Internal or External Hard drive recommendations
#1
Hi guys im running out of space on my current hard drive. Can anyone tell me if an internal sata hard drive is better than an external hard drive for storing my movies. Im thinking of getting a 2TB one.

Also is Western Digital the best drives?

thanks

sai
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#2
Saixbmc Wrote:Hi guys im running out of space on my current hard drive. Can anyone tell me if an internal sata hard drive is better than an external hard drive for storing my movies. Im thinking of getting a 2TB one.

Also is Western Digital the best drives?

thanks

sai
If you have the room I'd get an internal drive. Internal drives are usually much cheaper and have a longer warranty than external drives.

I hesitate to comment on which is the best company because I'm sure that there will be lot of different perspectives out there but I don't think there is one company out there that is clearly better than all the rest. They all have problems. I have purchaed Seagate, Western Digital, and Hitachi drives in the past. If I was going to buy a 2TB drive today it would be a Hitachi 5k3000 because it's only $60 after rebate and IMO it's no better/worse than any other 2TB drive out there.
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#3
If you are using an external drive equipped with USB 3.0 or eSATA as your interface, then performance will be pretty much the same as if you had it mounted internally as a regular SATA drive. But if you were running the older standard USB 2.0, then it'll be much slower transferring files. Watching your media should be fine, but physically moving media onto the drive will be slower.

Internal is generally the better route, and if you have a decent case then you can more effectively cool the drive, and also dont have to worry about those pesky power supplies that you use with non-bus powered enclosures. Plus external means more wires to manage. But an external drive means you do have the flexibility to toss the drive around to friends and family to trade media...Food for thought I suppose.

And I would agree its hard to say with any doubt that there is one "most reliable" brand out there. For every one of us that will say brand A, there are plenty of members to preach their bad experiences with brand A, and favor brand B. But its safe to say that all the 2tb drives have matured in manufacturing and are all pretty much free from any dangerous issues that might compromise your data. I've got dozens of the damn things from Samsung, WD, Seagate, Hitachi, even some old Maxtors laying around. I have never had one burn out to the point I could not recover the data myself, and I really cant say with any confidence that one brand has been more reliable than the next. Just go with what best fits your needs and budget. Take note of the "green" versions that focus on low power/low heat, or the performance once that offer the best speed, or the AV edition drives that are optimized for 24/7 spin time for use.
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#4
NewEgg July 4 promotion on Hitachi is pretty good deal at $59 after $10 MIR.

http://promotions.newegg.com/neemail/jun...-PromoWord
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#5
wicky Wrote:But its safe to say that all the 2tb drives have matured in manufacturing and are all pretty much free from any dangerous issues that might compromise your data.

Except Samsung. I don't trust them:

http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/smartmo...GBadBlocks

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#6
poofyhairguy Wrote:Except Samsung. I don't trust them:

http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/smartmo...GBadBlocks

+1 I've had bad experiences with Samsung. I worked as a network administrator for 10 years before starting my own company and can tell you NO admin ever uses Samsung drives.
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