiting for Thunderbolt.

 

[nightfly]

Seems like Apple jumped the gun a bit on this or peripheral manufacturers dropped the ball, pick your metaphor.

I would love to see some sort of Thunderbolt based dock which added a drive a bunch of ports and video with a single plug in a nice, elegant dock. Leave everything connected and just pop your Air in.

Would make the Macbook Air go from laptop to desktop very easily.

I know Apple sees the new Apple Monitor as this, but some of us don't want to replace our displays just to get a bunch of ports.

However I'm getting sick of disconnecting 4 cables everytime I take my Macbook Pro on the road, particularly as one is an older DVI with the little screw things on the side.

Also kind of lame that Apple makes you buy a $50 thunderbolt cable.

Me too. I'm getting impatient waiting for Thunderbolt.

 

[Disappointed_Horse]

I have a G Drive Mini 500GB external hard drive that I really like. It uses a 7,200 rpm Hitachi drive so it has quality internal components and is fast. It has USB2.0/FW400/FW800 ports. I have it partitioned use it for cloned bootable backups of both my iMac and my Macbook Air. It has made several international trips in my carry on bag and has been extremely reliable.

I also have a powered WD external hard drive that I used to keep hooked up to my iMac as a Time Machine backup. It has done nothing other than sit on my desk, but it is not very reliable and often stops running my Time Machine backups for no apparent reason.

 

[Disappointed_Horse]

Seems like Apple jumped the gun a bit on this or peripheral manufacturers dropped the ball, pick your metaphor.

I would love to see some sort of Thunderbolt based dock which added a drive a bunch of ports and video with a single plug in a nice, elegant dock. Leave everything connected and just pop your Air in.

Would make the Macbook Air go from laptop to desktop very easily.

I know Apple sees the new Apple Monitor as this, but some of us don't want to replace our displays just to get a bunch of ports.

However I'm getting sick of disconnecting 4 cables everytime I take my Macbook Pro on the road, particularly as one is an older DVI with the little screw things on the side.

Also kind of lame that Apple makes you buy a $50 thunderbolt cable.

i believe a third party manufacturer offers exactly such a product. I don't remember who—it might be Logitech but don't quote me on that—I remember seeing this on either Macworld or Mac|Life. You might want to try searching those sites.

 

[DerekF]

Steer clear of LaCie drives, IMHO. The Achilles' Heel of their products are their external power supplies which tend to fail within a couple of years of purchase. Lots of bad experiences can be found all over. I have plenty of my own to share. LaCie may send you a replacement (sometimes only for the cost of shipping), but their replacements suffer from the same poor quality as the originals, so it's really just putting off the inevitable. Building your own is not complicated, although the prices for bare hard drives have spiked due to the flooding in Thailand (where most major manufacturers assemble their hard drives), and can be expected to stay relatively high for the next several months.

 

[akalai]

I make my own so separate purchases of components. I use Hitachi Enterprise-class drives. Pretty much the best from a MTBF perspective.

BE LIKE PETE! 😉

Currently use WD RE4 drives in RAID for application/cache drives and Hitachi 5K3000's in RAID for storage.

Unfortunately I think your timing, like mine, is bad... currently building two HP N36 Micro Servers with Hitachi 5K3000's but student budget meant I couldn't purchase all the drives I needed.

Due to the terrible floods in Thailand trying to purchase the 2 drives I still need would mean spending more than what the 2 HP Micro Servers cost!!!

If the data is important to you AND you can find some enterprise drives at a decent price I think a dual bay external case like those offered by OWC in RAID1 would be a good idea. As well as saving to the cloud, burning some DVD's and keeping backups offsite!

 

[peter_n]

I actually like the OWC stuff but I don't know what kind of power supply they have in there. The last thing you want in a backup system is dodgy power, see what Derek says above about LaCie. I build my own stuff and have always used PC Power & Cooling power supplies in my boxes but RAID enclosures are a different matter. Redundant power supplies are relatively expensive.

 

[Zonan]

I use this puppy 🙂

 

[nakedcellist]

I have a western digital studio which works very well. I also am eagerly awaiting for more thunderbolt options. And all my friends who use lacie have had problems with dying power supplies, so I would avoid those.