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C.A.T.S. CEO · 09:59 AM

I'm looking for a good external USB HD add least 1 TB in size. I plan to use it as my time machine backup drive for my 3 (currently 2) Macs. I figured I'd partion it and use the larger partion for backups and the smaller one for random stuff. I'm also looking for something good on the eyes, as I'm going to hook this thing to my Airport Extreme and that happens to be in the living room (we have DSL and the phone lines are in high traffic areas).

I'm looking at the Lacie Big Disk, any other suggestions?

rjt1000 · Jun 19, 2007, 09:33 AM

The largest single hard drive at this point is 750gb. So the 1Tb drives you are looking at are really RAID 0 arrays of 2x500gb drives. That turns out to be a bad thing because the failure rate is higher (if either of the drives fails, all your data is lost). My suggestion would be to get a single 750gb drive, unless you can wait until single 1TB drives are introduced. Also I would buy the bare drive and install it in an enclosure. This is not a difficult task. That allows you to choose the manufacturer of the internal drive, rather than leaving it up to someone else. Seagate offers 5 year warranties on their drives while most others offer only 3 years. So my suggestion would be a Seagate 750gb OEM drive plus an enclosure of your choice. Seagate also sells a 750gb drive in an enclosure. Check out Newegg for numerous choices, or search some of the back threads as this topic comes up often. Good luck.

C.A.T.S. CEO · Jun 19, 2007, 09:43 AM

Originally Posted by rjt1000

The largest single hard drive at this point is 750gb. So the 1Tb drives you are looking at are really RAID 0 arrays of 2x500gb drives. That turns out to be a bad thing because the failure rate is higher (if either of the drives fails, all your data is lost). My suggestion would be to get a single 750gb drive, unless you can wait until single 1TB drives are introduced. Also I would buy the bare drive and install it in an enclosure. This is not a difficult task. That allows you to choose the manufacturer of the internal drive, rather than leaving it up to someone else. Seagate offers 5 year warranties on their drives while most others offer only 3 years. So my suggestion would be a Seagate 750gb OEM drive plus an enclosure of your choice. Seagate also sells a 750gb drive in an enclosure. Check out Newegg for numerous choices, or search some of the back threads as this topic comes up often. Good luck.

You seem to have missed one of my main points, it need to be good to the eye, I know I could get a enclosure and a 750 GB HD and stick them together, but that doesn't look good on the eye. I am yet to find a enclosure that looks as good as the Lacie disk.

Edit: I looked at G-Drives but the 750 GB HD they sell in a full $130 more.

C.A.T.S. CEO · Jun 19, 2007, 10:10 AM

I think I'm going with the My Book Pro, is a bit cheaper and it is more high quality.

Edit: not shipping

rjt1000 · Jun 19, 2007, 11:38 AM

Originally Posted by C.A.T.S. CEO

You seem to have missed one of my main points, it need to be good to the eye, I know I could get a enclosure and a 750 GB HD and stick them together, but that doesn't look good on the eye. I am yet to find a enclosure that looks as good as the Lacie disk.

If apppearance is your number one consideration, I am not sure anyone here can help you with that, after all beauty is in the eye of the beholder. So if the LaCie or the MyBook are the only ones that meet your aesthetics then you've got your answer. BTW there are 357 USB 3.5 inch enclosures on Newegg if you decide to look further.

C.A.T.S. CEO · Jun 19, 2007, 12:41 PM

Originally Posted by rjt1000

If apppearance is your number one consideration, I am not sure anyone here can help you with that, after all beauty is in the eye of the beholder. So if the LaCie or the MyBook are the only ones that meet your aesthetics then you've got your answer. BTW there are 357 USB 3.5 inch enclosures on Newegg if you decide to look further.

Yes, I looked on Newegg and didn't see anything 'good to the eye'. Ah well.

I think I will look a bit harder tho, thanks for your help anyway

slick70+ · 04:31 PM

Am I missing something? The eye candy is obvious:

http://www.formac.com/webapp/product..._xtroxygen.php

mduell · Jun 19, 2007, 05:44 PM

Is the LaCie Big Disk one drive or two in RAID0?
Ditto for the WD MyBook.

