Help choose portable HDD

I want to buy Portable External Harddisk. 1TB.
I don't know which one to go among the followings.
WD
Seagate
Imation
Buffalo
Samsung
they all have same price.
Please give me advice and any suggestion? rolleyes

 

Hi my friend , the best solution is called Docking Station because of that the controllers of the external hdd is appearing a lot of problems , something like this

http://www.ebay.com/itm/USB-3-0-2-5-3-5-SATA-HDD-Docking-Station-Backup-Card-Reader-/190736999265

or

http://www.ebay.com/itm/USB-2-0-to-IDE-SATA-2-5-3-5-Hard-Drive-Converter-Cable-/190399539917

to plug in an internal driver ( wd green ) for instance

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Western-Dig...Internal_Hard_Disk_Drives&hash=item27cf59eaa1 :wave

 

If you're in the US you could choose from these,

http://www.geeks.com/products_sc.asp?cat=416

 

If you're using the drive for video recording/playback or other apps that spin the drive constantly for hours at a time, I'd skip the pre-built external drives and set up your own.

As Falconattack noted, a docking station is one possibility - it will keep the drive cooler than having it sealed in a plastic enclosure. The other (and best) option for high-use drives is an enclosure with a built-in fan such as this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817173042

The brand and quality of HDD also matters. I'd go with a WD Caviar/Scorpio Black Series - a bit more expensive; but my experience is they're less prone to failure than cheaper models.

Hope this helps.

 

Thanks for enlightening me. I'll go for WD. So, if I choose Docking Station, I'll just have to find an internal harddisk? (pardon me if my question is too naive)

 

Samsung is a good brand when it comes to electronics. but i have been using WD for a long time and no problems whatsoever

 

Yes. Docking stations and internal drive bays will usually take up to a 1TB (sometimes 2TB) internal hard drive. Just be sure to check the docking station/enclosure specs for the maximum capacity.

 

Samsung's HDD division was purchased by Seagate about a year ago.

I've had good luck with the older Samsung drives, but the jury is still out as to the overall quality and reliability of the newer ones since Seagate bought them out. This is why I'm sticking with the WD Black Series for now.

 

Green wd's is good about back up i think :wave

 

I would personally go for the WD drives as well. The Greens are OK for mass storage but they are slower than a standard desktop drive, being as they spin at 5400RPM rather than 7200RPM. Reliability wise, I have been running WD Green drives in a NAS for three years, and I have had three failures, two in 2TB and one in 1TB These were all uncorrectable sector errors.

They have a very fast head park so they are unsuitable for lots of random R/W burtst but they are good for mass data storage of large files.

If you want to store media files or use the drive for streaming, have a look at the new WD Red range. They are marketed as being for NAS applications but they would be good as external drives as well as being cheaper than the WD black drives. They do also spin at 5400RPM but they have a longer head park time and they are optimized for higher I/O loads.

 

I got a Toshiba 1TB for the same price as a 500gb at Best Buy, around a year ago. The Canvio drives are now going for $89.95, compared to when we got ours for $69.95.