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I'm looking for something FW (running an iMac 2.16/2G RAM), preferably at least 320G, maybe 500G. I say maybe 500 because I've barely chewed up any of my local 250Gs, but I'm mainly because I don't want to record too much to my local drive.
None the less, I've heard lots of good things about LeCie, Gdrive, RocStor...
Seems that it's all 0's and 1's from the HD's perspective so I don't understand what would make one better/worse than the other, but that's why I'm asking all of you. :D

Thanks in advanced.

Oh yeah, budget isn't 'really' a concern, but I'd like to keep it at or around $200-ish if possible. Some of the RocStors that I've looked at are in this range.

Comments

Cucco Wed, 01/02/2008 - 20:06

I just picked up one of these:
http://www.mapower.com/Product.asp?CateID=9&LineID=10

specifically the USB 2.0/E-SATA version (they have a firewire version.)

It's the same case that Glyph uses on one of their series of hard drives.

I've had really good luck out of it so far with a WD 250GB Hard Drive. The chipset seems to easily agree with my computers. It runs quiet and is quite small. It's also quite solid.

Just a thought - since it's pretty cheap to build your own - you ought to consider it.

Space Thu, 01/03/2008 - 19:18

Western Digital, Maxtor and Seagate are the only names that matter.........to me! Reliable performance, durable as a concrete block, goof proof installs, and years of consistent use.

Don't be fooled by price. Your hard drive is your sanity. Buy something off the b list and your sanity can and may soon, suffer.

sshack Thu, 01/03/2008 - 20:18

Ok, so I settled on the Rocstor. Everything that I've read and heard has been positive so I'll give it a go.
One question though...do you leave them powered on all of the time? Also, does it matter either way if they're horizontal or vertical? Sorry if it sounds like silly questions, just trying to make sure I'm going about it the best way.

Thanks.

Halifaxsoundguy Thu, 01/03/2008 - 22:19

Space wrote: Western Digital, Maxtor and Seagate are the only names that matter.........to me! Reliable performance, durable as a concrete block, goof proof installs, and years of consistent use.

Don't be fooled by price. Your hard drive is your sanity. Buy something off the b list and your sanity can and may soon, suffer.

I just got a WD 250 GB for xmas. What a score!

Cucco Thu, 01/03/2008 - 22:33

I should add that the external Maxtors have given me some trouble in the past years.

In the past 2 years, I've owned 5. 3 of them stopped working altogether (the other one just last week...makes a terrible noise - definitely r/w heads scraping cylinders...) and all of them at one point or another had a difficulty with several of my computers where they wouldn't even see the drive as a drive and all other USB or FW components hooked up at the moment wouldn't recognize either. It required an unplug and a reboot and I've still not ever gotten it right...

I know..I say "several of my computers...." - just how many can that be?

Well, let's see:
Wife has 1 laptop, 1 desktop for web-browsing and Word Processing/etc. and 1 photo machine (she's a photographer)

I have 1 personal laptop, 1 government laptop, 1 Audio laptop, 1 Audio Desktop, 1 personal desktop and 1 old 1GHz Dell laptop acting as a proxy/print and quasi-file server...

I've had problems with the Maxtor on almost all of those machines.

I'll be sticking with WD/Seagate/Samsung/Hitachi from now on.

anonymous Fri, 01/04/2008 - 11:09

Avastors rule!

Metallica did their new album on Avastor drives. They're becoming really popular in the pro audio world. Kinda pricey, but worth checking out. You can find a bunch of different kinds to fit your budget here:

http://

Glyph is pretty reliable as well. I would personally stay away from LaCies, I've heard horror stories...