Rose
Hi.
I need advice on which 1 terabyte external hard drive to purchase for my Macbook Pro 2011 (Mac OS X Version 10.6.8. Processor 2.3 GHz Intel Core i5) at a decent price considering the quality.
I'm predominately backing up photos, music, and word documents, and if possible an entire back up of my Macbook Pro (Time Machine).
Thanks in advance.
Answer
Any external drive is really two parts:
â the case
â the HDD inside
See links below for some suggested items.
The first matter of fact is that 3.5" form factor is much more reliable than 2.5". If you want 2.5", no comment. For 3.5" HDD, all brands are equal. We have three main players: WDC, Seagate, and Hitachi. All are fine in my book.
For the case....
The case material should be aluminum for better heat dissipation. Drive gets too hot for too long, life is shorter. The internal connection for the HDD inside the case should be SATA for most modern drives. Only drives intended to be replacement for an internal drive in a very old computer will be the older connection (ATA).
The case connection for the cord that goes to the computer should be Firewire 800 for fastest performance. Almost any case will also have USB for PC connection (FW is expensive, so it is usually ignored by PC makers). To use the USB with a 2011 Mac, the case connector should be USB 2.0. That will also work with any new computer that has USB 3.0 (but at 2.0 speed).
The HDD should be 7200RPM and 64MBcache. Seagate is what I choose, because if I use it in my Mac tower, it has temperature sensors. Watch out for Western Digital advertised as "Green". They usually make it very hard to find the full specs, but they are usually cheap-o 5400 RPM. Maybe it is "green" because it spins so slowly that it uses less electricity per hour. :~)
Buy at a local shop or from Amazon. Avoid NewEgg. They have been reported to toss bare drives in a box of styro peanuts, tape it up, ship it. They also have about 50% failure reported in their customer reviews, but we have to expect customers with no complaints write few reviews.
EDIT:
Most of what the other answer describes as reliability evidence is just theory: "built for bumping". Most drives don't die from bumping. They die from motor failure, head scrape, or filter failure (dust).
I only have experience with about 500 drives over the past 17 years, so here are others' views....
From http://serverfault.com/questions/244629/is-there-a-reliability-difference-between-2-5-and-3-5-hdds
"Coming from someone who works on computers regularly I would say in my opinion 2.5" drives are crap. They most generally cost more for the same GB and in my experience fail at, at least 3x the rate of the 3.5" drives."
One difficulty in comparing like for like is that most 3.5" drives are chosen for performance, so they will be 7200 RPM for home use or 10,000 RPM for enterprise. There are very few 7200 RPM / 1TB 2.5" drives. Hitachi makes one, but their data sheet does not show Power On Hours or Mean Time Between Failures. I bought one and installed it as a second drive in a Mac Mini Server. That will be a real test, as a server is on all the time. About half of notebook computers are on less than 8 hours a day. It is easy for a drive motor to last several years if it is only used a third of the time during those years, and even easier if it is spinning at 5400RPM.
All extensive drive reliability surveys I have seen (such as that by Google and a famous one in Russia) only consider 3.5" drives. They all show huge peaks and troughs for various brands (Maxtor for its dopey idea of putting the firmware on the platter instead of the PC board, a few Seagate models ten years ago for firmware failure), but no definitive brand winner. The one factor that stands out is that over the years, drives with smaller capacity than the maximum of that time were more reliable than those at the top of the capacity range. In other words, when 500GB was the max, 250GB drives were more reliable, and when 1TB was the max, 500GB drives were more reliable. I would expect the same could be found for 2.5" drives; with 1TB being the current max for 9.5mm thick drives, 750GB will be more reliable. In that sense we can expect 1TB 3.5" to be a very reliable form, and 1TB 2.5" may be less reliableâ only time will tell, since one year ago, there were no 1TB 2.5" 9.5mm drives.
Often a 2.5" case that is "self-powered" will not connect reliably by USB, unless you use a double cable (one where the computer end has two USB plugs). Yes, some cases have a power adapter, but most people bought a 2.5" case to avoid using the power adapter. They end up filling both USB ports with the drive and no place to pug in other USB devices.
