Portable external hard drive recommendations?

[The Lizard]

I'm getting ready to buy my first portable external hard drive (looking for 500 GB or higher at a decent price), but I'm a bit worried by the varied reviews I see on Amazon and Cnet.

Certain popular brands like Seagate, Hitachi and Verbatim seem to get a lot of positive reviews, but every 4th or 5th review is a horror story about losing lots of data due to that particular drive crashing. Is it just a crap-shoot as to whether you get a reliable drive? Any personal experiences or suggestions?

 

[ComicChick]

both external hard drives i've bought have been western digital. i've never had a problem with either, but, they weren't portable external ones

 

[Alistair]

Lizard,

Do you want a tag along or one that just sits there? Either way, WD is the way to go as ComicChick has said. I've had all WD drives ever since my first build (I had prior Maxtors on old prefab that died with a year).

Keep in mind, lot of reviews don't take factors of heat, humidity, and running time. I mean, these are meant for storage, not running a game off of. =D This will ramp up heat horribly on a drive that has no real heat dispensation and ruin the drive faster. Just thought let ya know about that, but I think the portables are smaller on drive size, but the sides are metal so they help with the heat factor.

G'Luck,
Ali

 

[Kable24]

I like iomega or Lacie drives myself. I have a WD My book that is pretty good too.

 

[knowsbleed]

We use the 500gb WD portables at work. We store all of our app files and system images on there, throw them in our pockets when we have a trouble ticket and just go. They haven't crapped out on us yet and not having to search for a power plug is wonderful.

 

[The Lizard]

Well, it looks like Western Digital it is then.

And, yes, I'm just going to use it for storage to save some hard drive space on my laptop. Nothing fancy.

Thanks, all.

 

[spidermilk]

WD portables 5/5, firewires better to if running software.

 

[Havok83]

Id stay away from Western Digital Mybooks. I bought 2 within the span of 4 months and they both failed on me. I went and got a Seagate Free Agent and 2 and a half years later, its still running great with no problems

 

[BAH HUMBBUG!]

I'm not sure if you have already made your purchase but I will add my two cents.

It doesn't matter brand, size, build or any other factor you can think of.

ALL BRANDS will have drives that fail. But I would stay away from Western Digital if I were you. Seagate for myself has served me well as others have also stated.

If you can, I would just buy either 3.5" or 2.5" internal hard drives and get enclosures/docks for them. You will get a lot more for your money. Best regular price I have seen so far for external hard drives. $100 for a seagate 1.5 TB. But that was around Christmas so about $120-$130 is what I see normally.

Normally you can get 3.5" and sometimes 2.5" internals cheaper. Then all you need is maybe one or two maybe three enclosures and just switch them out when needed.

But I would buy more than one if this is for backing up purposes and I would buy them at separate times. Maybe three to six months apart.

Never buy three of the same at the same time no matter how good the deal is. If you the batch is bad that they were made in, you are screwed.