[saket77]

Did not find a thread specifically for hard drives, hence posting here.

I am looking for a 1TB external HDD to back up my other external HDD which is a 500GB Transcend. Would like to ask the members that which hard drives are the best in terms of reliability & write speed. Reliability will be the major factor in deciding for one. Brands currently I am looking into are WD - My passport & Sony HD-E1 (with metal case finish). However, my transcend has served me well for almost 4 years now, but just want to know if the above are good enough?

Thanks,
Saket

[vasudeva]

Seagate Backup Plus 1 TB USB 3.0 or a cheaper version Seagate Expansion USB 3.0.
USB 2 may no longer be available but USB 3 drive ports are backwards compatible with USB 2 ports so not to worry.

I have both Seagate Freeagent and WD Passport 1 TB. Both were purchased around the same time in mid-2012. I find Seagate to be faster in being recognised, in transfer speeds. I think Passport may die on me soon as I get some scan disk messages.

[saket77]

Thank you Vasudeva. Also I am hearing all good things about Hitachi. Is Hitachi Touro 2.5 good?
Also, I have eliminated the WD-Passport on your recommendation + some bad user reviews.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by saket77

Did not find a thread specifically for hard drives, hence posting here.

I am looking for a 1TB external HDD to back up my other external HDD which is a 500GB Transcend. Would like to ask the members that which hard drives are the best in terms of reliability & write speed. Reliability will be the major factor in deciding for one.

Thanks,
Saket

I have both a Seagate as well as a WD external drives for my backup. Seagate is about 4 years old while the WD is hardly a year old. Butmy needs have outgrown the 1.5 TB capacity of both the drives.

I have a few old hard drives with me sourced from upgrading many computers. I took the advice from here and bought the adapter from ebay. Now I can set aside separate hard drives for different years of files. The adapter costs about Rs.500/- and it is useful to check many 'suspect' drives too. It takes IDE as well as SATA drives.

[vasudeva]

Originally Posted by saket77

Thank you Vasudeva. Also I am hearing all good things about Hitachi. Is Hitachi Touro 2.5 good?
Also, I have eliminated the WD-Passport on your recommendation + some bad user reviews.

Have not bought Hitachi in recent years because of limited availability. However, they are supposed to be reliable. Hitachi is now owned by WD.

I have nothing against WD and in fact for most of 2010-11, I only bought WD (a lot of Blacks and some Greens). However, I have shifted to Seagate from mid 2012 because of (a) better performance (b) better reliability in my system (c) WD shifting to refurbished drives for RMA. WD prices are also somewhat higher for lower performance. If you want a Passport, go ahead. I do not think it will be much of a diff. between WD and Seagate. I buy Seagate now.

Drives do fail and external disks generally fail much earlier than internal. But 2-3 years for externals is a good enough life span for me.

[saket77]

Originally Posted by Prowler

I have a few old hard drives with me sourced from upgrading many computers. I took the advice from here and bought the adapter from ebay.

Since my needs have grown beyond the capacity of my older drives, I think I will need a new drive rather than the adapter. But thanks a lot for sharing the article.
I am leaning towards a Transcend finally based on my previous experience. The shock protection is something that I have actually experienced

Originally Posted by vasudeva

Have not bought Hitachi in recent years because of limited availability. However, they are supposed to be reliable. Hitachi is now owned by WD.

Thank you Vasudeva. You are right. Even I managed to find out that Hitachi HDD business is now owned by WD. I think I should go by my good experience with transcend.

Will probably be ordering this one: http://www.flipkart.com/transcend-st...1-94b02e781592


Regards,
Saket

[vasudeva]

Originally Posted by saket77

Will probably be ordering this one: http://www.flipkart.com/transcend-st...1-94b02e781592


Regards,
Saket

Have you tried Amazon or Primeabgb. Flipkart's delivery times have really worsened and even the stuff in Delhi takes days to arrive.

[saket77]

Originally Posted by vasudeva

Have you tried Amazon or Primeabgb. Flipkart's delivery times have really worsened and even the stuff in Delhi takes days to arrive.

Found a nice deal on Snapdeal. Will be going for CoD. Thanks for Primeabgb. Didnot know about this website before, but the product I am looking is not available with them.
Flipkart has surely deteriorated in service these days. I have been on the receiving end of its deterioration in December; though it was just a flash drive.

[vasudeva]

I would be grateful if members here can suggest a way out of this problem.

A relative of mine has asked me to get a high end PC assembled.
I have finalised on this:
i7-4770K, asus z87 deluxe, + other components.
Other components are not relevant to the problem and so not listed here.

The problem is that ASUS z87 has no esata. In fact, ASUS seems to have abandoned esata in newer chipsets in favour of more sata ports. By comparison, my x79 mobo had 2 esata (ASM1061).

