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General discussion

Confused about which external hard drives are best...

Apr 30, 2006 5:39AM PDT

I have been researching external hard drives and still have no clue as to which will be the most reliable. I have an iMac G5 with OS X 10.3.9. I would like to get an external hard drive, about 250 GB--any price. It will be for storage of images (used primarily in Photoshop CS), documents, and some movie files for Final Cut Pro.

Based on various reviews, I have considered a LaCie d2, Iomega Black Series, or G-tech drive. I am mostly concerned about the drive crashing and losing my files--which sounds like it happens about 25% of the time with LaCies.

I am open to any suggestions. Thanks!

Discussion is locked

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Western Digital
May 12, 2006 9:11AM PDT

I don't know if there is any compatability issue with Macs, but I've found WD to be reliable and the 5 year guarantee is comforting.
Run MS SyncToy with the external drive weekly (or more frequently if modifying important data) and remove the external drive if going away for more than 24 hours.

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They work with macs
May 13, 2006 12:14PM PDT

Western Digital Works very well with macintosh computers. Western Digital is also very reliable. I've used several hdd's and my western digital hdds were always the most reliable. I've never had one crash. I can't say that about seagate or maxtor. and I've had a plethora of drives ranging from 10-200gb in size.

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Best Hard Drive is Seagate.
May 13, 2006 3:31AM PDT

Seagate makes an extensive line of hard drives and they all come with a 5 yr guarantee. Top that!!!
But for archival purposes I would also consider backing up your material on DVD. All hard drives evetually fail.

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Network Drives
May 13, 2006 11:45PM PDT

I have found for myself a perfect solution in a networked-shared drive that I can backup all pc's to. The brand was originally called NetDisk by Ximeta and I liked it so much I bought two. The great thing about these is that they can plug into a network with a Cat5 cable or a USB port on a computer. Software installation is required for network pc access when sharing on a Cat5 connection but when used in USB mode it will add itself automatically to XP Pro version without any software installation. Sharing is then as any other drive locally. I use one as a networked storage on my router and the other as a USB on my main system for secure backups. When off it can't be cracked or vulnerable as most drives are when considering backups. One switch to turn it on and its available again to all computers setup to use it on your network. Device ID and password protection help keep altering the drives contents safe and sharing folders on the Cat5 networked drive does not require a sharing pc to be on. The drive can always stay running and easily works through firewalls. (some require permission for unknown proticols.) The maker indicates that any IDE drive up to 250GB should work (possible larger)I have found them to be rugged in construction and easy to transport. (AC required)
This drive allowed me to solve the problem of all my computers running low on storage and sharing files while isolating one pc from another for security on my home network.
Happy computing, Marko

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Best solution
May 16, 2006 2:53PM PDT

Check out eSATA Mall. These drives are really fast, cool, and durable. The internal drive has shock absorbers around the mounting points.