What are some good External Hard Drive Brands?

[USEDCAR]

I am looking for a large capacity external hard drive i have tons of Videos and eventuality going to convert VHS TV shows into computer videos trying to downsize my vhs collection its not much but you know they are dying. i had a western Digital hard drive a few years ago and it failed i don't trust that company i had a few issues in the past with computers that used their drive. I been putting my videos on SD cards i know eventually they are going to fail i just to have a back up hard drive. I guess nothing beats good old cds imo

How is Seagate? Or Toshiba


I do have a smaller Toshiba and Western Harddrive they are past four years old and going strong i try to do the proper things to them. Windows Repair and De frag them

 

[Scealle]

I have about 10 hard disk drives (mostly due to work and assignments since I am video editor, need to store a lot of videos.) Usually it depends but, I would recommend Sea Gate and Western Digital. They have decent prices and are pretty stable. Sometimes there could be factory manufactures that affects it's life spam but generally most of my hard disk which are WD & SG are 2-3 years and still stable. My oldest hard disk about 6 years was of another brand though. Had a bad experience with Buffalo. (Not less than a year )

 

[knotty223]

I have an 18TB unraid server for my "home theater", mostly wd green drives and a couple of seagates. Never had any problem with any of them and most are over four years old. So I would recommend those drives. Although a couple years back I've encountered a problem with one of my seagate freeagent external drive, luckily its just the adapter not supplying enough power ( after 6 years or working with no problems) to run the drives.

 

[looseliam]

Buy the one with the best warranty and simplest return/rma policy. For me, right now, it's WD.

 

[GamerBear]

I have two Western Digital hard drives, one is a 1TB and the other 320GB. Had the 320GB for about 3 years already and still working and the 1TB I've had for two years now working like a charm. I can't really say how good Seagate is though.

 

[AstareGod]

I've had great luck with Seagate drives, both internal and external. Western Digital is a good brand, too, but I don't have any experience with their external drives.

I'd recommend getting a USB 3.0 hard drive. Even if your computer does not support USB 3.0, you can still connect a USB 3.0 device to a USB 2.0 port and it will function effectively as a USB 2.0 drive. If and when you upgrade to a computer that has USB 3.0, you will then be able to utilize your drive to the fullest extent. If you get a USB 2.0 drive, you'll be stuck at USB 2.0 speeds, even after you upgrade. But a USB 3.0 drive is backwards compatible with a USB 2.0 port.

There's also FireWire. I don't know if any Thunderbolt drives have come out or if that's even an option, but Thunderbolt ports are relatively new and they're probably not on many computers nowadays.

 

[andysayshi]

I own hundreds of hard drives. I archive 2-4 terabytes every month or two (I work with video for a living). I've used virtually every brand that exists.

There's nothing wrong with any of the majors: Seagate, WD, Toshiba or Hitachi. Personally, I generally stick with Seagate as they've been the most trustworthy for me over the years, but others have their own valid opinions.

The difference between a $100 Seagate vs a $100 WD is pretty minimal, but you get what you pay for. If you really want a robust reliable drive, you're better off buying a server grade hard drive. It's hard to determine what drives are in store-bought enclosures, so I typically buy bare drives and enclosures and put them together myself. It's quite easy to do, just be delicate.

Server-grade drives can cost up to twice as much as their cheap equivalents, but will usually come with 5 year warranties, and are far less likely to die on you if treated well.

 

[USEDCAR]

Thank you guys! i'll stick with the common drives i'll have to take a trip up to bestbuy tomorrow and see if they offer a good warranty on their drives.

 

[looseliam]

Thank you guys! i'll stick with the common drives i'll have to take a trip up to bestbuy tomorrow and see if they offer a good warranty on their drives.

be sure to compare pricing with newegg, provantage, and sometimes CDW has some good deals (rarely, though).

 

[maxpowr9]

I've always been partial to Western Digital HDs. Its "Passport" ones in particular are good especially if you have both a desktop and a laptop as it makes transferring data quite easy.