New hard drive recommendation

[admin_exported]

I will be dipping my toe into computer audio at some point in the future, to which end I am currently ripping my way through my CD collection.

My intended setup is laptop - DAC - amp, with an external hardrive attached to the laptop. I use a small netbook which is effectively silent. I am not interested in going the NAS route at this time. My requirements are:

Physically small
500 GB or better
USB powered
Silent (i.e. fanless)
Not likely to pack up within 24 hours of the warranty expiring.

I was looking at the WD passport model, here:

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/store/pcw_page.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@0293615945.1240953324@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccgdadehdhjkmdecflgceggdhhmdgml.0&page=Product&fm=null&sm=null&tm=null&sku=692073&category_oid=-32891#productInformationSection

Oh dear, sorry about the long link.

Does anyone have any other recommendations / advice / warnings about things I have not taken into account?

Ta.

 

[knacker]

I would go with a more known HDD manufacturer such as Maxtor, Seagate - something like this maybe,?

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/1TB-Seagate-ST310005FPD2E3-RK-Free-Agent-Xtreme-eSATA-Firewire-400-USB-20-7200-rpm-32MB

 

[Trefor Patten]

I would certainly recommend WD and, personally, would have thought they were better known than Maxtor or Seagate. You will get a better deal buying via Amazon, Play or Novatech than you will from PC World.

 

[Anonymous]

Also look on www.ripcaster.co.uk.

They are specialists in computer based music, storage, external HDs etc.

 

[Gerrardasnails]

Trefor Patten:I would certainly recommend WD and, personally, would have thought they were better known than Maxtor or Seagate. You will get a better deal buying via Amazon, Play or Novatech than you will from PC World.

Ditto. I would suggest that Western Digital were the best known manufacturer of Hard Drives.

Tractorboy, I have the Passport drive, albeit the 160gb version which I use as a back up for my music files on my desktop. Very quick, small and silent.

 

[PJPro]

Seagate for me. 5 year guarantee rather then the 3 given by WD. OK, so might be obsolete in 3 years buts demonstrates a confidence in the product by the manufacturer.

I've got the 750 GB version of this. They also do a 500 GB version...or they used to.

Alternatively Seagate are bringing out the much anticipated (by me) Momentus 7200.4 500GB 2.5" internal drive any day now. The dogs! I'm thinking about getting one for my Samsung NC10.

At the end of the day both WD and Seagate make quality drives. I like Seagate. Others like WD. It's a bit like Macs vs PCs (although to a lesser extent).

 

[Anonymous]

I've been looking at raid drives that are quiet too, the Lacie 2big range have a solid metal heatsink and are meant to be quiet.

Raid means that your data is written to two disks at the same time, good as a backup, though not impervious.

 

[professorhat]

It's always safer to think of a hard disk with RAID as redundant, rather than a backup. A backup suggests if something goes wrong, you can go to it and recover the data you need which isn't always the case with RAID. Yes, a system with RAID will allow you to keep accessing your data in the event of one hard drive failure (or more than one if more exotic forms of RAID are used) so it offers redundancy but in the event of a corrupt file, the RAID system will be no help at all in recovering from that corruption.

This is why you should always have a proper backup system, even if you are using RAID.

 

[Anonymous]

I agree with you, but most people are quite poor at making backups unless they are automated.

Time Machine (mac os x backup system) and Raid make it more likely that you'll have some sort of copy when things go wrong.

I'm using time machine at the minute which is working well.

The maxtor and similar press a button to mirror a drive systems are good too.

have some sort of backup,

music on one external is a simple way to add storage, but it is not backed up.

 

[Superaintit]

Hi Tractorboy,

I have an Iomega usb hard drive which I think is pretty good- silent in operation, reasonably quick. However, I recently read a test in a dutch computer magazine that tested the WD passport 500 gb elite to be the best out of a group of 25 external hard drives. Reasons: relatively cheap, fast and -in Holland at least- 5 year warranty. The WD passport would be a good choice.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the advice all, much appreciated.