Opinion Q: 1 TB External Hard Drive

[gonwk]

Hi folks,

I am thinking about getting a 1TB External Hard Drive to combine my 2 other externals (1 3.5" 320GB and 1 2.5" 120GB and they are both older PATA enclosures and drives ~ 2006) into one.

Now I was thinking about just getting a plain old 1TB USB external ... but then buddy of mine told me that i would be sorry when I need to transfer that 1 TB data to somewhere else on a USB 2.0 ... so, he thinks I should spend the $$$ and buy an External Drive with eSATA/USB.

But here is my problem ... not only I have to buy more Pricey eSATA/USB hard drive, I have to also buy me an Expresscard for my laptop since I have no Firewire or eSATA connection on my laptop ... and also I have to buy me an eSATA cable since the external hard drives don't come with that cable.

So, my approximate cost for the 1TB eSATA esternal + Expresscard + Cable will be about $250 vs. the 1TB USB external for about $100.

Q1: What do you guys think!?!?

Q2: Any other Suggestions? or Should I wait it out for next year USB3 stuff?

Thanks,

G!

[doctorhardware]

I saw one on Ecost I think it was, for like $79.99. I also believe it was Esata and Usb both. I bought a case from Tiger direct for $19.99 after rebates. It was a thermaltake external case for 3.5" drives. Or you can could buy the docking stations for Sata drives for about $39.99. That is also another good solution too. I am thinking about going that route now too. I got a new HP laptop coming and it has 2.5" Sata drives. I want to back up the drive that has the OS like I did for Acer. That way if the HP gets hit I can just pop in the drive and away I go.

[NightTran]

USB 1 TB is fine I have about 5 of them, I use them to store movies sometimes watch from it

[admin]

You will only get 20 MB/s or so with USB 2. You can get 70+ MB/s on eSATA. If speed is important, then eSATA is obviously the way to go. However, as you've already researched, it's going to cost a lot to enable your laptop for eSATA. Most PCs and many laptops these days come with them as standard, so eSATA is the more future-proof solution. Forget about USB 3 - you'll still have to somehow enable your laptop for USB 3 (otherwise you might only get USB 2 speeds), and it won't be here until next year anyway.

If you are going with eSATA, then go with the eSATA/USB enclosure (or dock) + SATA II drive option which will often save you more money than an actual external drive. Get one with both USB2 and eSATA and if you find USB2 speeds good enough, then you won't need to spend extra - the drive them becomes future-proof for your next PC/laptop. The good thing with an enclosure is you can always upgrade the drive later on. The bad thing about it is that it might not have as many features as an fully fledged external drives (things like auto backup, or for the networked external drives, FTP servers and P2P downloads). I'm talking about a cheap enclosure of course, there are enclosure that cost way more than external drives that will give you everything from Web serving to all forms of RAID.

[cynthia]

I have this one.



Only thing i learned when I installed it is that you need two eSata connections in the motherboard and mine only has one.

But then, it's easy to replace the current hard disk with another one without having to use a screwdriver.

[doctorhardware]

The new HP laptop that I am getting also has the Esata interface. So I am really leaning towards the Sata docking station. But I will get the one docking station that will do both the 2.5" drives and 3.5" drives. Since the HP laptop uses the 2.5" drives. I guess I will take a look at Tiger Direct later today, after I get my injections in my lower back.

[gonwk]

Hi folks,

THANKS for all of your responses!

I did buy one 1TB USB only SimpleTech, SimpleDrive the other day and I am for sure returning it ... I don't mind a Transfer Rate between 12 to 16 or 17MB/s ... but when I am getting only 5MB/s .... the heck with that.

@ Doc ... Thanks for the eCost website ... I never messed around with it.

@ Admin ... Really Appreicate your breakdown my problem in a nutshell ... I think ... correction, I will go with your suggestion and or Cynthia proposal.

@ Cynthia ... I like your option also ...

Q1: Do you have any problems with Dust or anything else!?!?

@ NT ... NT couple of Qs ...

Q2: Do you have your 1TB external Formatted FAT32 or NTFS? And what do you use to watch your movies on the TV?

Q3: What Brand are your External Drives ... WD, Seagate, Lacie, ...!?!?

The reason I ask that question is because for me to watch my Movies in AVI on my Philips DVD Player via it's USB ... and external drive 320GB had to be formatted FAT32 and it has to have it's own Power ... I have even used a 2.5" (portable) 120GB formatted FAT32 ... but it MUST have external power since the USB on Philips DVD Player does not have enough power to drive the hard drive.

Now, I have heard but have not bought it or used it that you can use "Western Digital WD TV HD Media Player" to watch any USB type device ... so I assume that the external drive can be NTFS or FAT32.

BTW, I am also considering just to go with External 2.5" Portable format ... a little more Expensive ... but I can grab and run my external drive at the drop of hat!

THANK You all again for your Help & Suugestion!

G!

[doctorhardware]

I think that the hard drive docking stations have an external power supply. All of the hard cases that I bought for 3.5" drives have external power supplies. The cases I got for 2.5" drives do not have a external power supply. The drives do not need them. As far as the format it does not matter it can be fat32 or ntfs.

[NightTran]

I connect my external to my comp and my comp to 42 HDTV, most of the files I have is MKV or Iso, most of my HD are wt and sg and they all format to NTSC, all connecttion are USB 2

[cynthia]

I think that the hard drive docking stations have an external power supply.

Mine have one.

[doctorhardware]

Cynthia thanks for the heads up on the power supply. I was going to hit Tiger Direct, but I was in to much pain and just went home. Maybe tomorrow it all depends how much pain I am in.

Gwonk the Ecost web site is very good, I have yet to get anything from them that has been doa out of the box. Also if it is refuribished it is clearly mark.

[MilesAhead]

I noticed lately SuperMediaStore seems to have changed from UPS ground on the free shipping to FedEx ground. I saw a 1 TB WD Caviar Black for $106 and change shipped. Wondering if they don't use UPS then it might be a deal compared to NewEgg with FedEx ground shipping(as I hear most doa drives are due to 6' UPS conveyer belt drop or something.)

Unfortunately the only docking station I saw on SMS is an off brand I never saw before.

They had a Hitachi DeskStar on SMS too, but it was 16 MB cache.