recommended external HDs?

darrell · Post by **darrell** » Sun May 11, 2008 6:22 pm

Hi all. I'm looking for opinion on recommended hard drives. I have one that i bought from comp USA, and i am on pins and needles about a future crash....suppose i should only use apple recommended stuff?

i was at the apple store today, and they have up to a terabyte (!) raid systems....that's too much for me, i think, but who knows?

i've just purchased Mach Five, which looks to be real good, and am thinking about a drive that spins at 10K....any ideas?

thanks,
darrell

monkey man · Post by **monkey man** » Mon May 12, 2008 4:01 am

I've always been happy with WD drives; I've only bought 7200RPM incarnations over the years though.
Those who've bought the raptors (faster spin) seem happy too.

Many folks here like Seagate. I think the warranty on them is longer (5 years instead of 3).

I'd urge you not to buy IBM though.
I went through about 5 of their DeathStars (DeskStars) in a row and all failed on the first day.

emulatorloo · Post by **emulatorloo** » Mon May 12, 2008 9:04 am

I like Western Digital and Seagate.

I purchase IDE drives and put them in a external firewire case.

I have had excellent luck with the Galaxy "Metal Gear Box" brand. It is fanless so it is quiet.

That is where I host my sample library.

Here is a link to it so you can see the case I am talking about:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817716034

newegg is also a good place to purchase IDE drives.

daniel.sneed · Post by **daniel.sneed** » Mon May 12, 2008 10:36 am

If silence is a concern, Seagate is probably the way to go.

sustainiac · Post by **sustainiac** » Mon May 12, 2008 11:30 am

FWIW - Regarding Hard drives - IBM is now Hitachi

The 500GB Seagate 7200rpm SATA2 with 32MB buffer is preffered.
Seagate ST3500320AS 500GB SATA2 7200.11 32MB 7200RPM
http://www.centralcomputers.com/ccp6419 ... 35007s.htm

I use one of these in an ESATA external enclosure, and I use a ExpressCard34 ESATA adapter with my Macbook Pro and 828MK3.
http://www.google.com/products/catalog? ... 2301330683

I have heard horror stories about the large NON-RAID 1TB drives - so I avoid them for high speed real time A/V use.

supersonic · Post by **supersonic** » Mon May 12, 2008 2:03 pm

I work with glyph drives and their RAID 062 drives have proven quite reliable. Their customer support in europe is great.

leigh · Post by **leigh** » Mon May 12, 2008 2:26 pm

Seagate drives seem quieter to me.

I keep them in a fanless rack:

http://tinyurl.com/2zfqax

**Leigh

supersonic · Post by **supersonic** » Mon May 12, 2008 11:46 pm

I wouldn't recommend fan-less drives. Whatever the casing (aluminium or otherwise), once you start playing dozens of audio tracks or streaming samples from big libraries it won't be enough to keep the drive cool enough. If the noise disturbs you, put the drives somewhere else. The drives will thank you for the prolonged life expectancy.

kassonica · Post by **kassonica** » Tue May 13, 2008 3:20 am

Seagate are very very reliable.

moozakmike · Post by **moozakmike** » Tue May 13, 2008 7:47 am

Most brands are about the same these days.

Anyone you get I suggest leaving the drive on - spinning. On/Off cycles are what kills drives.

panduri · Post by **panduri** » Mon May 19, 2008 11:54 pm

moozakmike wrote:Most brands are about the same these days.

Anyone you get I suggest leaving the drive on - spinning. On/Off cycles are what kills drives.

I'm interested - do you have any references that compare
letting a drive sleep vs. it spinning non-stop?

jliechty · Post by **jliechty** » Wed May 21, 2008 6:03 pm

Western Digital's new 1TB drive is very quiet and also fairly affordable. I've had good experiences with my other WD drives (a 150GB Raptor and a 750GB Caviar), and plan to build up an external enclosure soon with one or two of their new TB drives.

channelite · Post by **channelite** » Wed May 21, 2008 8:06 pm

emulatorloo wrote:I like Western Digital and Seagate.

I purchase IDE drives and put them in a external firewire case.

I have had excellent luck with the Galaxy "Metal Gear Box" brand. It is fanless so it is quiet.

That is where I host my sample library.

Here is a link to it so you can see the case I am talking about:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817716034

newegg is also a good place to purchase IDE drives.

emulatorloo,

Does your firewire drive case cause the drive to go to sleep often? I have an acomdata external case

http://www.acomdata.com/hdp/fs.html

with a 120 gb IDE western digital in it and if left alone for like 15 mins, the drive goes to sleep. It's totally the drive and not the mac because I have all energy savers set to never. It's really annoying. This drive is now used just for back up.

ChuckTX · Post by **ChuckTX** » Sun Jun 01, 2008 4:11 pm

I've always had great luck with Western Digital and SeaGate. Though, I do have to run them in a separate room (along with the tower) from the recording source. No matter how quiet a system and HDs run a condenser mic is going to pick them up anyway, so I've never been overly concerned with that aspect.

markbnyc · Post by **markbnyc** » Mon Jun 02, 2008 7:22 am

I'm running 2 150GB WD Raptor drives for samples and a 750GB Seagate for audio/projects. No noise issues for me (my clunky old G5 is the noisiest thing in my setup) and everything has been rock solid so far.

D'oh! I just realized the original poster is on a macbook and not a desktop. nevermind!