Best external hard drive?

November 30, 2005 11:46 PM

Best external hard drive for backing up & additional storage for a Powerbook G4 with OS X 10.4?

I'm in the market for an external hard drive. What's the "best"? I'm planning on storing music, photos, and other files (word, excel, etc) on the drive. I likely will move my iTunes library, currently >20Gb but likely to grow, to the drive and hope to play it from the drive. My Powerbook has Firewire capability and I'm interested in Firewire 800 or 400 if this is indeed an advantage. I'm not particularly interested in the "buy an internal hard drive and place in an external enclosure", but reasons previously discussed on this site, mainly lack of speed of a 3.5" drive.

posted by cahlers to computers & internet (11 comments total)

What's your definition of "best?" How would you place priorities like storage size, speed, data safety and cost relative to each other?

I asked a question about redundant storage/backup a while back, which you might find useful if you're willing to spend extra cash on a RAID 1 solution that provides extra safeguards. That was my definition of "best" when it came to external storage/backup.
posted by weston at 12:13 AM on December 1, 2005

weston, many reviews I've read describe drive failure after several months, if not sooner. So "best" would have to include reliability. I'm just looking to see people's experiences with their drives - have they been satisfied with their purchase, and if so, what did they purchase? If not, why not, and in this case I'm interested in the brand so I can avoid it.
posted by cahlers at 3:10 AM on December 1, 2005

I'm not particularly interested in the "buy an internal hard drive and place in an external enclosure", but reasons previously discussed on this site, mainly lack of speed of a 3.5" drive.

I'm not quite sure what this sentence means. Any external hard drive you buy will be just an internal hard drive that someone else has placed in an enclosure.
posted by cillit bang at 3:16 AM on December 1, 2005

I have a LaCie 250GB/FireWire 400 Porsche-designed external hard disk. I'd recommend it, but on no other grounds than it hasn't given me any trouble in the 6 months I've had it, and that it was rediculously cheap.
posted by cillit bang at 3:18 AM on December 1, 2005

I went round the world with a FireLite 80Gb FW drive & my 30Gb iBook.

I partitioned to match the 30Gb iBook drive & used Carbon Copy Cloner to back up the drive (bootable copy) & had 45Gbish left for music. Solid as a rock despite a few drops.

I was after portability which led me down that path but if this is going to be your only external drive for the time being, portability might be be a factor for you too if you're using a PB.
posted by i_cola at 6:12 AM on December 1, 2005

What cillit bang said should be reiterated. There is no difference between buying an external drive and building one yourself with an enclosure and an internal drive. That's what they are - by definition. You can get 3.5" drives of various speeds.
posted by odinsdream at 6:31 AM on December 1, 2005

2.5" drives are the slow laptop ones, usually 4500 or 5400 RPM. 3.5" ones are standard desktop drives, and are pretty fast (7200 RPM, 8MB cache).

The enclosures that hold the smaller drives are nice, but regardless of who makes it and whether they include the drive, they're still going to be slower than the larger ones.
posted by smackfu at 6:56 AM on December 1, 2005

The Maxtor One Touch drives include a cut-down version of Retrospect, which (once you figure out how to configure the software) can do backups automatically.
posted by omnidrew at 7:25 AM on December 1, 2005

There are 100GB 7200rpm 8MB cache 2.5" drives which are pretty speedy for laptop drives, and you wouldn't need an AC adapter like you'll need for some/most external 3.5" drives. Buying your own enclosure to put the drive in would set you back under $20 for USB 2.0, maybe $30 for firewire.

It'll be more difficult and more expensive to find a 7200rpm drive pre-packaged in an external enclosure, so whether you choose to do that depends on your definition of best.
posted by cactus at 7:27 AM on December 1, 2005

I bought an IOGEAR drive that came with Retrospect Express, which one is supposed to be able to run from three buttons on the drive enclosure (which wasn't a selling point for me; the drive was just cheap). At least on my PowerBook G4 (aluminum, 15") with 10.4, Retrospect Express won't even launch, let alone work with the buttons on the drive enclosure. Based on my n=1 experience, I'd say don't count on gimmicks like this one. Buy based on mfr reputation, size, and price.
posted by dh65 at 11:12 AM on December 1, 2005

another vote for both the LaCie Porsche drives and the Maxtor OneTouch drives, depending upon your budget.
posted by Wild_Eep at 12:38 PM on December 1, 2005