External Hard Drive Users...

[Sean Malone]

I just did something today I despise doing, I pulled a 'go with the flow' purchase. I went to Guitar Center to get the Mbox2 Pro. Knowing I needed/wanted a 500GB external hard drive I asked the guy what they carried. He had a 160, 250 and 500gb versions of LaCie externals. Not knowing the brand I asked the guy how they ranked with the Seagates, WD's etc and he said they are a "popular choice among professionals". Delirious with my excitement of finally getting my Mbox2 that I've wanted for quite awhile I told him to "ring it up!" Weee!

On the way home I said to myself, "did I just buy a hard drive I've never heard of from a guitar store?" Dumbass!

So I hit up the innerwebs for reviews and do not like what I've read. Absolutely no help if the drive fails the day after the 1 year warranty expires and tech support is a toll call and only 7-5pm weekdays! Half of the reviews I've read were people essentially saying (well, more like literally saying) "DO NOT BUY THIS POS HARD DRIVE!". Ok, I can take a hint.

So I'm taking it back in the morning. It's the LaCie D2 Extreme 500BG Firewire.

Any recommendations on a quality external firewire unit? This is a drive that can't crap out in 3 months like many say the LaCie's do.

[extramundane]

I went to Guitar Center

I think I've found your problem. :D

When their store opened up here, I went opening week to take advantage of the grand opening sales. I confounded the staff by asking for short-scale bass strings and by stating I'd rather play through an SVT than whatever rig the dude from Korn used. If such basic music store stuff was beyond their grasp, I can't imagine the line of BS they'd lay out on hard drives.

So yeah, take that damned thing back. Some friends of mine have been using a 250GB Western Digital MyBook to record band practice for a year or so now and it's been bulletproof, even in the pristine conditions found in your typical practice space.

[Sean Malone]

I think I've found your problem. :D

When their store opened up here, I went opening week to take advantage of the grand opening sales. I confounded the staff by asking for short-scale bass strings and by stating I'd rather play through an SVT than whatever rig the dude from Korn used. If such basic music store stuff was beyond their grasp, I can't imagine the line of BS they'd lay out on hard drives.

So yeah, take that damned thing back. Some friends of mine have been using a 250GB Western Digital MyBook to record band practice for a year or so now and it's been bulletproof, even in the pristine conditions found in your typical practice space.

The one on West Broad? I spent a few lunch hours in there in Jan when I was doing some contract consultling for a company at Paragon Place (down by the 64/Broad exit). It's funny how a 23 year old guitar store guys talk to 38 year old guys wearing a tie. I wish they wouldn't call me sir every sentence!
Anyhoo, I will deffinitly feel better taking this thing back.

[extramundane]

The one on West Broad? I spent a few lunch hours in there in Jan when I was doing some contract consultling for a company at Paragon Place (down by the 64/Broad exit). It's funny how a 23 year old guitar store guys talk to 38 year old guys wearing a tie. I wish they wouldn't call me sir every sentence!
Anyhoo, I will deffinitly feel better taking this thing back.

That's the store. It's funny- there's a Sam Ash store next door, and the guys who work there generally knew their stuff and understood that the bulk of their business was going to come from guys 35-55 who've played for years and now may not be 'cool' but have a lot of disposable income to blow on that 4th Les Paul Custom. For whatever reason, the GC staff never picked up on that.

So support your local music store and order your computer stuff online!

[Sean Malone]

That's the store. It's funny- there's a Sam Ash store next door, and the guys who work there generally knew their stuff and understood that the bulk of their business was going to come from guys 35-55 who've played for years and now may not be 'cool' but have a lot of disposable income to blow on that 4th Les Paul Custom. For whatever reason, the GC staff never picked up on that.

So support your local music store and order your computer stuff online!

:thumbup: I should know better. I have a local axe store that was our 'home base' in my bands hey day, that is being driven out of biz due to Guitar Center.

[WickerBill]

I have had good luck with the WD USB/Firewire drives (http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=51326471) .


However, for myself and my family, I've gotten into the habit of "building my own".... buy a really good external enclosure and populate it with whatever internal drive you deem best. A couple suggestions:

Ultra 31310 (http://www.buy.com/prod/ultra-portable-3-5-usb-2-0-firewire-hard-drive-enclosure/q/loc/101/203084790.html)

AMS VENUS (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817145657)

Note: I've only used these with USB2 for any length of time (i.e. firewire at my house but when they go to their permanent home, they're hooked up via USB)

[Methanolandbrats]

http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-External-Triple-Interface/dp/customer-reviews/B000G2BGFK

$189 if you catch a sale at Staples

[dando]

My Book. End of discussion. :)

-Kevin

[cameraman]

It's the LaCie D2 Extreme 500BG Firewire.
LaCie drives are common as dirt around here.

I have 22 (yes twenty two) LaCie external firewire drives in my lab, all are different models and some are quite old, like from when 16 GB was considered "huge". They get used constantly by graduate students with uncanny abilities to break things. They have all lasted, none has ever had any kind of problem.

