Looking to buy a hard drive, wondering which brand is the best

i'm trying to expand my computer. actually, my current hard drive won't mount and while i'm attempting to retreive the data, i still want to use my computer.
anyway, i found what i think is a really good deal on a hard drive, and i'm wondering if it's too good to be true. it's the western digital drive in this link...
http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=760061
is this just a crazy good deal or is there something wrong with this hard drive that i'm just missing? it seems all right, but if there's something sub par about it i'd rather spend the extra money and get a good drive.
thanks in advance for any help you guys can offer.

I'll vouch for the Seagate 500 that Jeff linked. I have one.
The 7200.10 series, and the 16gb cache brings SATA enterprise class performance and reliability to ATA.
As well, haven't had a Seagate ATA drive fail in over 8 years of use (own 5 of different sizes and series).
It's also dead silent.
The WD Caviar, as well, has enjoyed recent updates, also due to SATA development. The Caviar line is a favorite of many, and is seen as a reliable performer. The above linked WD drive description can be found on the WD clearance page:
http://www.wdc.com/en/buy/clearancedrives.asp?DriveID=251

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Looking to Buy a Hard Drive Enclosure - Opinions?

I'm looking to buy a hard drive enclosure to attach to my linux box, and I'm wondering if anyone has had any experience with the AEN-U35SE from Airlink (see http://www.airlink101.com/products/aenu35se.php ). It's fairly cheap at my local Fry's, but I'm wondering if anyone has had any issues with it, both with linux compatibility and cooling (they say it's fanless, and I'm not sure if that's good or bad). This would be attached to a server as bulk storage and wouldn't be under high usage, but I'm not wanting to doom my hard drive to certain death.
I can't find any reviews of it at all online, so I guess it must be at least fairly new. It's not carried by Tigerdirect or NewEgg, so I can't find anything there.
EDIT:
Gah, this product is apparantly discontinued, which is probably why NewEgg and TigerDirect didn't have it. Anything anyone can recommend? I only need one drive, and fanless is good as long as the drive doesn't overheat.
Last edited by arew264 (2009-06-12 22:46:07)

combuster wrote:Just avoid coolermaster enclosures, they don't work on linux, got a x-craft lite 250 on some laptop review competition and it doesn't get recognized...
Shame on them, that or just plain cheap crappy chips they used to make it
On the issue of enclosures .... nothing I can recommend because so far I'm not happy with any I bought. On the compatibility side they are all ok but after a good period of time (1year or 1.5years) the the hd sometimes starts acting strange. It stops and restarts almost immediately, a problem that doesn't happen when I plug it inside my desktop pc. In one of the external enclosures I have narrowed the problem to the power supply.
I could plug a Y power cable and monitor the voltages with a multimeter, the 5V rail would be 4.5V when the disk acted strange but for some reason sometimes the rail was close to the nominal 5V (4.9V~5.1V) and everything would work well.
Because of this I have started to believe that the power supplies that have the 12V and 5V output are a big no no, there are several reasons for me not to like it specially because all of the 2 I have behave the same way >_<.
If possible I would get an enclosure that receives only 12V from the outside and then generates the 5V internally but I believe that is hard to find.
The two enclosures I have have are:
http://en.vipower.com/products01_01.php?ID=154 (this one as a bit expensive usb2 to ide)
http://www.tecforsis.pt/produto.asp?idproduto=16907 (cheap box usb2 to sata/ide)

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As far as I know, that is the only list of compatible drives with the router. So, yes, that is the list I am referring to when I said "compatible drive list". There are very few 2TB or 3TB drives on the list. I would really like to be able to use a 3TB drive with a couple partitions, and that seems almost impossible with very few options. I have been reading around the last couple days and I hear lots of reports of people successfully using drives that are not on the tested compatible list. I just wanted to know more options from people like that.

