Need a good external hard drive for my PC

I use this one, great drive - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236517

If you need more space, I recommend this one as well since I have one. It's more expensive, but can be found for around $70 if you look hard enough - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236519

And, yes, transferring files is as a easy as copy-and-paste.

No need for a special external drive ..... use your regular favorite HD and use one of these. Everytome I do a new build for someone, I'm gifted the old unwanted parts and at least half the time, it includes and ole HD ... plus dead laptops are great soures for old drives and they transport well in ya pocket.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=blacx&N=-1&isNodeId=1

I'd also appreciate recommendations of ready-to-use external hard drives, with an emphasis on reliability (vs speed). I've been googling the topic and have read several articles about this Backblazer test in 2014:

http://www.techspot.com/news/55399-backblaze-data-shows-hitachi-and-seagate-as-most-and-least-reliable-hard-drives-respectively.html

showing Hitatchi (Now HGST) having the most reliable hard drives, but the articles are only addressing internal drives, so I'm guessing that reliablity test didn't apply to any external drives.

Maybe the plan SHOULD be to buy a HD enclosure for an internal Hitatchi as suggested by JackNaylorPE...but that's a tech task that seems out of my league.

JackTaylor's advice to you is sound. You would be much better served by purchasing a USB external enclosure + a hard drive for your backup strategy than a commercial "one-piece" unit.

The advantages of doing so are significant. First of all virtually any USBEHD enclosure you purchase will accommodate both 2 1/2" & 3 1/2" drives. That's a real advantage. Then you can purchase the HDD YOU want, not the HDD that's installed in the commercial product. Rest assured the drive you purchase will invariably prove superior to the commercial product. And you can select whatever disk capacity YOU want. Another advantage is that the HDD you install in the USBEHD can always be easily removed and installed in a PC should that need arise.

All in all there are really no downsides to purchasing a USBEHD + HDD in comparison to purchasing a commercial one-piece product. And you will have an enormous choice as to the USB enclosure that suits you. One type, i.e., the so-called "docking station", is the one JackTaylor recommended. There are plenty of other types of enclosures. Right now, as an example, we're using the Orico 6518US3 model. See...
http://www.amazon.com/ORICO-6518US3-Super-Docking-Station/dp/B00CBPB4PM
Newegg also carries this model. And there are many others to choose from.

I can assure you the "tech task" as you call it is not out of your league. It's child's play to install and/or reinstall a HDD in & out of a USB external enclosure - whatever the type.

Try it. You'll like it.

One thing I'll add since you raised a question re the actual backing up (transferring) of your files. While copying & pasting is one technique you may find that utilizing a disk-cloning program will greatly simplify & speed up the backing-up process. It's something for you to consider.

I forgot to add one other significant advantage to using a USB external enclosure + HDD separate components. By so doing you'll now have UNLIMITED capability to utilize any number of different HDDs/SSDs for whatever purposes you deem desirable or necessary.

Yes I probably could figure it out. Thanks for your reply. I think the original poster mentioned the backing up of files. I actually keep all my files on the external HD - not on the computer.

I have heard of using two external HD's and creating some kind of "mirroring" so that they both get the same data & thus, there is a back up of the External HD. But didn't fully understand the process. I would like to look into that so I have a back up of the external drive, as well.

The process for "mirroring" two USBEHDs is precisely the same as cloning one's internally-connected system HDD or SSD to an external device (or even to another internally-connected drive). It's simply utilizing a disk-cloning program to effect the bit-for-bit copying of data from one drive to another.

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The backblaze study is wholly irrelevant to the performance of desktop drives.

1. They use a server farm, The conditions of a server farm are in now way shape of form relative to desktop drives. It would be like using mortality rates for active soldiers in a war zone to set life insurance rates for Fortune 500 employees. You are probably aware that there drives are designed for different applications hence for example WD's Black (desktop performance) Green (energy saving) purple (surveillance) Blue (Black is too expensive). Similarly server drives face a whole different set of demands which "server drives" are designed for. Server drives OTOH don't perform as well as desktop drives on the desktop.