As for USB 3.0 being so urgent, no. That's a PC geek speaking. He has no experience with Firewire or he would know that FW is faster than USB for the same rated data transfer speed. The reason is that FW has greater bandwidth, does not depend on processor resources, and is full-duplex (can move data in both directions at once). Since your MBP has Firewire 800, get a case with that, and if the case also has USB 3.0, great.
<0-0>
Any external drive is really two parts:
â the case
â the HDD inside
See links below for some suggested items.
The first matter of fact is that 3.5" form factor is much more reliable than 2.5". If you want 2.5", no comment. For 3.5" HDD, all brands are equal. We have three main players: WDC, Seagate, and Hitachi. All are fine in my book.
For the case....
The case material should be aluminum for better heat dissipation. Drive gets too hot for too long, life is shorter. The internal connection for the HDD inside the case should be SATA for most modern drives. Only drives intended to be replacement for an internal drive in a very old computer will be the older connection (ATA).
The case connection for the cord that goes to the computer should be Firewire 800 for fastest performance. Almost any case will also have USB for PC connection (FW is expensive, so it is usually ignored by PC makers). To use the USB with a 2011 Mac, the case connector should be USB 2.0. That will also work with any new computer that has USB 3.0 (but at 2.0 speed).
The HDD should be 7200RPM and 64MBcache. Seagate is what I choose, because if I use it in my Mac tower, it has temperature sensors. Watch out for Western Digital advertised as "Green". They usually make it very hard to find the full specs, but they are usually cheap-o 5400 RPM. Maybe it is "green" because it spins so slowly that it uses less electricity per hour. :~)
Buy at a local shop or from Amazon. Avoid NewEgg. They have been reported to toss bare drives in a box of styro peanuts, tape it up, ship it. They also have about 50% failure reported in their customer reviews, but we have to expect customers with no complaints write few reviews.
EDIT:
Most of what the other answer describes as reliability evidence is just theory: "built for bumping". Most drives don't die from bumping. They die from motor failure, head scrape, or filter failure (dust).
I only have experience with about 500 drives over the past 17 years, so here are others' views....
From http://serverfault.com/questions/244629/is-there-a-reliability-difference-between-2-5-and-3-5-hdds
"Coming from someone who works on computers regularly I would say in my opinion 2.5" drives are crap. They most generally cost more for the same GB and in my experience fail at, at least 3x the rate of the 3.5" drives."
One difficulty in comparing like for like is that most 3.5" drives are chosen for performance, so they will be 7200 RPM for home use or 10,000 RPM for enterprise. There are very few 7200 RPM / 1TB 2.5" drives. Hitachi makes one, but their data sheet does not show Power On Hours or Mean Time Between Failures. I bought one and installed it as a second drive in a Mac Mini Server. That will be a real test, as a server is on all the time. About half of notebook computers are on less than 8 hours a day. It is easy for a drive motor to last several years if it is only used a third of the time during those years, and even easier if it is spinning at 5400RPM.
All extensive drive reliability surveys I have seen (such as that by Google and a famous one in Russia) only consider 3.5" drives. They all show huge peaks and troughs for various brands (Maxtor for its dopey idea of putting the firmware on the platter instead of the PC board, a few Seagate models ten years ago for firmware failure), but no definitive brand winner. The one factor that stands out is that over the years, drives with smaller capacity than the maximum of that time were more reliable than those at the top of the capacity range. In other words, when 500GB was the max, 250GB drives were more reliable, and when 1TB was the max, 500GB drives were more reliable. I would expect the same could be found for 2.5" drives; with 1TB being the current max for 9.5mm thick drives, 750GB will be more reliable. In that sense we can expect 1TB 3.5" to be a very reliable form, and 1TB 2.5" may be less reliableâ only time will tell, since one year ago, there were no 1TB 2.5" 9.5mm drives.
Often a 2.5" case that is "self-powered" will not connect reliably by USB, unless you use a double cable (one where the computer end has two USB plugs). Yes, some cases have a power adapter, but most people bought a 2.5" case to avoid using the power adapter. They end up filling both USB ports with the drive and no place to pug in other USB devices.
