14 replies to this topic

[Johnnyecks]

Hi gang,

Well it is time for me to purchase a new,external hard drive, possible two of them. I have to go through Dell, don't ask, so the choices are kind of limited. Here are the ones they have, in my price range:

http://accessories.u...4566~0~12976065


What are your thoughts. I did some research and some people were saying that when transferring a lot of files (which I will be doing), that some files had the end of the file cut short, or some became corrupt...etc. I cannot have that happen to me. I started re-ripping my collection onto my Macbook, now I need to transfer those over the new drive. That drive will then become the main archival drive for my scores... the way it used to be. So I can finally have my entire library back up and running.


Any thoughts, suggestions?

Thanks guys, and gals.

- J

[Nemesis]

I have 4 of Western Digital 2TB Elements Desktop External Drive - Black. Have zero problems with all of them.
How the hell should a file corrupt?!? I would assume if a file doesn't proper works on your ext. HD there was a problem while copiing it to it.
But one will realise it at the moment it happens.

[Marian Schedenig]

I've had bad experiences with a WD drive and an even worse experience with their customer support. I usually buy Seagate when possible.

[Johnnyecks]

Thanks! I'm still way torn on what to get.

[Wojo]

Well whatever you buy, make sure you keep a copy of your data on your primary computer. If the data only exists on a single external hard drive, it's not a backup.

[Nemesis]

Yes, that's why I have 2 of my ex. HD at my home and the other 2 with the same content at my parents house.

[king mark]

I haven;t heard of files" corrupting" while transferring from one drive to another

In any case I have TeraCopy installed . It's supposed to eliminate the risk of that because it checks individual files

http://download.cnet...4-10671835.html

It was one of Lifehackers "essential " freeware

[Stefancos]

I have 2 WD external drives that work well. and an old Lacie one that is still going strong after maybe 6 years.

[Wojo]

Files can become corrupted just as easily during transfer as they can just sitting idle for years on a hard drive. It's difficult to say for certain why it happens, but it does, and can happen over FTP, internet, wireless, USB, or even over internal connections from one drive to another. Moving massive files, or small amounts of little files, might confuse the computer, and with just a few bits out of place, files get shot. That's why websites that deal with downloads now typically provide MD5 hash information, to ensure that the copy is identical to the source.

TeraCopy is a good way to control the reliability of file transfers, because the default file transfer process in Windows XP is absolute garbage.

[Stefancos]

You are just trying to scare us!
Things are fine! Things are fine!

[Johnnyecks]

I will be purchasing two of the same drive, use one for archiving and the other as it's backup. Once that step is done, then I will be burning everything on the backup onto gold dvd'rs ( or possibly bluray if it takes that long for me to get to this step ). Thanks for all the advice! The drive that failed on me was a Lacie. It was great, I had no problems with it whatsoever for at least six years but when it went... there was no recovering it.

The corrupt file issue was something I read on a few reviews of drives on Amazon. That got me nervous because I will be doing a massive transfer (in bits and pieces) from the macbook to the external. Maybe the best bet is to use some file checker, and do it one album at a time. UGH, I dread the thought of all this work.

[king mark]

yeah

Just make sure it works fine for a few days


I just bought one and the first one made loud beeping and whirling noises like the search heads were stuck. I replaced it for the same kind and this ones appears fine

This also happened last year on a PS3

check for little bugs like how if it also wakes when your PC comes out of sleep mode

[Greg1138]

I think that in general, 99% of errors reported at Amazon (I have had a browse there in the past) were down to user error. I have had an issue ONCE when transferring to a Maxtor 3200, but have also ran a Toshiba for years with no issues, and more recently a 1.5Gb WD Elements drive which is excellent....the ONLY downside to the WD drives is a slight delay (2-3 seconds) when they are "Waking Up", but that is small price to pay given the excellent economic value (especially given the energy-saving feature), the silent operation, and - quite frankly - the look (it looks great).

[Wojo]

I highly recommend taking advantage of whatever high-speed connection option you have available for external hard drive data transfers. Chances are, since Johnnyecks said he has a Mac, then Firewire (IEEE1394) is his best option. In PC world, USB 2.0 is old hat and sucks after you have lived with first eSATA and then USB 3.0. Unfortunately, I had to buy a special interface cable to use my external with eSATA on one machine, and an internal card to let it use USB 3.0 on my desktop, but it was money well-spent. The speed increases are well worth it.

[Alexander]

Western Digital!