Q.2 Decent external hard drive?

[User]

 

[ACS]

Stay away from Maxtor.

We bought ten x 500 gb units for use on desktops and all of them failed and were replaced some more than once under warranty. We ended up putting in a network solution (SAN) and slinging the lot (gave them to away to staff).

 

[Garz]

I often find for impulsive cheap buys Play are great value (free postage usually too). Reputable e-tailers in my experience though are ebuyer and scan.

 

[rh100]

I would suggest a known brand like Seagate, Hitachi, Samsung, Western Digital. Have a look as some offer extended warranties on the drive. I havn't had much luck with Maxtor in the past either.

PC World are OK with boxed products - as they just resell (wouldn't use them for a service though) - beware the cheaper independent shops as some do rely on cheap imports (ok so they all are imported but you get my drift). I tend to buy my drives from a shop rather than web - as one drive with your local postie/courier could easily be dropped.

Maplins can have the odd bargain too.

 

[CopperBrompton]

Definitely avoid Maxtor: the photo forums are full of Maxtor disaster stories.

I have a mix of Lacie (with mostly Seagate drives inside) and Western Digital.

 

[adscrim]

+1 on the paly.com - I've used them a number of time without hint of a problem.

 

[ian turner]

Since the external hard drives sold in PC World are brand names there's no difference buying from them than any other place. I bought my WD Mybook from them as it was the cheapest if bought on the web and reserved for store collection.
For instance the western digital elements 1tb external drive is £63 on PCworld and dabs so using buy and reserve you could get it that day from pcworld rather than wait for delivery from dabs. From play its £72.
As to brands you are somewhat limited to western digital and seagate/maxtor (note this is now the same company so don't take assertions that maxtor are crap and seagate aren't seriously) as any non drive manufacturers units will contain various drives depending on when they were made. Samsung don't make external drives and its hit and miss whether one of these drives contains a samsung.
Generally just check out what is currently on offer.
You neglect to mention whether this drive is desktop or portable, what capacity and what your budget is btw.

 

[rh100]

Since the external hard drives sold in PC World are brand names there's no difference buying from them than any other place. I bought my WD Mybook from them as it was the cheapest if bought on the web and reserved for store collection.
For instance the western digital elements 1tb external drive is £63 on PCworld and dabs so using buy and reserve you could get it that day from pcworld rather than wait for delivery from dabs. From play its £72.
As to brands you are somewhat limited to western digital and seagate/maxtor (note this is now the same company so don't take assertions that maxtor are crap and seagate aren't seriously) as any non drive manufacturers units will contain various drives depending on when they were made. Samsung don't make external drives and its hit and miss whether one of these drives contains a samsung.
Generally just check out what is currently on offer.
You neglect to mention whether this drive is desktop or portable, what capacity and what your budget is btw.

I didn't know that, cheers. Problem is I've been let down by Maxtor a few times so maybe strike seagate off the list? (Reliability wise I'm on about the actual drive though - not the drive enclosure)

As for samsung - the drives seem to be good and reliable -- and are indeed available as external but havn't tried one (the enclosures are all pretty much the same though except for the fuction button IMO).

 

[ian turner]

Check the reviews out as some enclosures are slower than others.
Seagate gave themselves a bad name at the end of 08/beginning of 09 with drives with bugged firmware that were dying at a high rate but after the firmware update stopped altogether so am still wary of them. They seem to have avoided the "deathstar" tag that IBM got when one of their lines turned out to be turkeys but probably because you can't turn barracuda into something quite so memorable so some folks still say "seagate are reliable, i've never had any probs".
Mind you most opinions on drives are based on rather small samples so can be called into question. Look for reviews on Samsungs and you'll still find "i had two that blew up one after another" for instance.
Hence my preference for "whats cheap and do I know any reason why I shouldn't buy them"

 

[Pottsy]

All I can add is that I have a Western Digital Passport drive like this:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Dig...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1256043052&sr=8-1

No problems at all, good form factor, seems cheap to me at £48 for 250GB here.

 

[ian turner]

For portables the iomega egos get good reviews and are particularly compact and only £56 for 320Gb from pcworld (same price again as dabs, they seem to price match the major etailers for web buys) but then as observed earlier the OP hasn't given details of what drive they are after