Oct242012

Can you recommend me a good external hard-disk?

Anish T A asks:

I am planning to buy a 1 TB, USB 3.0 external hard-disk.

I am not able to figure out which one to buy. All of them have same features and there is no major differences. I searched on the net and found that Seagate and WD are the leading manufacturers, but personally I have no experience.

I will be using it mostly for storing movies, music and software setups.

Can anyone please help?


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47 Answers -

0 votes

Dino Pearsons

October 24, 2012

Seagate and WD are pretty much similar when it comes to quality, although you’ll find people telling you differently.

Honestly, I’d go for the manufacturer that offers a longer warranty.

Speed-wise, they’re the same, quality-wise as well. So choose the one which offers better support (and that of course depends on your location).

0 votes

Scott Pickett

October 24, 2012

Any drive that fully supports USB 3.0 is going to be similar in function. From a practical stand point though let me throw some weight behind Western Digital. In my consulting business we have used a bunch of external drives over the years and I have had every brand die over time, but we consistently have fewer issues with WD. Just remember to plug it into a surge protector because the circuit boards built into these drives are pretty easy to damage.

Note that most brands now will ship these drives with some software on the drive for backups. They work okay but I generally remove them. Also note that if you are moving all your files onto this drive you are creating a single point of failure where if you lost the drive you would be losing all the data so have copies in a second location or consider a storage system with more than one drive. There are a bunch of 2 drive options where the drives can be set to mirror each other so you aren’t left with nothing if a single drive dies. You can get more fancy with a Network Attached Storage (NAS) but if you just want USB3.0 you might want to consider something from Buffalo Tech (The WD version is USB2.0 only)
http://amzn.com/B004J6JW1Y

0 votes

Megan-Harley Hayden

October 24, 2012

I had a 1TB Seagate external hard-disk and now have a 2 TB WD and in my opinion the WD seems much more sturdy than my old Seagate. If you’re looking for something that can take a bit more wear and tear I would definitely recommend a WD.

As has been said, speed wise they are both pretty much identical and it would be a good idea to look for the longer warranty.

Hope this helps !

0 votes

Kenny Brannan

October 24, 2012

Better of going for an nas like my book live once set up you can access from any pc via built in software or ftp client got mine hooked up to xbox 360 for movies wireless connection as well

0 votes

Yudono Ra

October 24, 2012

yupe Western Digital is known for their quality and performance, i would also recomended Bufallo Ministation (it support both USB 3.0 and Thunder Bolt) and with anti shock :)

ps: Buffallo is a Japanese product, quite well known
i’ve used it almost 4 month, and quite satisfied with it

0 votes

Sachin Kanchan

October 24, 2012

like dino said; go with the one with longer warranty…

But most of the worthy providers give you 3 yrs of warranty…so 1 problem solved…

I myself use a ~ ~ ~ Western Digital Passport Essential 1 TB USB 3.0 cost me around $105…
HERE is the 2 TB version-
http://reviews.cnet.com/external-hard-drives/wd-my-passport-portable/4505-3190_7-35178030.html

But that was m choice.
You can go for ~ ~ ~ Seagate Expansion Portable or Backup Plus Portable…
or you may want to browse the CNET’s review page for some enlightenment on this subject…

Also HERE is the list for 1.0 (to 2.0) TB USB 3.0 external HDD ~ ~ ~

http://reviews.cnet.com/4566-3185_7-0.html?filter=500434_5052322_#filter=500434_5052322_503164_11795436_500076_21106299

Sachin Kanchan

sorry ,

but i didn’t answer your basic question—

you may go either for ‘WD’ or “Seagate”….both are great…

but the new Seagate Backup Plus is a good choice in terms of speed and performance or the WD My Passport Portable is good too….

many prefer WD for its better customer service…but any one will do; choose any one which you feel like; you won’t regret… :-)

October 24, 2012
0 votes

Aditya Roy

October 24, 2012
0 votes

Saajan Sood

October 24, 2012

i Personally Recommend Seagate and WD. Both provides best quality with 3 years warranty. go for the one with price you find suitable.

0 votes

Ray Randall

October 24, 2012

Stay away from anything with the word “book” in it, mybook, passbook, etc.
I have always had a good experience with Western Digital Drives

0 votes

LaDonna Garner

October 24, 2012

In the past, I chose Seagate but I’m currently happy with a 2T Fantom GreenDrive. It’s eco-friendly and easy to setup. I’ve purchased several from pcmall.com & macmall.com as they run deals all of the time. Good luck shopping!

0 votes

Yiz Borol

October 24, 2012

It’s really up to you, when it comes to quality every 1 in a million is a lemon, just the reality. so you might get screwed but probably not. really look for the cheapest price use woot and amazon to shop around, try for 7500RPM but 5000RPM is also okay.

0 votes

alton pettigrew

October 25, 2012

Personally based on my own experience (I’m a computer tech) I won’t be buying or recommending any more Seagates.

0 votes

aurosanjay a

October 25, 2012

seagate gives good external HDD.

0 votes

Rody Roon

October 25, 2012

Hi,

You can go for following External Hard Disk

Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Desk (4TB)
Seagate GoFlex Turbo (750GB)
LaCie Little Big Disk Thunderbolt (240GB SSD)

0 votes

Nikhil Gupta

October 25, 2012

seagate and wd ….
personally speak wd because they are masters of making hard disks….

0 votes

Aniket Singh

October 25, 2012

LIST of some best external hard drive:-
1-LaCie Rugged USB 3.0
2-Transcend StoreJet 25M3
3-Seagate Backup Plus
4-Seagate Slim Portable Drive
u can go for any 1

0 votes

Alex Perkins

October 25, 2012

I would say go for WD in my opinion.