I want to get esata in the z87 system. Can I go with this

http://www.amazon.co.uk/PCIE-SATA-eS...ywords=asm1061

Each port can be used via one internal connector (SATA type) or via one external connector (eSATA type).

Basically, this will give 2 esata ports.
Is this workable and how.
Thanks.

[Aroy]

Originally Posted by vasudeva

Seagate Backup Plus 1 TB USB 3.0 or a cheaper version Seagate Expansion USB 3.0.
USB 2 may no longer be available but USB 3 drive ports are backwards compatible with USB 2 ports so not to worry.

I have both Seagate Freeagent and WD Passport 1 TB. Both were purchased around the same time in mid-2012. I find Seagate to be faster in being recognised, in transfer speeds. I think Passport may die on me soon as I get some scan disk messages.

I have both Seagate and WD external drives. Both are equally good. It is just that at a given point of time one is marginally better till the other catches up. Currently the Seagate has an edge. Get the 1TB USB3 version. If you have USB 3 port then the data transfer is five to ten times faster compared to USB2. This one seems to be most reasonably priced
http://www.flipkart.com/seagate-expa...a-76c3a39684ea
if you prefer the WD, then
http://www.flipkart.com/wd-my-passpo...FGCG&icmpid=WD

[vasudeva]

Originally Posted by Aroy

I have both Seagate and WD external drives. Both are equally good. It is just that at a given point of time one is marginally better till the other catches up. Currently the Seagate has an edge. Get the 1TB USB3 version. If you have USB 3 port then the data transfer is five to ten times faster compared to USB2. This one seems to be most reasonably priced
http://www.flipkart.com/seagate-expa...a-76c3a39684ea
if you prefer the WD, then
http://www.flipkart.com/wd-my-passpo...FGCG&icmpid=WD

Thanks Aroy for this and your previous help. The disk query was by some one else and he may be interested. Any idea as to the difference in pricing between Seagate 1TB expansion and backup plus. Both are 1 TB, USB 3.0 (no power adapter), but backup plus is dearer.

Also did you have a look at my query 1-2 posts back.

[saket77]

Originally Posted by Aroy

I have both Seagate and WD external drives. ...

Originally Posted by vasudeva

Thanks Aroy for this and your previous help. The disk query was by some one else and he may be interested.

Thanks Aroy & Vasudeva. I finally went with my previously tried and tested Transcend Storejet. It is USB 3.0 BC to 2.0. I decided to rule it in favour of transcend as my current HDD-500GB is still doing all good being 4 years old.

Thanks,
Saket

[vasudeva]

Hitachi had sometime back launched a 6TB internal hard disk. However, availability is limited and price super high ($900 or roundabouts).

Seagate is expected to follow in Apr-June:
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/sea...ium,25925.html

I remember 2TB becoming mainstream (in terms of pricing) in 2010-11, 3TB in 2012-13, and 4TB becoming mainstream soon. But paying $800-900 for a 6TB drive. Will price go down by half in a year?? or approach 4TB prices (Rs. 12000) in 15-18 months. That will be worthwhile.

[saket77]

IMO, it is far safer to have separate hard drives for so much capacity, as in case the electronics or the platter fail, there would be huge data loss. Hence, its better to spend on 2 HDDs than a single 6TB HDD. Even the pricing warrants as such.

[Aroy]

Originally Posted by vasudeva

Thanks Aroy for this and your previous help. The disk query was by some one else and he may be interested. Any idea as to the difference in pricing between Seagate 1TB expansion and backup plus. Both are 1 TB, USB 3.0 (no power adapter), but backup plus is dearer.

Also did you have a look at my query 1-2 posts back.

No idea why they are priced differently. The only reason I can think of is that the backup series come with synchronizing software. In my experience unless there is a speed difference in the drives, the least expensive ones of the same specifications are the best. My son bought the USB3 version where the USB2 connector is an add on accessory to the USB 3 connector.

Originally Posted by vasudeva

Hitachi had sometime back launched a 6TB internal hard disk. However, availability is limited and price super high ($900 or roundabouts).

Seagate is expected to follow in Apr-June:
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/sea...ium,25925.html

I remember 2TB becoming mainstream (in terms of pricing) in 2010-11, 3TB in 2012-13, and 4TB becoming mainstream soon. But paying $800-900 for a 6TB drive. Will price go down by half in a year?? or approach 4TB prices (Rs. 12000) in 15-18 months. That will be worthwhile.

In case you want to have a large storage (I know of a video chap who has 48TB RAID storage) and you do not want to spend upwards of $500 on an adapter, higher capacity disks are the only way out. In my case even though the Cabinet has space for 10x3.5" and 4x5.25" drives, my MB supports only 6 SATA and 2 IDE. With 6TB I get 36TB of storage while with 2TB only 12TB