External HD results: Drives Working Properly

[RedSavina]

My LaCie 500gb with Samsung drive and 16mb cache works fine, but I did have problems at first until I discovered that the power cable on back of drive needed to be pushed in with more force.

Ditto on the drive and ditto on it being trouble-free.

 

[HD921]

Good choice. Good drives with enclosures is the way to go as opposed to pre-made.

WD in my opinon is hands down better drive than seagate. The failure rate is much higher on the seagate. I purchase and install hundreds of drives. I've found that WD is less prone to failure. Maxtor is the worst of any drive I've used.

 

[8bitbytes]

WD in my opinon is hands down better drive than seagate. The failure rate is much higher on the seagate. I purchase and install hundreds of drives. I've found that WD is less prone to failure. Maxtor is the worst of any drive I've used.

Only drives I've ever had fail on all my servers, desktops, and laptops have been WD.

 

[bigdaddy10]

WD 500gb has worked flawlessly. Got to love $129.99 price also.

 

[sprintcarcrazy]

WD Mybook 750GB, has worked perfectly, except for the 1st few weeks, I got the need to activate it message when it was spun down. It appears they must of fixed that with a software upgrade, because I don't get it anymore.

We love the option to store tons of movies for those cold winter nights.

Can I get a USB hub and add another drive, keeping two in place ?

 

[KAB]

Can I get a USB hub and add another drive, keeping two in place ?

Yes, as long as you only have one powered up at a time.

 

[HD921]

Only drives I've ever had fail on all my servers, desktops, and laptops have been WD.[/QUO

Provide the name manufacture of drive you have the best performance from. As I said earlier, I have used hundreds of each brand and found the failure rate on the WD to lowest. I guess its kind of luck of the draw as to the drive that fails the least

 

[8bitbytes]

Only drives I've ever had fail on all my servers, desktops, and laptops have been WD.[/QUO

Provide the name manufacture of drive you have the best performance from. As I said earlier, I have used hundreds of each brand and found the failure rate on the WD to lowest. I guess its kind of luck of the draw as to the drive that fails the least

I have Seagate Cheetah SCSI 3 10K and 15K drives in my servers, Seagate Barracuda 7200.9s in my desktops, and I have replaced several laptop drives of various brands, Toshiba is the latest to fail, with Seagate Momentum 7200rpm drives. My 2 external drives for my 622 at home are Seagate DB35.3 AV drives in generic enclosures using the Cypress chipset, currently the best for ata drives.

The drives I have replaced have all been Western Digital, Toshiba, and Fujitsu drives. I have not had to replace a Seagate yet. I've been doing this since my first hard drive was a 10MB MFM.

 

[NightRyder]

I have Seagate Cheetah SCSI 3 10K and 15K drives in my servers, Seagate Barracuda 7200.9s in my desktops, and I have replaced several laptop drives of various brands, Toshiba is the latest to fail, with Seagate Momentum 7200rpm drives. My 2 external drives for my 622 at home are Seagate DB35.3 AV drives in generic enclosures using the Cypress chipset, currently the best for ata drives.

The drives I have replaced have all been Western Digital, Toshiba, and Fujitsu drives. I have not had to replace a Seagate yet. I've been doing this since my first hard drive was a 10MB MFM.

We run Seagate in all of our servers too. We've had one failure in 5 years. All of our 80+ Dell desktops have Maxtor drives, and while I'm not a Maxtor fan I have to admit that they have been reliable, 1 failure in 4+ years and that was in the 1st year. While I have my preferences I think environment is by far the biggest factor in drive longevity.

NightRyder

 

[rogerpl]

powering off

Just picked up a Western digital 500gb Essential hard drive last night. Is there a way to shut down the hard drive or is it even necessary? I moved some programming to it last night with no problems. Only issue was with CNN trying to load its enhanced features, without me asking it to, locked up DVR and stopped transfers.
I unplugged hard drive when not in use, any other way or should I bother.

 

[downriver]

Just picked up a Western digital 500gb Essential hard drive last night. Is there a way to shut down the hard drive or is it even necessary? I moved some programming to it last night with no problems. Only issue was with CNN trying to load its enhanced features, without me asking it to, locked up DVR and stopped transfers.
I unplugged hard drive when not in use, any other way or should I bother.

I keep mine unplugged. Otherwise it keeps booting up.

 

[KAB]

Just picked up a Western digital 500gb Essential hard drive last night. Is there a way to shut down the hard drive or is it even necessary? I moved some programming to it last night with no problems. Only issue was with CNN trying to load its enhanced features, without me asking it to, locked up DVR and stopped transfers.
I unplugged hard drive when not in use, any other way or should I bother.

Does it not have a power switch? Keep it off when not using it.

 

[downriver]

Does it not have a power switch? Keep it off when not using it.

They do have a switch. They boot up either from the receiver rebooting itself every night or some other reason. They unplug from the rear, it's really not a problem unless the drive is somehow not easy to access.

 

[KAB]

They do have a switch. They boot up either from the receiver rebooting itself every night or some other reason. They unplug from the rear, it's really not a problem unless the drive is somehow not easy to access.

Did it come with a firmware utility to disable turning on at system start up?

 

[downriver]

Did it come with a firmware utility to disable turning on at system start up?

Dunno, did not see one though it is possible. WD online support would not respond due to "unsupported application"

 

[rogerpl]

They do have a switch. They boot up either from the receiver rebooting itself every night or some other reason. They unplug from the rear, it's really not a problem unless the drive is somehow not easy to access.

If it has a switch I can't find it- I'll check again- unplugging not a problem.

 

[downriver]

If it has a switch I can't find it- I'll check again- unplugging not a problem.

The switch is the button in the circle.

 

[rogerpl]

The switch is the button in the circle.

Mine is later model no circle but blue line

 

[downriver]

Mine is later model no circle but blue line

Yep, no switch!!

 

[sprintcarcrazy]

Mine is on 24/7, but it spins down when not in use, guess thats bad !!!