Actually one drive (the one that should be #23) was killed about 6 years ago some one of the graduate students dropped it down the fire exit stairs, a multistory iron railing and concrete step smashing, there were pieces spread over three floors.

Whereas the Acomdata drive I have at home has a crap power plug so you have to tape the powercord to the case so it does not lose power if anything touches the cord or drive:flame:

[Insomniac]

I don't think LaCie manufactures HDs. Who makes the actual drive(s) in the enclosure? What typically fails? The HD or the other electronics?

I personally thought that unless the specific HD was plagued with a known issue, failures were random. And that's why so many people recommend so many brands from personal experience. I've had quite a few HD failures and I believe they were all WD drives. I started buying Maxtor/Seagate drives and none have failed (2-3 years old). Problem is, all I had was WD drives so those are the only brand that could fail. Doesn't make Maxtor better and I bet other prople might have the exact opposite story.

About a month ago, Google released an in depth HD study and they concluded a couple things I remember off the top of my head. HD operating temperature did not seem to play a role in failures, but brand/model did. Google did not reveal any brand/model info however.

I still think since most end users buy so few HDs, it's still random unless you bought a brand/model with a known/clear issue (IBM Deskstar a few years ago would be one).

[WickerBill]

To prove your point, I have one of those IBM Deathstars that blew up on everyone ... still working to this day.

[Cam]

I still think since most end users buy so few HDs, it's still random unless you bought a brand/model with a known/clear issue (IBM Deskstar a few years ago would be one).

Company I worked for had 8 custom built machines made about 5 years ago. All of them had 20GB Deathstar HDD's installed. I think there are now 3 machines left with the original HDD. :shakehead

[Insomniac]

To prove your point, I have one of those IBM Deathstars that blew up on everyone ... still working to this day.

Ohhh yes, the deathstar, and wasn't the failure nicknamed "the click of death" because you'd actually hear the head crash? I'm so glad I didn't need a HD upgrade when those drives were the fastest/best on the market.

[oddlycalm]

Lacie externals are just fine, they are just more expensive than most.

oc

[cameraman]

I've had quite a few HD failures and I believe they were all WD drives.

Well you can add another Western Digital drive to the early failure list.

I had a 2 month old WD Caviar 160 GB EIDE drive fail today. WD1600JB if you care. The thing just seized up, no warning, just sudden death. No recovery possible, as far as I can tell the disks do not even spin up and freezing it didn't help. Stupid POS.

The data is all backed up but the OS and applications are not so now I have a computer to reassemble/rebuild in my "free" time:flame:

[Methanolandbrats]

Well you can add another Western Digital drive to the early failure list.

I had a 2 month old WD Caviar 160 GB EIDE drive fail today. WD1600JB if you care. The thing just seized up, no warning, just sudden death. No recovery possible, as far as I can tell the disks do not even spin up and freezing it didn't help. Stupid POS.

The data is all backed up but the OS and applications are not so now I have a computer to reassemble/rebuild in my "free" time:flame: Use Acronis to back up your systems. Then if boot drive crashes, put in a new one and you're back in business.

[cameraman]

Use Acronis to back up your systems. Then if boot drive crashes, put in a new one and you're back in business.

Acronis doesn't do Apples.

We do not have the money to pay for a dedicated machine with enough storage space to make that type of back up of so many different computers. What money we do have goes to backing up the servers and it barely covers that.

Granting agencies in general do not like to pay for data backups. It does not make any sense but that is the way it is.

[oddlycalm]

Well you can add another Western Digital drive to the early failure list.

I had a 2 month old WD Caviar 160 GB EIDE drive fail today. WD1600JB if you care. Ironic that WD's high performance Raptors are among the most reliable ATA drives while their Caviar line (what marketing idiot thought of Caviar?) are among the least reliable.

Storage Review (http://www.storagereview.com/) has a reliability component to all their drive reviews. They have a minimum sample size and heavy participation so the results are actually significant. The Google study, while interesting, doesn't list brands and models so it's not useful in purchase decisions.

oc

[Insomniac]

Well you can add another Western Digital drive to the early failure list.

I had a 2 month old WD Caviar 160 GB EIDE drive fail today. WD1600JB if you care. The thing just seized up, no warning, just sudden death. No recovery possible, as far as I can tell the disks do not even spin up and freezing it didn't help. Stupid POS.

The data is all backed up but the OS and applications are not so now I have a computer to reassemble/rebuild in my "free" time:flame:

Yuck. This is the reason I'm going RAID 1 when I build a new PC. I just don't have the time to re-install a bunch of applications/OS.

[Turn7]

Anyone remeber the old connor 240 mb drives that they used some sort of animal fat to lube the bearings for the platters?

If you had them spinning for a year or so and then shutdown the system and the drives cooled down the lard would solidify and cause it to not spin up. The fix 95% of the time was to slam it flat on a table and hope the heads were parked. :D Then plug it back in and power it up before the lard seized up again.:saywhat:

[WickerBill]

I had forgotten all about Connor. I bought a 340mb Connor drive once and it was the first drive I had ever purchased that cost less than $1 per megabyte - it was $315. Ouch.