Based on the price I have a feeling they're both the latter.

C.A.T.S. CEO · Jun 19, 2007, 06:47 PM

Originally Posted by slick70+

Am I missing something? The eye candy is obvious:

http://www.formac.com/webapp/product..._xtroxygen.php

Thats not USB, maybe you should read my OP.

rjt1000 · 11:11 PM

Originally Posted by mduell

Is the LaCie Big Disk one drive or two in RAID0?
Ditto for the WD MyBook.

Based on the price I have a feeling they're both the latter.

The WD MyBook is available as a single 750 gb drive, and as 2x500 or 2x750 gb RAID drives (with the choice of mirror or striped RAID).

Unfortunately, LaCie doesn't seem to specify the contents of their Big Disk, but based on size, price etc it appears to also be a 2x500gb RAID0.

Originally Posted by rjt1000

The largest single hard drive at this point is 750gb.

Oops, I was mistaken. I just noticed that 1TB single drives are now available, although still rather expensive.

Veltliner · Jun 20, 2007, 01:50 AM

I wonder if it is really advisable to go with the biggest available hard drives.

Aren't bigger drives more likely to fail than smaller ones?

Veltliner · Jun 20, 2007, 01:53 AM

G-tech's G SATA with 135mb/sec max costs 649 list.

G-SATA High Performance and Stylish Serial ATA Storage Solutions

Can be organized in either Raid 0 or Raid 1.

C.A.T.S. CEO · Jun 20, 2007, 09:53 AM

Can I, in the event of a HD failure, switch out one of the drives in the Lacie and be fine? Or will the RAID 0 thing get into the way?

Originally Posted by Veltliner

G-tech's G SATA with 135mb/sec max costs 649 list.

G-SATA High Performance and Stylish Serial ATA Storage Solutions

Can be organized in either Raid 0 or Raid 1.

Someone didn't read my OP again.....

It. Must. Be. USB.

rjt1000 · 11:20 AM

Originally Posted by C.A.T.S. CEO

Can I, in the event of a HD failure, switch out one of the drives in the Lacie and be fine? Or will the RAID 0 thing get into the way?

You missed the main point of my response to your OP:

Originally Posted by rjt1000

the 1Tb drives you are looking at are really RAID 0 arrays of 2x500gb drives. That turns out to be a bad thing because the failure rate is higher (if either of the drives fails, all your data is lost).

Actually the failure rate of a 2 disk RAID0 is about twice the rate of a single drive. IMHO, that is more important than good looks.

More info here:
Standard RAID levels - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

rjt1000 · Jun 20, 2007, 02:15 PM

Again, for reasonable price and reliability, a single drive 750 gb drive (rather than the 1TB you mentioned) would be a practical compromise:

This $350 750gb single drive USB 2 hard drive with Seagate mechanism stacks with the new Airport extreme and should therefore be unobtrusive visually:
750GB NewerTech miniStack 7200RPM 16MB Cac... (U2MS750GB16) at OWC

This $320 750 GB single drive hard drive with USB2/ Firewire interface and Seagate mechanism has an attractive all aluminum design roughly similar to the LaCie:
750GB OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro 7200RPM Ox... (MAU4F7750G16) at OWC

If you must have 1TB (and dont mind the $550 price tag), this single drive multi-interface (yes USB2) drive with Hitachi mechanism from OWC has the same all aluminum design as the previous link:
1.0TB (1000GB) OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Q... (MEAQ7H1TB32M) at OWC

BTW: OWC aka MacSales is a reputible Mac peripherals dealer that I have used for years. Always reliable, and generally good prices. Of course, for the very cheapest price, you would need to buy the drive and enclosure a la carte from a discounter like Newegg and do the (relatively easy) installation yourself.

mduell · Jun 20, 2007, 06:06 PM

750GB Seagate (ATA) for $230 + $25-40 ATA-USB2 enclosure (pick one that you like the look of with a 4 or 5 'egg' rating and more than 10 votes)

OR

1TB Hitachi (SATA) for $400 + $20-36 SATA-USB2 enclosure (pick one that you like the look of with a 4 or 5 'egg' rating and more than 10 votes)

+ Phillips screwdriver + about 5 minutes of your time

= a quality external drive with a 5 year warranty for a lower price than any of the pre-built models

A lot of Mac users like OWC, I don't, and in this case their prices are $100 too high.

