Best external storage solution

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neologismaneologisma
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
So I have this MBP 2.16 GHz with FireWire 400 and I want a very safe and efficient - but not very expensive - external HD to store up to 500 GB. I've seen that LaCie are really popular, but there are also many people reporting problems after warranty expires. As for anyone, it would be a really BIG shit having years of data lost by a stupid device (no matter how many backups you have).



Anyone can suggest me some really good stuff???

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 8
    loulou Posts: 43member
    How about the Iomega mac mini form facotr drives, 500gb for about £169 over here, very reasonable for a single drive of that size.
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  • Reply 2 of 8
    pbg4 dudepbg4 dude Posts: 1,611member
    1TB drives will be out in 1Q from Hitachi. I'd wait for these even if you don't plan to get one because it'll push HDD prices down.
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  • Reply 3 of 8
    chromoschromos Posts: 191member
    I have a Western Digital 500 GB MyBook that I like a lot. When I bought it, it was one of the cheapest that had a Firewire 800 interface (for my PowerBook, now MBP C2D). It's quiet and works well.
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  • Reply 4 of 8
    smaxsmax Posts: 361member
    I second the MyBook. 250 GB with USB and Firewire from a company that I trust... can't beat it. I think they are available



    Just don't get anything that puts 2 hard drives together in a RAID array if you want safety.
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  • Reply 5 of 8
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,954member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by neologisma View Post


    As for anyone, it would be a really BIG shit having years of data lost by a stupid device (no matter how many backups you have).



    I don't understand, if you have a lot of backups, then how will you lose years of data?



    There is always some risk of hard drive failure. There is absolutely no way around that. What you do is, for any given hard drive, make sure you have some form of backup for it, such as another hard drive just like the first, either mirrored (bad if you accidentally erase something) or turned off except for during backups, which is bad if you don't back up often enough and you lose files.
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  • Reply 6 of 8
    chromoschromos Posts: 191member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by JeffDM View Post


    I don't understand, if you have a lot of backups, then how will you lose years of data?



    There is always some risk of hard drive failure. There is absolutely no way around that. What you do is, for any given hard drive, make sure you have some form of backup for it, such as another hard drive just like the first, either mirrored (bad if you accidentally erase something) or turned off except for during backups, which is bad if you don't back up often enough and you lose files.



    Agreed. It would be really rare if both your primary and backup harddrives failed at the same time. The only ways I can imagine that happening are through disaster events (fire, earthquake, power surge), none of which have to do with the inherent reliability of either drive.



    Also, I keep backups of my most important data burned to DVD and stored in a fire-proof safe (said to be fire-resistant for optical media, but I'm still not completely sold on that claim. Edit: hopefully I'll never have to test it.). And my most important important data is saved off-site on iDisk.
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  • Reply 7 of 8
    galleygalley Posts: 971member
    The 500GB My Book Pro Edition is silver, and will match your MBP perfectly. It has FW400, FW800 and USB 2.0.
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  • Reply 8 of 8
    neologismaneologisma Posts: 3member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by JeffDM View Post


    I don't understand, if you have a lot of backups, then how will you lose years of data?




    I have my backups saved in DVDs, so it's not always updated and in case of problem, it really sucks copying all that files back again. Moreover, it already happened to me that THE disk that had what I needed would fail read (you know, Murphy's law...). But thanks for the HD backup tip; it's a good idea indeed.
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