Is this a good external hard drive?

[smokey982]

I guess it's hard to know without the model number, but in todays new Target sale paper, they have a Western Digital Elements 320GB portable hard drive for $59.99. Does anyone know if this is a good quality hard drive? Is this really as good a deal as it seems to me? I don't know much about external hard drives. I would like to have one for backing up my computer (pictures, videos, I-Tunes, ect.) and another to use with my Dish Network 622 receivers.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

I do not have any experience with that particular drive, but have used Western Digital external Hard drives for a long time, and have had zero problems. I have two of the portable drives (40GB and 80GB models; they are several years old); and I have several My Book 500GB models; many of which I use for archiving Dish Network stuff.

The elements drive looks rather largefrom the photo I saw of it, but $60 is not a terrible price. Yet, there are pretty much deals to be had every week; just read the Sunday circulars. I picked up a 1TB My Book for $109 just a few weeks ago at Best Buy.

 

[navychop]

I suspect you will not be happy with such a small drive. But you can always add more later, and swap them out. Or plug 2 or more into a hub, and just power up the one you want to use.

 

[Gray1]

The Western Digital has only a 1 year warranty on thier drives. Seagate usually has a 5 year warranty.

 

[bebop]

The Western Digital has only a 1 year warranty on thier drives. Seagate usually has a 5 year warranty.

WD makes some 3 or 5 year warranty HD's, but as you stated - this one is only 1 year. I'd look for something with a 5 year as well - but find out first for sure.

 

[mike123abc]

Not that these warrantees really do you any good. If they drive fails you have to send it back to them and they send you a replacement. Of course you have to pay to send it back and the replacement arrives a few weeks later, and empty. You lose everything on the drive.

 

[durl]

I've used Western Digital drives before with no problems.

You can do better on the price, though. You may not want to spend an extra $30 out-of-pocket, but you can pick this 1TB drive up for $70 after rebate:

FD G-Force Hard Drive - GF1000EU - Buy.com

 

[bebop]

Not that these warrantees really do you any good. If they drive fails you have to send it back to them and they send you a replacement. Of course you have to pay to send it back and the replacement arrives a few weeks later, and empty. You lose everything on the drive.

I'm with you on that, except that you get a working drive in the end instead of a dead one. I've used the warranty on 2 drives of my own in the past 6 years and it was a pain in the neck. Thankfully one company sent me the replacement with enough time to RMA it while I had both - so I tipped my original drive on it's end and was able to copy the data I needed before it totally died.

If you wait till they totally go out to do any backup then you are asking to loose everything.

One good idea with the Dish Network EHD setup is to record the same show to another HD if you really don't want to loose it (or a bunch of shows). Odds are that a show plays more than once to be able to do this. It's the simple method instead of hacking or copying the HD through your computer.

 

[mike123abc]

One good idea with the Dish Network EHD setup is to record the same show to another HD if you really don't want to loose it (or a bunch of shows). Odds are that a show plays more than once to be able to do this. It's the simple method instead of hacking or copying the HD through your computer.

Actually you can just boot Knoppix on your PC (CD/DVD boot so no need to install) and do an image copy (works best on identical drives). The "dd" command will blindly copy the image.

 

[navychop]

Didn't someone post here about some higher cost HDDs meant for AV/DVR work? For the extra bucks, you get something perhaps better tuned for the task and maybe with more reliability and longer life.

Anyone remember that or know the model series?