Bang for Buck Hard Drive Recommendations?

[Angus19]

Looking to get an external HDD. I would just get an external enclosure and hook it up to my eSata port. I do alot of photo editing (fairly large files) so I have to move those files around alot. I also move around alot of music. Because of this speed is important to me.

As such I would like good quality HDD (2 or 3TB) to put inside the enclosure. Does anyone have reccommendations for something with good bang for your buck? Are there any HDD's that are too fast for eSata (as in I won't actually benefit from having it as the eSata transfer rate will be the limiting factor?

Also newegg lists some drives as "Bare Drive" and some without that designation. Whats the difference and do I care? I assume not and that a bare drive should be fine but I thought I would double check.

 

[pbf98]

ok what I am reading is that you want to by an external enclosure and put an internal hard drive in that to make your own external.

The two brand names that I use is Western Digital, and Seagate. I go on newegg and sort by rating, and read all reviews that are within a few months. I built my computer based off customer ratings and reviews and it turned out pretty nice

Bare Drive just means there are no cables manuals etc... its just the hard drive so if you are doing what I think you are doing, bare drive won't mean anything to you.

 

[Angus19]

I am doing what you think I'm doing. Thanks for the info. I get everything from Newegg. The info on bare drives is exactly what I need.

Newegg Ratings are good but anyone who's tested a few HDD's side by side would be a huge help!

 

[NYCHitman1]

Seagate ftw on ex-HDD's.

 

[350X]

just consider heat, get one with a fan, most are built like a giant heat sink but they need more if you ask me.

 

[Speed Daemon]

I just picked up a half-dozen 2TB Seagate HDs (in the box with all the goodies, no less) for $99 each. They're made in China, not Thailand--I don't know if that's good or bad at this point. They seem to move bits a bit faster than my other (also Seagate) 2TB drives.

Right now the consensus seems to be down on Seagate and pro-WD. I'd give Hitachi a try if the price was right.

I make a rule of always buying external enclosures with multiple I/O types. Usually this means IEEE-1394 and USB. I'm putting one of the Chinese 2TB drives into an old external enclosure with USB 2 and IEE-1394 800. I got an 800 card for my Windows box for $20. If I was buying an enclosure new today, I'd look to see if any support Thunderbolt. IJS

 

[IOWA]

I just picked up a half-dozen 2TB Seagate HDs (in the box with all the goodies, no less) for $99 each. They're made in China, not Thailand--I don't know if that's good or bad at this point. They seem to move bits a bit faster than my other (also Seagate) 2TB drives.

Right now the consensus seems to be down on Seagate and pro-WD. I'd give Hitachi a try if the price was right.

I make a rule of always buying external enclosures with multiple I/O types. Usually this means IEEE-1394 and USB. I'm putting one of the Chinese 2TB drives into an old external enclosure with USB 2 and IEE-1394 800. I got an 800 card for my Windows box for $20. If I was buying an enclosure new today, I'd look to see if any support Thunderbolt. IJS

Let me know how they're holding up will ya? I'm going to have to replace some hard drives in my NAS soon, they're getting quite old.

 

[Speed Daemon]

Let me know how they're holding up will ya? I'm going to have to replace some hard drives in my NAS soon, they're getting quite old.

Which ones? The 1TB ST31000528AS drives in my ReadyNAS NVX stubbornly refuse to fail my SeaTools tests after I kicked over the NAS box while it was running. The new 2TB STBD2000101 drives don't report drive temp in the NAS box, so I might swap them for my older 2TB JBOD drives if I have enough to fill four slots.

 

[alostpacket]

FWIW -- I always liked AnandTech for hardware reviews, especially SSDs.

The UK's leading source for Hardware and Games reviews | bit-tech.net is good too

 

[Mehta23]

I heard the ones made in China are more likely to break down badly

 

[Speed Daemon]

I heard the ones made in China are more likely to break down badly

I wouldn't be surprised one bit if that proved to be true. The Communist Chinese drives don't even look like the tried-and-true Thai Seagate drives. That's why for the first time ever I bought a fifth drive as a cold spare for my RAID array.

 

[IOWA]

I heard the ones made in China are more likely to break down badly

It seems to me lots of "current" hard drives are like this today. Maybe it's just nostalgia but I don't remember so many DOA's and full-on failures like this 5 years go. (shrug)

 

[Ballymoss]

I have a Seagate GoFlex 250GB HDD and its quite enough for backing my PC and other stuff. If you are buying any external HDD now, make sure it is USB 3.0.