2. You mentioned Hitachi serving well .... in a desktop environment. I would have recommend those Hitachi drives if you had a server but the reason the Hitachi drives do so well in the Backblaze study is because Hitachi never even implemented the SMART 0xC1 command which count the number load/unload cycles into head landing zone position.

3. Seagate drives for the desktop for example are "very aggressively" designed for head parking .... putting the head ion a "landed" position as opposed to flying back and forth across the disk. (each time it parks / unparks is called a load cycle). This protects the drive for example when the laptop is dropped or the desk is bumped and is a common feature in desktop drives. Both Seagate at WD rate their desktop drives for between 250k and 500k load cycles. Server drives are always busy and head parking is a pretty much useless feature since their design environment is not subject to vibration. But in a server environment because it's coded into the firmware, the desktop drives will park and you could see 50,000 load cycles in a month. So what's happening at backblaze is that the are selecting desktop drives with features designed to protect the consumer, in an application where those very features doom the drive to failure. Memo To backblaze .... "use drives that are designed for your specific application not ones whose protection features against situations you will never see insure pre-mature failure ".

4, If you want to see what's happening in the "real world of desktop computers", refer to the studies done by the french site:

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/927-2/cartes-meres.html

Their analysis documents drives returned under warranty that failed between 6 and 12 months of operation. The 1st number is the last 6 month reporting period. The 2nd in ( ) is the previous 6 month period:

- Seagate 0,69% (contre 0,86%)
- Western 0,93 (contre 1,13%)
- HGST 1,01% (contre 1,08%)
- Toshiba 1,29% (contre 1,02%)

Click to expand...

Now with that out of the way I want to say that despite the above I would warn against making sweeping judgements. What usually happens is that one or 2 model lines can raise that average way up. Just like with PSUs where peeps say "My friend says Corsair PSUs are terrible, I was always led to believe they make great PSUs. Who's right ? They both are. Corsair makes some great and some really crappy PSUs. So the heart of component selection is not knowing what brands to buy and not even what model lines of which brand to buy, but knowing what line and what size to buy. Case in point Corsair HX650, 750 and 850 were /are excellent PSUs..... the 1000 and 1050 watters however were dogs


The worse drives with respect to reliability ....

- 4,76% WD Black WD4001FAEX
- 4,24% WD Black WD3001FAEX
- 3,83% WD SE WD3000F9YZ
- 2,56% HGST Travelstar 7K1000
- 2,39% Toshiba DT01ACA300

Click to expand...

And here's a rundown on the 2TB size

2 TB :

- 2,30% Toshiba DT01ACA200
- 1,13% Seagate Desktop SSHD ST2000DX001
- 1,01% WD Green WD20EZRX
- 0,79% Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 ST2000DM001
- 0,77% WD Red WD20EFRX
- 0,70% WD Black WD2003FZEX
- 0,63% WD AV-GP WD20EURS
- 0,56% WD Black WD2002FAEX
- 0,52% Seagate Enterprise Value ST2000NC001
- 0,44% WD SE WD2000F9YZ
- 0,30% Seagate NAS ST2000VN000
- 0,21% WD RE WD2000FYYZ
- 0,00% Seagate Surveillance ST2000VX000
- 0,00% Seagate Enterprise Capacity ST2000NM0033

Click to expand...

With regard to what I said about model lines and sizes.... again like PSUs, size has to be considered

WD Black WD4001FAEX (4TB) = 4,76 %
WD Black WD3001FAEX (3TB)= 4,24 %
WD Black WD2003FZEX (2TB) = 0,70%
WD Black WD2002FAEX (2TB) = 0,56%

So while the 2TB WD drives live up to their well deserved excellent reputation, the 3TB and 4TB model did not.

but that's a tech task that seems out of my league.

Click to expand...

There is no "tech task". If you can insert a D/DVD, you can insert a HD. The BlacX is simply a plug in device.

Day 1

1. You plug in the DC power thingie to a wall socket.

2. You plug in a USB cable

Each Day you use it.

1. Slide the drive into the unit, press the ON button.

2. Run your backup software

Of course if you leave it plugged in all the time no need to to anything when backups are made. I prefer to "give it a rest".




Here's what I do....