C.A.T.S. CEO · Jun 20, 2007, 06:15 PM

Originally Posted by rjt1000

This $350 750gb single drive USB 2 hard drive with Seagate mechanism stacks with the new Airport extreme and should therefore be unobtrusive visually:
750GB NewerTech miniStack 7200RPM 16MB Cac... (U2MS750GB16) at OWC

Sold.

rjt1000 · Jun 20, 2007, 06:39 PM

Originally Posted by mduell

750GB Seagate (ATA) for $230 + $25-40 ATA-USB2 enclosure (pick one that you like the look of with a 4 or 5 'egg' rating and more than 10 votes)

OR

1TB Hitachi (SATA) for $400 + $20-36 SATA-USB2 enclosure (pick one that you like the look of with a 4 or 5 'egg' rating and more than 10 votes)

+ Phillips screwdriver + about 5 minutes of your time

= a quality external drive with a 5 year warranty for a lower price than any of the pre-built models

A lot of Mac users like OWC, I don't, and in this case their prices are $100 too high.

An OEM bare drive plus enclosure had been my original recommendation as well, but the OP couldnt find an enclosure that he liked.

I didnt know that Hitachi now offers a 5 year warranty, as Seagate does. That is good news. Competiton is great.

BTW, why don't you like OWC? Of course their price would be higher than a bare OEM drive plus enclosure, because they are doing the labor of putting it together, offering an additional warranty on the assembled unit, and taking some profit. Their prices are in line with other pre-assembled drives. That said, I assembled all of my external drives with OEM bare drives plus enclosures from Newegg to save $$$.

C.A.T.S. CEO: Hope the new drive works out well for you. When you get it set up, why don't you post back and say how you like it?

mduell · Jun 20, 2007, 07:53 PM

Originally Posted by rjt1000

BTW, why don't you like OWC? Of course their price would be higher than a bare OEM drive plus enclosure, because they are doing the labor of putting it together, offering an additional warranty on the assembled unit, and taking some profit. Their prices are in line with other pre-assembled drives. That said, I assembled all of my external drives with OEM bare drives plus enclosures from Newegg to save $$$.

Their prices on RAM, hard drives (internal and external), optical drives (internal and external), enclosures, etc. are way to high. Yea, you can have those kind of margins on Mac video cards and G3/G4 upgrades where there is very limited selection, but not on products where there is vendor competition.

ixus_123 · Jun 24, 2007, 10:43 AM

How about a D-Link 323 GB ethernet NAS (ofcourse you'll need a GB switch too.

It will take 2 sata hard disks as either JBOD, RAID 0, RAID 1. It's not going to be as fast as a disk in a firewire 800 or esata enclosure but because it's a network attached storage all your computers can share it and backup to it. It also has a built in iTunes server so you can have a central repository for your music.

I just got one and I'm really happy with it. It solved all my storage needs. It's bring your own disk device which is perfect - you buy the unit and choose what disks you want - I have 2 500gb western digital drives - when that's full TB drives should be cheaper.

ixus_123 · Jun 24, 2007, 10:47 AM

D-Link DNS-323 NAS: Low-cost File Sharing - TechDigs.net

a link - set up is easy and if you have a wireless router you can access your files wirelessly.

It runs debian linux and there is already a wiki for hacks to add functionality

Veltliner · Jun 24, 2007, 07:47 PM

Originally Posted by C.A.T.S. CEO

Sold.

Isn't that prolific chipset the one that messes up drives after a while? Why save money on data safety? Why not get an Oxford 911 or better 924 chipset?