Thanks, Igor - that's very helpful. I was thinking of something like the
New Technology - Voyager S3 docking station. The only drawback to
getting a couple of those is that I would need to extract at least a
couple drives from their existing USB enclosures. Probably not a hard
thing to do but I'm always reluctant to destroy something that is
perfectly functional. So, I will probably go with a couple drives in
enclosures.
Thanks - Mark
On 10/24/2014 2:34 PM, Igor PDML-StR wrote:
Mark,
I have a similar opinion and approach to those of Godfrey and Paul.
To that, I would like to add a few thoughts that might be useful to you
in make the choice:
1. Distinguish the HDDs from the enclosures.
a) Some HDD manufacturers are using other manufacturer's HDDs in
their own external drives (enclosures), and not their own. This is the
case for the "mobile" (2.5") HDDs.
b) What to watch for:
i) some enclosures have problems with heat sink;
ii) chipsets make the difference (sorry, I cannot suggest which ones
a better or should be avoided at the moment, - read the reviews).
2. All consumer grade HDDs (internal drives themselves) and external
drives have a certain percentage of failures, and even DOAs (dead on
arrival). That's true for all manufacturers. The question about the
quality is which specific models have that fraction smaller.
Some models (for the same manufacturer) are beter than others.
The reason for that is that in many cases, it is cheaper for these
companies to replace a few drives than to thoroughly test all of them.
At least, I heard that at some point such a decision made for some
cheapest drives that went several years ago into a gaming console like
an Xbox or something.
3. A quick comment (just in case) about "Hitachi".
For a few years, that company has been called "HGST, A Western Digital
Company"
4. For the "mobile" type of USB drives, I've been happy with Seagate's
"FreeAgent GoFlex", the line that got replaced with "Backup Plus Slim
Portable", as far as I understand.
However, today, I would probably choose one of the two models of
Transcend - 2TB StoreJet (USB 3.0). They are a bit more expensive then
the Seagate counterparts, but seem to have a bit more rugged enclosure.
5. For the desktop external USB 3.0 drives, today I would probably choose
Seagate - 4TB Expansion External Desktop USB 3.0 Hard Drive
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/936187-REG/seagate_stbv4000100_4tb_expansion_desktop_hd.html
or HGST 4TB Touro Deskpro
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/846330-REG/Hitachi_0S03503_4TB_Touro_Deskpro_Hard.html
(I am currently using a 3TB Touro drive and a 3TB Seagate that I think
was from the GoFlex Desktop family that got replaced by the "Expansion
External Desktop" line).
6. For a while, I've been considering a Synology Diskstation
with 8 or 5 HDDs (slots for HDDs): DS1813+ or DS1513+, which is a NAS
server. It would streamline most of the storage needs. You can connect
external HDDs to it, and you a video-streaming devices (Roku and alike)
seem to work well with it.
I might still go that way some day...
7. Finally, some people who have many internal drives successfully
using a dock like this from Newer Technology - Voyager s3:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/877711-REG/Newer_Technology_nwtu3s3hd_Voyager_S3_USB_3_0.html
I've seen other docks like this, and not all of them a equally good.
At the moment, I am using a simler connector from the same company:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/767474-REG/Newer_Technology_NWTU3NVSPATA_USB_3_0_Universal_Drive.html
HTH,
Igor
Paul Stenquist Fri, 24 Oct 2014 09:44:32 -0700 wrote:
I'm right where Godders is on this. Numerous drives from different
makers, with many of them mounted in Mercury Elite enclosures. I also
picked up some empty enclosures with various brand names on them at
one of OWC.s garage sales. Those had originally been sold with a drive
but had been returned to OWC and disassembled for some reason. Got
them for about five bucks apiece and they work fine.
Paul
On Oct 24, 2014, at 11:31 AM, Godfrey DiGiorgi <godd...@me.com> wrote:
Mark,
I have a hodgepodge of 2T drives bought as bare drives - Hitachi,
Seagate,
and Western Digital. All have been working very well with no problems
at all.
Most of the drives in the $100-250 price class from major vendors are so
close in reliability, speed, durability, etc, it's a toss up.
I use the Mercury Elite Pro USB 3.0 & 2.0/FireWire 800/eSATA enclosures
available from Other World Computing. They're fast, easy to work with,
reasonably priced, and very reliable.
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB
Godfrey
On Oct 24, 2014, at 7:49 AM, Mark C <pdml-m...@charter.net> wrote:
I'm currently housing my digital images on a couple of external hard
drives.
They are filling up and its getting to be time to upgrade. Are there
any
particular brands to look for or avoid?
I am thinking of getting a couple of 4TB drives, to replace a couple
of 3TB
drives currently in use. I'm currently using two pair of drives with
a 3TB
and 2TB in each pair. Moving from a 3+2 setup to a 4+3 setup will
net an
additional 2TB of storage, which should last for a couple years or so.
I Googled on this and Hitachi came up as making reliable drives. A
quick
search on Amazon did not reveal any Hitachi drives in enclosures, but I
assume I could buy an enclosure that would support them.
Any suggestions?
Mark
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