0 votes

Vishal Mishra

October 25, 2012

segate is the best option

Vishal Mishra

*seagate

October 25, 2012
0 votes

Dave Rimmer

October 25, 2012

Seagate, W.D, Hitachi etc are all good names a great drives. In the end go for the cheapest. I have a 250GB USB 2 Seagate now for about 4 Years now with had Music, Apps and Pictures on it. I have just got myself a USB 3 Hitachi Touro 1TB which had great reviews I then took everything of my Seagate and put on my Hitachi. The thing I like about the Hitachi drive is that it supports drag and drop or copy & paste, it has no backup sofware on it unlike the Seagate which I deleted to stop it backing up everytime you connected the drive.

http://www.ebuyer.com/320102-hitachi-1tb-touro-mx3-portable-hard-drive-0s03457

1 votes

ha14

October 25, 2012

2012 Best Desktop External Hard Drive Comparisons and Reviews
http://desktop-external-hard-drive-review.toptenreviews.com/

0 votes

Gravity Dead

October 25, 2012

well I would recommend “Transcend StoreJet 25H3P” it’s 1TB and main feature of it is shock proof (atleast this is what the company claims)

and backup n etc etc features are too available

but there is one negative point that it needs two USB ports to work at its full speed
I mean t work on 1 USB port too but not at its full speed

and if this “two-USB-port” is a real deal breaker for ya (cause its not for me, at least I will have a peace of mind that it safe to some extent if I drop it by mistake)
then I would recommend “WD My Passport”

Decide yourself !

0 votes

Achraf Almouloudi

October 26, 2012

Get Seagate or Wd they are of high quality .

0 votes

Bruce Carrie

October 26, 2012

I have used both Seagate and Western Digital 1TB USB drives. In my experience, the Western Digital drives have worked longer without problems or errors.

0 votes

mohit kumar

October 26, 2012

Don’t go for WD or Seagate. Buy Toshiba. It has longer shelf life than WD and Seagate.

Giggity Goebbels

Toshiba hard drive blows!i have one and its not very good

December 10, 2012
Hunbuhbhuygb Ygygbgybygb

Thats true toshiba hard drives are lemons

December 14, 2012
0 votes

Grr

October 26, 2012

I would recommend WD, as I have 2 WD Ext drives (not USB powered).
They work perfectly.

Oldest drive is 4 years

0 votes

Reý Aetar

October 26, 2012

check the following
Connectivity (some comes with two wires for old computers)
speed (number of spin cycles per second)
size (smaller the better)
Manufacturer support ( more the better)

0 votes

Patrick Jackson

October 29, 2012

Best one is Seagate, especially the GoFlex one!

0 votes

Jesse Manalansan

October 30, 2012

Same here. Go for Western Digital or Seagate. :)

0 votes

reid vanvoris

October 30, 2012

http://tinyurl.com/948favx maximus 1TB RAID-1 multi-I/O

0 votes

Douglas Mutay

November 1, 2012

Western Digital is the best

0 votes

Jonathan

November 1, 2012

I’d recommend the 500GB Seagate Satellite. Great for movies, music, and documents which all can be streamed wirelessly to your smartphone or tablet. There’s even a banner ad for it here on the site.

*disclaimer – I work for Seagate. =)

0 votes

Ben

November 1, 2012

Toshiba Canvio 1.0 TB USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive

Transfers your large media files at blazing fast speeds with USB 3.0.
Protects your drive (Internal Shock Sensor and Ramp Loading Technology).
Provides file, folder, and full system backup and recovery with pre-loaded backup software.
Secures your backup with a password (Data Encryption, up to 256-bit).

http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Canvio-Portable-Hard-Drive/dp/B005J7YA3W/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1351812355&sr=8-1&keywords=Toshiba+Canvio

0 votes

Sean Senn

November 2, 2012

Western Digital for sure I haven’t had any problems with it yet.

0 votes

nikhil agarwal

November 3, 2012

Thanx for asking this question. I also had doubt about which one to buy from the two, but now what I have read here and reviews I will probably go with WD

0 votes

Aswin Kumar K P

November 12, 2012

I’m using Seagate 1TB hard disk…I find it best….

0 votes

Tebawiha Lelhchhun

November 13, 2012

Transcend and Seagate

0 votes

Rakesh Mishra

November 13, 2012

u can use seggegate company bcoz it is best and provides better service as compare to other companies

0 votes

Christopher Webb

November 15, 2012

Yeah I got a WD 1T portable external recently. It works really awesome. I’m very happy with the choice.

0 votes

Rakesh Mishra

November 16, 2012

go for western digital

0 votes

Alex Meyer

November 16, 2012

I would recommend a
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822149230

Hope this helps.
Frank

0 votes

Abba Jee

November 27, 2012

I personally own My Passport®
Essential™
Ultra-Portable Hard Drive 1 TB, USB 3.0 external hard-disk for last 1.3 years never had a bad experience, I would recommend it,
:D

0 votes

Giggity Goebbels

December 8, 2012

I always use seagate.they are quite good.

0 votes

Hunbuhbhuygb Ygygbgybygb

December 11, 2012

Seagate for the win.western digital also can but i prefer seagate

0 votes

Vishal Srivastava

December 13, 2012

Buffalo and Seagate are good…

0 votes

Joshua

December 21, 2012

Western Digital is best.. and u can go for passport essential model!! Apart from that their service is good..