External Hard Drives

[Mustaine]

Looking for the biggest audience that's why I am posting here, not in hardware.

How many of you have experience using media from a USB external hard drive?


My media saved is getting into the 100GB range across multiple computers, and I am considering one large external drive to keep it all. the question at hand is playability. I have for a while now been using FLAC for audio I own, thus very large file sizes (above 300MB for a single CD of music) along with other large files.

Will these play seamlessly from a USB drive? I often enque up to 2000 songs into WinAmp at one time and shuffle, and am concerned there will be stutters, or playback delays if I move all the media to an external drive.

Lastly, long term storage. I have read quite a few reviews, and for many of the drives available the life span seems to be only a few years. Has anyone entrusted data to an external drive for over 5 years? I have a WD hard drive 7 years now running as good as ever, an Seagate for 5 just as good. I'd hate to transfer all my stuff only to lose it in the near future.

let me know what your thoughts are, and what you do, thanks.



<EDIT> I should clarify some things. I have experience with commercial drives, and NAS storage we use for server backups locally, but these are $1000 + devices built for reliability, and warranted as such. I am asking about consumer grade drives in the 500GB range and in the $150 price range.

[Masherbrum]

Dave, all of my music has been on a 250GB WD Passport.  98GB worth, I play them in WMP 10 while flying.   I've never had an issue.   Winamp should be no different and I did have Winamp installed with this.   I reverted back to WMP 9, but settled on 10.   

I can only recommend to you, the product I have used.   This has all of my pictures, wallpapers, rare concert videos and music.

[Tarmac]

WD passport here too.  Great for adding extra storage to a laptop, since it runs off of only USB power and doesn't need a wall socket. 

Recommended, but when it comes to really important data I make sure to have it on 2 different hard drives.  But no reliability issues so far; had it a year and it's survived a trip to Iraq.  It's fully enclosed (no vent holes) so it wasn't sucking in sand, but that also might not be good for long life if it overheats from running it 24/7. 

[bcadoo]

As long as its USB 2.0 and your PC has enough 'guts' it should be no problem.

[Dadano]

I am running a couple external Cavalry terabyte drives via eSATA. No complaints here. You shouldn't have a problem with USB 2.0 but eSATA is faster.

[Spikes]

Dave, all of my music has been on a 250GB WD Passport.  98GB worth, I play them in WMP 10 while flying.   I've never had an issue.   Winamp should be no different and I did have Winamp installed with this.   I reverted back to WMP 9, but settled on 10.  

I can only recommend to you, the product I have used.   This has all of my pictures, wallpapers, rare concert videos and music.

I took apart my 120GB passport. Only worked for about 8 months. I'm just going to use it as an internal drive for my gaming comp.

[Meatwad]

I have a WD, forgot the name since im not at home right now. Its a 320gb USB and it goes from the desktop to the router and then to another PC hooked to the TV. I watch a lot of shows on the TV thats stored on the external drive and its as smooth as glass during playback

[Mustaine]

I took apart my 120GB passport. Only worked for about 8 months. I'm just going to use it as an internal drive for my gaming comp.

see, I have been reading quite a few reviews like that, not just WD all makes and models.


you other guys seem to be having good luck, I'll ponder it more

[DYNAMITE]

I've been running 3 external drives without problem for years... I have a 75GB Maxtor, a 500GB WD, and a 750GB LaCie drive.  All of them run seamlessly and without problems.  I've had the Maxtor for about 7 years now, and the WD for 4 years.  The LaCie is only a few months old, but like i said I haven't had any issues yet. Search time and playback of my media is easy as pie without any issues.

If you're worried about reliability, I say pick up two... and use the second one as a data backup. 

[sluggish]

I have a 350gb Iomega that has performed flawlessly.  These things are getting a lot cheaper too.  You can get a 1tb drive for a little over a hundred dollars.  A USB hard drive, in my opinion, is the most important computer accessory you can invest in.


Actually-

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3024959

[Obie303]

Just got a Maxtor 320GB one-touch.  Very cheap and holds all the files, music, and pictures I needed to protect.  You can find them on Ebay for around $68.00 dollars.  Shop around.  I couldn't tell you much about the WD brand.  The Maxtor one-touch was recommended by a family member in the business.

Obie

[bj229r]

I've been running 3 external drives without problem for years... I have a 75GB Maxtor, a 500GB WD, and a 750GB LaCie drive.  All of them run seamlessly and without problems.  I've had the Maxtor for about 7 years now, and the WD for 4 years.  The LaCie is only a few months old, but like i said I haven't had any issues yet. Search time and playback of my media is easy as pie without any issues.

If you're worried about reliability, I say pick up two... and use the second one as a data backup. 

WOW! Are you trying to say a Maxtor drive lasted YEARS?

[eagl]

The problem with most external hard drives is that the drives don't spin down when not in use.  That means if they don't come with an off switch or you forget to turn them off, they run all the time even if the computer is shut off.  The drives then get hot in the little enclosures and they're consumer drives not rated to run 24 hrs a day, so they will probably fail a lot sooner than you'd expect.

If you really want more storage and don't want to just stuff a terabyte drive into your computer, you'll either want another computer on your lan that does nothing but share storage, or a "real" NAS fileserver.  "real" ones can cost a lot of money but you can get a lot of performance from really old hardware if you don't ask the computer to do anything but cough up files over the network.  There are linux distributions designed for old or slow hardware and tailored for fileserver duty.  You build up your cheap/old computer, stuff in some hard drives, hang it on your network, and pretty much forget about it.

[Die Hard]

The problem with most external hard drives is that the drives don't spin down when not in use.  That means if they don't come with an off switch or you forget to turn them off, they run all the time even if the computer is shut off.  The drives then get hot in the little enclosures and they're consumer drives not rated to run 24 hrs a day, so they will probably fail a lot sooner than you'd expect.

That's just wrong Eagl. Purpose built external drives like Seagate Agent, Maxtor OneTouch or WD My Book all shut down after a few minutes of inactivity, whether the computer is on or off. And they come with 3 or 5 year manufacturer guarantees. I have several terabytes worth of external drives. No problems.

[AWwrgwy]

That's just wrong Eagl. Purpose built external drives like Seagate Agent, Maxtor OneTouch or WD My Book all shut down after a few minutes of inactivity, whether the computer is on or off. And they come with 3 or 5 year manufacturer guarantees. I have several terabytes worth of external drives. No problems.

Feels like my external drive is spinning all the time.  It's warm anyway.  And, what good does a warranty do you in a year, or two weeks for that matter, when your drive fails and they replace it with a nice, new, empty drive?

Only problem I've had with mine is the original case, power or collections or something, screwed up shortly after I bought it.  I replaced the case and, other than it "disappears" every once in a while (heat, I think), I've had no problems.


wrongway