What?s the best external hard drive for back-ups?

dferigmudferigmu
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
I have a Powerbook G4 and would like to buy an external hard drive for back-up purposes. It seems impossible to choose one because drives made by every company occasionally fail and only then do people write reviews on them. Every time I hear that LaCie, Maxtor and Seagate make the best hard drives, an equal amount of people say they suck and fail on a regular basis.



My question is:



Who makes a good, most consistently reliable hard drive that I can easily do back-ups with?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 7
    irelandireland Posts: 17,798member
    I can't tell you which one to buy, but I can tell you not to by a "Freecom". Mine died in a month, and I used it three times.
  • Reply 2 of 7
    geekdreamsgeekdreams Posts: 280member
    Everyone's experience is different, so unfortunately you'll just have to choose one and see if it works for you. Personally, I've had no trouble with LaCie drives, but I keep backups around just in case!
  • Reply 3 of 7
    ghost_user_nameghost_user_name Posts: 22,667member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by geekdreams


    Everyone's experience is different, so unfortunately you'll just have to choose one and see if it works for you. Personally, I've had no trouble with LaCie drives, but I keep backups around just in case!



    Someone told me once to make sure you get a good chipset if you go firewire, I have yet to understand what they meant but hopefully someone will explain it before you make your purchase.
  • Reply 4 of 7
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    It means that there are various chips used to create FireWire bridges. The Oxford 911 and Oxford 912 are generally accepted to be the fastest and most reliable ones, although some people's opinions differ, of course.
  • Reply 5 of 7
    vorm-krijgervorm-krijger Posts: 41member
    i have a lacie networkdrive/usb 250gig works perfect

    but if it crashes .... everything is gone.



    so the best thing is a firewire RAID 1 like this

    http://www.cooldrives.com/usb2-sata-...sata-raid.html
  • Reply 6 of 7
    burningwheelburningwheel Posts: 1,827member
    i have the Porsche designed lacie. it's great
  • Reply 7 of 7
    bacillusbacillus Posts: 313member
    I got a 300 GB Buffalo external HD in July for 90$ after rebate from CompUSA - and like it. Oddly enough, its made in Japan - which is rare in this day. Has some nice features. First, there is no fan on it - its body is a heat sink, so there is not that humming I’ve heard with my other external drives. Second, when you computer goes to standby - the drive will shutoff. The auto shutoff feature can be turned off by a switch in the back - if you think keeping a HD going all the time makes it last longer.



    Its not the most attractive thing in the world – but it does the job.



    If you are in the market for one - the two features I would look for is NAS and fanless cooling.
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