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Question

External Hardrives which types are best?

Dec 10, 2011 12:06AM PST

It seems there are two different kinds of External hardrives.

1. Ones with internal AC and internal fans.

2. Ones with external AC that you can hook/unhook on the hardrive and with no fans but instead with glossy cooling case (kind of like aluminium or something).

Which is the best type in terms of reliability and lifespan?

Discussion is locked

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Answer
None so far.
Dec 10, 2011 12:12AM PST

As I've seen those and let's face it, all models at the shops the best types are the ones folk get in pairs. They get TWO because they can keep a backup on the second model.

Yes there is some solid state models now and those might hold up well against what usually kills external drives.
Bob

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Dec 10, 2011 12:30AM PST

Yeah but I need like 2TB, an SSD external hardrive with 2TB will cost a small fortune. So I am stuck with the regular hardrives for now.

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So get two.
Dec 10, 2011 12:35AM PST

Externals of all types today with spinning drives are dying very easily. If your 2TB matters, you have a backup.
Bob

PS. Those that think picking the right drive will avoid the backup, have not learned the lesson.

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Dec 10, 2011 1:05AM PST

What do you mean a backup? I am not going to buy two external hardrives the put the same exact content in both of them, it would end up costing 300 bucks instead of 150 bucks, plus there is no guarantee that both won't die up eventually.

Okay I get that external hardrives are not as reliable as external ssd's, but as I said when you know that an external ssd cost about 130 bucks for 64GB, it comes to the point where you don't really have much of a choice other than to buy the less reliable external hardrives. Anyway, that wasn't my question, I want to buy a new external hardrive (previous ones when I was still using Windows XP where Iomega Presitge 500GB and Iomega Professional 1TB) now I am using Windows 7 64 bits Home Edition and the company that I want to buy from sells either one type of external hardrive with external AC and cold aluminium case and another type is with an internal AC and internal cooling fans. Which is best? And what are the differences really?

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Then you have not learned the lesson and
Dec 10, 2011 1:30AM PST

You seem to dismiss the fact that we only lose what we didn't backup. I found NO DIFFERENCE in the units when it comes to failures.

If the sellers will not discuss the products with you, I would not shop there. Here I found zero difference as to the life spans.

It is true both will die. But with a spare copy it means that when one dies you know to get another drive to get back into a state of backup.
Bob

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Backup Backup Backup
Dec 10, 2011 1:51AM PST

It is the same as the location for a business. If you do treasure or need your data to be safe you will need to make three backups. External drives are not that expensive. You are correct that it will cost close to $300, is the data you have worth that. I have a minimun of three backups of everything I considered important.

Check out the Seagate drives at Newegg and ask how bad you might need that data some day.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007601%2050001305%20600030763&IsNodeId=1&name=1TB%20and%20higher

Remember to treat these drives as if they are your new born child.

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Internal AC and fan?
Dec 10, 2011 5:05AM PST

I have not heard of that. How about a link for that? Or do you mean one that uses USB power?

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I was answering the part about which one is more reliable
Dec 10, 2011 6:16AM PST

I do not use ones with fans or external AC adapters. All hard drives run off DC so I prefer to let the USB power them. I have always like and used Seagate and Western Digital hard drives and found both to very reliable. Seagate is my drive of choice at this time. I do not leave them powered up, I just plug them up and make my backups and then remove them from the system and treat them as if they are a new born baby. It is my humble opinion that most external hard drive failures occur by how they are handled. I even go so far as to wrap them up before I store them. I should tell you that I also use thumb drives and DVD for backups to. It depends on just how important the data is. I break it down into three levels. Critical, important, oh well it will not kill me if I lose it. Images of my C drive are kept on DVD's, thumb drive and external drives. Critical data is kept on thumb drives and external drives. Everything else is on external drives. It all depends on how you view what your backing up. The point to it all is that I have multiple backups of everything and stored in different locations so I am pretty much covered no matter what happens.