Quote:
Originally Posted by naripeddi
Hi all,
I am planning to buy an external hard drive (1 TB or 2 TB) for storing my archived precious home videos.
Which one do you suggest?
a. Brand
b. USB or Firewire or eSATA????
c. Externally powered or powered through USB?
I already have a Seagate GoFlex 2 TB USB Hard Drive (externally powered) and exhausted the space in it with videos. So is it better to go for a different brand this time?
Is it better to buy two 1 TB drives, or one 2 TB drive? What is the good practi here?
Please help me decide with your expertise.
Thanks.
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People have different opinions about hard drive brands, generally speaking I buy on
NewEgg and the drive with a high number of positive reviews and a low proportion of negative ones. It's always good to see what the negative comments are too -- for some drives it is just noise which bothers some folks and not others, but some drives do seem to have reliability issues. Longer drive warranties are a sign of faith that the company and its consumers have in the product, but I can't say I've ever had the opportunity to cash in on a warranty on a drive, so I'm not sure how successful RMA'ing a 3 year old drive is under a 5 year warranty, but perhaps someone else can chime in.
If you're just using the drive for storage (and not capture) you can get a lower powered drive that spins at a slower rate. Then you can schedule copies to be made while you're away from your computer to your capture drive at regular intervals, or power the drive down when not in use.
I think it's smart to use externally powered drives, plugged into a surge suppressor / battery backup. That will allow them to shut down gracefully in the event of a power failure when not in your presence and protect them from damage by regulating the voltage should it drop below or rise above a certain value. Corrupted videos are never fun to deal with. As far as speed, I think it depends on your preference. USB2 is getting long in the tooth, but USB3 is out there now and apparently moves at pretty good rates. I used to have some FireWire drives which were great, but at this point it is all eSATA which is the fastest of the two I've used (USB2/Firewire). Speed may not be of great concern if the copying occurs in the background or only when you're not at your computer.
If you imagine you're going to keep getting more drives, it might be cheaper in the long run to not buy 'external' drives and instead buy an enclosure case with a eSATA or USB3 plug on it and filling it with the cheap drive dujour. Check prices though.
