Oh oh
12 December 2006The external hard drive I bought a couple of years ago, to backup all my music and photos and other important stuff, has got a flaky USB connector. I have to wiggle it to make it work. I’ve swapped cables with a new one to eliminate that.
I have most (but not all) the content on it backed up on CD/DVD as well, but I’d still better buy a new one fast. Opinions on decent external hard drives, anyone?
EDIT: hey, this drive’s less than 2 years old. I wonder if it’s still under warranty? I wonder if I still have that receipt somewhere?
I have been using LaCie ones. In general OK but I find that all external hard drives have a shelf life. They all seem to die in the end – especially portable ones (iPods included). Disconnecting them without unmounting them seems to bugger up the directory system a lot.
My current one is a LaCie. I like them too, but I think you’re right: sooner or later they all seem to die. I think my connector problem might have been exacerbated by the fact that I only had one device USB cable at home that I switch between the printer and the hard drive. Probably that’s more cycle of connect/disconnect than the drive is made for.
I like the option of buying an internal drive and buying a separate external case for it. Andrew suggested this when I had a leftover 120GB drive that didn’t fit into my new desktop case. This way I have a reusable case, and if a drive dies I can always just get another, or even swap multiple drives into the same case (only takes ~5 minutes) if need be.
My internal drive is by western digital; the case is from ADS Tech.
That’s interesting. I guess internal drives are made to standard slot sizes, so case sizes will be too. Still, I wonder if they’re really up to the job? You know, made to take the knocking about?
The cases are adaptable (long slots to accommodate screw positions instead of single holes).
How much knocking about do you plan on doing?
Inside the case it’s fine, but even without the case, as long as you’re not throwing them forcefully into drawers or kicking them about the room they’re fine. Just put ‘em in a ziploc bag to keep the dust away.
I contacted the supplier: as normal, they only do the warranty returns for the first year. I checked the LaCie support website and – joy! – it seems I was smart enough to register my drive when I got it nearly 2 years ago. I’ve raised a ticket about getting a warranty replacement. We’ll see what they say.
i just got a 250GB western digital hard drive – i can’t remember the model but it looks like an x-box. it cost me around £70, which isn’t too shabby at all.
Where’d you get it from?
savastore.com
it’s the Western Digital 250GB 7200rpm USB2.0 MyBook Essential, which is a really efficient plug and play device and is a hell of a lot smaller than it looks.
if you fancy earning me 2% cashback, pleasy to use my link: http://www.rpoints.com/x/?s=2490&uid=85135
[...] A week or two ago I blogged that my hard drive had failed, and that I got a bit of a runaround about who would do the warranty replacement. [...]