Comments on: why is it so frikkin’ hard to find the best usb hard drive? http://www.dennisyang.com/archive/2005/12/14/why-is-it-so-frikkin-hard-to-find-the-best-usb-hard-drive/ the time is gone, the song is over, thought i'd something more to say... Fri, 21 Nov 2008 11:07:13 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.3 By: Joe Russell http://www.dennisyang.com/archive/2005/12/14/why-is-it-so-frikkin-hard-to-find-the-best-usb-hard-drive/#comment-4987 Joe Russell Tue, 31 Jan 2006 20:43:51 +0000 http://www.dennisyang.com/archive/2005/12/14/why-is-it-so-frikkin-hard-to-find-the-best-usb-hard-drive/#comment-4987 Sir Dennis-Dennis, Great catching up w/ you on Sunday! You probably understand this, but most folks don't: disk manufacturers and enclosure manufacturers aren't typically the same. Granted, Maxtor and Western Digital do make both drives and enclosures... But Lacie doesn't, they just do enclosures (quite good ones too) and then outfit them with drives made by other companies (meaning the focus on enclosure solution quality). Joe's recommendation- Best: Lacie http://www.lacie.com Great drive enclosures, all kinds of flexible (sometimes expensive) designs. The FA Porsche enclosure isn't really that great... it's plastic for starters, not all aluminum like their other enclosures. But their new "Lego" looking enclosure is clever- http://apstech.com/products/product.htm?pid=10695 Very Good: Other World Computing http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/hard-drives/ Here they do separate enclosures w/o drives, or w/ drives installed and they tell you what you get (the brand of the drive manufacturer). Raw Drives: Newegg.com The smokin deal going on there right now is a 320g Western Digital IDE drive for 120 buk- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144392 I personally have used the OWC enclosures for over 5 years with zero issues, and in that time I have swapped several varieties of drives in them. As far as the best drive manufacture, I really haven't found one to be substantially better than another... Hitachi, Western Digital, Maxtor, Seagate, etc. All drives are guaranteed to fail... Hence, backup lots. Have fun. But keep it safe, okay? J. Sir Dennis-Dennis,

Great catching up w/ you on Sunday!

You probably understand this, but most folks don’t: disk manufacturers and enclosure manufacturers aren’t typically the same. Granted, Maxtor and Western Digital do make both drives and enclosures… But Lacie doesn’t, they just do enclosures (quite good ones too) and then outfit them with drives made by other companies (meaning the focus on enclosure solution quality).

Joe’s recommendation-

Best: Lacie
http://www.lacie.com

Great drive enclosures, all kinds of flexible (sometimes expensive) designs. The FA Porsche enclosure isn’t really that great… it’s plastic for starters, not all aluminum like their other enclosures. But their new “Lego” looking enclosure is clever-

http://apstech.com/products/product.htm?pid=10695

Very Good: Other World Computing
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/hard-drives/

Here they do separate enclosures w/o drives, or w/ drives installed and they
tell you what you get (the brand of the drive manufacturer).

Raw Drives: Newegg.com

The smokin deal going on there right now is a 320g Western Digital IDE drive
for 120 buk-

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144392

I personally have used the OWC enclosures for over 5 years with zero issues, and in that time I have swapped several varieties of drives in them.

As far as the best drive manufacture, I really haven’t found one to be substantially better than another… Hitachi, Western Digital, Maxtor, Seagate, etc. All drives are guaranteed to fail… Hence, backup lots.

Have fun. But keep it safe, okay?

J.

]]> By: alan http://www.dennisyang.com/archive/2005/12/14/why-is-it-so-frikkin-hard-to-find-the-best-usb-hard-drive/#comment-4728 alan Thu, 15 Dec 2005 21:19:15 +0000 http://www.dennisyang.com/archive/2005/12/14/why-is-it-so-frikkin-hard-to-find-the-best-usb-hard-drive/#comment-4728 I had a 200GB La Cie that crashed on me and I lost most of my samples, acapellas, and various other choons. Needless to say, I wanted to strangle Mr. La Cie with a shoestring, prison style. I would recommend Maxtor - they seem more reliable, although not as fancy and slightly more expensive for the larger capacity. Why can't they just make a 1 TB hard drive for my 17" powerbook?? :-) I had a 200GB La Cie that crashed on me and I lost most of my samples, acapellas, and various other choons. Needless to say, I wanted to strangle Mr. La Cie with a shoestring, prison style.

I would recommend Maxtor - they seem more reliable, although not as fancy and slightly more expensive for the larger capacity.

Why can’t they just make a 1 TB hard drive for my 17″ powerbook?? :-)

]]> By: andy http://www.dennisyang.com/archive/2005/12/14/why-is-it-so-frikkin-hard-to-find-the-best-usb-hard-drive/#comment-4727 andy Thu, 15 Dec 2005 07:03:32 +0000 http://www.dennisyang.com/archive/2005/12/14/why-is-it-so-frikkin-hard-to-find-the-best-usb-hard-drive/#comment-4727 just get an internal hard drive & a a usb 2.0 enclosure. just get an internal hard drive & a a usb 2.0 enclosure.

]]> By: Ash http://www.dennisyang.com/archive/2005/12/14/why-is-it-so-frikkin-hard-to-find-the-best-usb-hard-drive/#comment-4726 Ash Thu, 15 Dec 2005 04:25:52 +0000 http://www.dennisyang.com/archive/2005/12/14/why-is-it-so-frikkin-hard-to-find-the-best-usb-hard-drive/#comment-4726 What a coincidence! I too was (actually still am) looking for a higher capacity (more gbs) portable HDD with USB2.0 but found out contradictory info - I would rather say confusing info. Hmm... here in India, it is still quite difficult to even get any such info! So, procuring is again going to be quite some task.. Anyway, good luck and let us know if you finally bought that LaCie 250gb hard drive! Cheers! What a coincidence! I too was (actually still am) looking for a higher capacity (more gbs) portable HDD with USB2.0 but found out contradictory info - I would rather say confusing info. Hmm… here in India, it is still quite difficult to even get any such info! So, procuring is again going to be quite some task..

Anyway, good luck and let us know if you finally bought that LaCie 250gb hard drive!

Cheers!

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