1. All data for the SOHO (small office / home office) network is stored on a internal HD on the office's workstation. Office peeps have access to office partitions / family has access to family partitions.

2. Starting at 4:00 the 1st partition is mirrored to the 2nd internal HD....2nd partition at 5:00 and so on. This happens automatically whether anyone is there or not using free software (FBackup).

3. The second drive also has backups for all networked drives and acts as a media server (mostly i-Tunes).

4. The 2nd internal drive is backed up weekly to the BlacX....once done the drive is moved off site. The two offsite drives are alternated each week.

What really would work for you a Hot swap bay. The Antec Dark Fleet DF-85 case has a hot swap bay where you could just slide in a 2.5" HD into the case, make a backup ... it was fast as hell (e-SATA)....and you could put it in your pocket and take off site.

As many peeps are no longer using 5.25" bays in their cases, many are pulling the HD cages out for larger GFX card or water cooling and replacing them w/ hot swap bays

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817994171

The Black Vortex MB074SP-1B is a hot-swappable four-bay 3.5" SATA HDD cooler cage built robust from durable metal. It has many configurable options such as fan speed control, fan LED brightness control and power button for each of the drive bay. The hot swap function and EZ-Grip handles give you the ability to swap drives without breaking a sweat. ....

The space saving design converts 3 x 5.25" front bays into 4 x 3.5" hot-swap HDD bays. It also uses only two 15 pin SATA power connectors to power up all four drives, reducing power and power connector usage. Individual drive power buttons allows you to power down the drives you don't need to effectively extend your drives' life span and to prevent data vulnerability from unknown viruses

Click to expand...

This is exactly the information I'm looking for, including wondering whether or not (& suspecting not) that study had anything to do with me & my needs.

I am going to try the box you recommend, and now I need to find 3 hard drives. I read that as long as they're SATA they can be different types...but I think it said "usually" so I prefer to get 3 of the same kinds of HD to ensure compatibility. I am thinking I will need about 2TB but had thought 4 would be nice - but not sure if we will fill it before they fail anyway... we probably will. My kid is making a LOT of videos and between her / my photography/video making, I think that is why our storage needs are so high. I think it's worth the investment of building this cloning device, & having one offsite even if we are not a business w/vital information to save. It's worth it to me for the pictures/videos alone. It's also a very good project to work on with the kid, we will both learn more - I had to look up some of the terms you used so I'm really not that advanced. I'm not sure how SS differs from HD.

Regarding your final "question" posed to the world: The answer is yes.

An SSHD is an SSD and a HD in one enclosure.

Until recently, the prices of SSDs resulted in peeps getting HDs for their OS only. So the computer booted fast but for all those games stored on the HD, the SSD did squat. Here's how they stack up on OS booting:

SSD = 15.6 seconds
2TB 7200 rpm SSHD = 16.5 seconds
2TB7200 rpm HD = 21.2 seconds

As you can see the, SSHD suffers little compared to the SSD.

Now lets look at the gaming situation with an SSD and a SSHD

You boot just fine and everything is "beloved patriot dory" but as we said before, games get squat benefit. However, let's say ya put FarCry 3 on there and start having fun. Each time you load the game the drive says "Hmmm, this mechanicdude likes this game, why don't I move all the commonly used FC3 files over to the SSD in the background when I'm not ding anything else. " So all the files you use often fly iff at SSD speeds and the rarely used ones leave at HD speeds. As soon as you finish playing FC3, it notices that you are now using FC4 files frequently so in the background, it will move FC3 files off and FC4 files on.

Same with work.... photos whatever .... when I'm working on an AutoCAD drawing for say Job no 356-01 .... it starts to move the files for 355-01 off the SSD and locates the ones I'm using every day on the SSD

I also wanna commend you for getting involved with puters w/ ya kid. As they get older and there's less and less things they wanna do w/ dad ... puters has remained as one area where the 3 kids and I all are enthusiastic about

The end of junior high builds we did together
The end of high school builds they did w/ me watching
The end of college presents they bought themselves, the did themselves and I watched.

But we do many builds for clients, friends, colleagues and the 3 of them now do most of those builds.... they still ask about component choices tho.

I appreciate your time, thank you!