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I'm wondering if anyone can help me. I'm wanting to free up the space on my mac and thinking an ext HD would be the way to go.
Firstly, what do I get? who do I stay away from. I'm wanting to get something between the 500GB - 1TB mark. What's most compatible with the intel based imacs, do I go firewire or usb?
Secondly, can I use an ext HD as fast and easily as I use my internal HD? For example; basically all I want an ext HD for is to import, store, minipulate and playback my video footage in iMovie. I've currently got 160GB of Video on my HD and that's just from a few months of shooting. (my wife is both baby and camera crazy) Can you use them this way or are they just simply more of a back up unit.
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cheers, John

John,
1. Buy the largest FireWire drive you can afford.
2. If other interfaces "come along for the ride" for free, then so much the better.
3. You basically have 4 places (in my opinion) from which to acquire your new drive.
a. OtherWorldComputing - http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/400+USB2/ . 500GB, quad interface for $230 USD. The positives are price and OWC's very good customer service (in my personal experience). The negatives are the slight noise from the fan.
b. G-Technology - http://g-technology.com/Products/G-DRIVEQ.cfm . 500GB, quad interface for $300 USD. I own 2 of these. Cost more, but ZERO noise as they use passive cooling. Longer warranty. I can't address the service issue as I have never had to use it.
c. LaCie - http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=10894 . 500GB, quad for $220 USD. I have not owned this, but have owned 2 LaCie Porsche drives. Good service (personal experience) and price. Negative is the fan noise. Slight.
d. Wiebe Tech - http://www.wiebetech.com/products/toughtech.php . You buy the enclosure from them ($120 USD) and then insert your own hard drive (500 GB from NewEgg for $120). Slightly higher cost than OWC and LaCie. Small DIY effort. No noise with no fan. Look at the ToughTech XE series. Very good reputation in the market.
,dave

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I am buying a Macbook Pro 13" to use for email, internet, word processing and photo editing (in raw and jpeg). It comes wtih 500 or 750 GB Seriesl ATA hard drive which is way more hard drive than I need. I will keep most of my photos on an external hard drive and in a cloud and retain about a thousand photos on the Macbook's hard drive at a time for viewing and processing. I would like to upgrad to the Solid State hard drive but want to choose the least amount of hard drive that would be sufficient for the applications I would like to run and the realtively small amount of photos I want to store on the Macbook Pro. Do you think this would be sufficient? Is the solid state hard drive so much better than the serieal ata hard drive that it would be a good investment?

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Hello,
I would like to add a second hard drive to my G3. My current 12 Gig ATA/133 hard drive is not sufficient anymore for my projects. I would like to choose a SATA hard drive and I need some help with the selection of a model. I am choosing SATA because I may eventually move it to a G5 computer later.
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Hi Hatter:
OK here's my plan. I am sort of a chicken and like to do things in small and easy steps.
I have freed up 5 Gigs on the internal hard drive by moving some data off to an external drive, but leaving all my applications where they are.
That gets me out of trouble for now. Next I am buying the WD Caviar $70 640GB drive that you suggested and will put it in bay two.
When it's up and running I will clone the old drive over to my new drive, so that I can start the Mac from my new humungeous drive.
At this point I will install the dinky old drive in an FW case for safe keeping, I guess and buy another 650 gig drive for the now vacant bay.
Maybe some time down the line, I'll install the new bays, but I have a feeling that by that time APple will be offering a new Mac Gwhiz that I will be unable to refuse.
Does this all sound feasible?
Thanks for all your help and I will keep you posted.
Dan

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Gurra wrote:
Where can i buy a hard drive caddy and connector for a second hard drive for my dv7-7190eo?
Hi,
The right part number for the hard drive kit is 681976-001. The support website for the laptop is on HP Sweden so run the part number on google.co.uk (or your Swedish). I have found the cheapest on us amazon for $38 or £42.
Dv6-7000 /Full HD/Core i5-3360M/GF 650M/Corsair 8GB/Intel 7260AC/Samsung Pro 256GB
Testing - HP 15-p000
HP Touchpad provided by HP
Currently on Debian Wheeze
*Please, help other users with the same issue by marking your solved topics as "Accept as Solution"*

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Either one will work. The only difference between them is one is a retail drive and one is a bulk pack...sold to system builders and such. Same basic hardware. For the same price you might actually find a 500 gig.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145587
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Your manual...see page 47:
Manual
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Looking to buy a hard drive, wondering which brand is the best

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