As for USB 3.0 being so urgent, no. That's a PC geek speaking. He has no experience with Firewire or he would know that FW is faster than USB for the same rated data transfer speed. The reason is that FW has greater bandwidth, does not depend on processor resources, and is full-duplex (can move data in both directions at once). Since your MBP has Firewire 800, get a case with that, and if the case also has USB 3.0, great.
<0-0>
What are some good reliable external hard drive that has terabyte of storage? ?
Q. I need a good reliable external storage device with 1 terabyte capacity.
Can you give me some that are relatively in-expensive, but not junk?
It's for backing up multiple computers that I have.
Can you give me some that are relatively in-expensive, but not junk?
It's for backing up multiple computers that I have.
Answer
I don't think you are going to find one under $150. Do try Ebay look for Western Digital My Book External Drives. I know that is a reliable brand. Beware of inflated shipping on ebay. Circuit City has them for $169 with free shipping.
http://www.circuitcity.com/ccd/attachment.do?OID=193197
That is a good deal considering that the 500GB one is $139 . So you get 2 times as much space for only $30 more.
Here is one for $125 I don't know about shipping cost or the reliability of that brand.
http://www.techforless.com/cgi-bin/tech4less/I1000HD35?mv_pc=nextag&tts=20081005005739
You just have to take good care of them. Most don't have fans in them, so it is a good idea to only turn them on while transfering data. Also, be very careful transporting them. The Western Digital may have a fan, I'm not sure. It does automaticly go into sleep mode after not being used for 10 minutes. That is a good feature.
Also, if it is for a laptop, sometimes any brand will be time consuming to get working right. Be sure it is compatable with your software and connections,too. I got a 320 GB external drive with a 2.0 USB hook up . It says ROCK on the outside, so I guess that is the brand. It works fine with my desktop with Windows XP, but I'm having a hard time getting it to work right with my laptop with Windows ME(I hate Millineum Edition). I read that a lot of people have trouble with external drives and laptops with any software, because it is hard to assign the drive a letter. My desktop automaticly asigned it as Drive E: without any trouble, but my laptop is still not letting me assign a drive letter.
Check out this website for best pricing. I think they have reviews on the different kinds, too. http://www.nextag.com/serv/main/buyer/OutPDir.jsp?search=1tb+hard+drive&psort=1&phi=200&node=300119&_aHard_Drive_Drive_Type=External
I don't think you are going to find one under $150. Do try Ebay look for Western Digital My Book External Drives. I know that is a reliable brand. Beware of inflated shipping on ebay. Circuit City has them for $169 with free shipping.
http://www.circuitcity.com/ccd/attachment.do?OID=193197
That is a good deal considering that the 500GB one is $139 . So you get 2 times as much space for only $30 more.
Here is one for $125 I don't know about shipping cost or the reliability of that brand.
http://www.techforless.com/cgi-bin/tech4less/I1000HD35?mv_pc=nextag&tts=20081005005739
You just have to take good care of them. Most don't have fans in them, so it is a good idea to only turn them on while transfering data. Also, be very careful transporting them. The Western Digital may have a fan, I'm not sure. It does automaticly go into sleep mode after not being used for 10 minutes. That is a good feature.
Also, if it is for a laptop, sometimes any brand will be time consuming to get working right. Be sure it is compatable with your software and connections,too. I got a 320 GB external drive with a 2.0 USB hook up . It says ROCK on the outside, so I guess that is the brand. It works fine with my desktop with Windows XP, but I'm having a hard time getting it to work right with my laptop with Windows ME(I hate Millineum Edition). I read that a lot of people have trouble with external drives and laptops with any software, because it is hard to assign the drive a letter. My desktop automaticly asigned it as Drive E: without any trouble, but my laptop is still not letting me assign a drive letter.
Check out this website for best pricing. I think they have reviews on the different kinds, too. http://www.nextag.com/serv/main/buyer/OutPDir.jsp?search=1tb+hard+drive&psort=1&phi=200&node=300119&_aHard_Drive_Drive_Type=External
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