Need Suggestions for 500G external drive

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mLy!
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Joined: Sun May 20, 2007 6:57 am
Location: Belgium

Need Suggestions for 500G external drive

Post by mLy! » Thu Mar 13, 2008 10:23 am

Hi
As an external drive is cheaper than an enclosure + a seperate drive, I think I'll buy a 'normal' external hard disc.

Prices are almost the same, but witch one would you recommend for low noise?

WD mybook Essential? 500 gig 16 mb cache
Seagate free agent: noisy?
I've seen a cheap aluminium LACIE hard disc(about 10 euros cheaper than WD essential), are these any good? Only had 8 mb cache...


Also, can someone tell me how much faster eSata is than USB 2.0, I don't think its worth the extra cost as I don't have eSata on my PC yet.

line
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Post by line » Thu Mar 13, 2008 11:35 am

I would like to know too. I know that the 1TB My Book ships with the desirable GP drive but I do not know about the lower capacity points. The 750GB and 500GB Books may very well ship with the GP drives but then they may not.

With regard to interfaces eSATA is the way to go if you're getting a 3.5" drive because USB 2.0 typically peaks at ~35MB/s which is far slower than the peak STR (sustained transfer rate) in modern 3.5" drives.

pingu666
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Post by pingu666 » Thu Mar 13, 2008 2:38 pm

u tend to get longer warrenties on a bare drive too, something to consider. (3 vs 1 year)

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/124166

something like that would be good, u can also get sata to esata cables too, which is the el cheapo option :)

mLy!
Posts: 43
Joined: Sun May 20, 2007 6:57 am
Location: Belgium

Post by mLy! » Fri Mar 14, 2008 3:30 am

thanks for the replies but I have decided not to go for an enclosure + bare drive. The extra cost is just too much.

Also, I will use the drive only as back up, so I don't think I will need the extra speed of an eSata connection.

So any suggestions on an 500g external usb drive?
Is there any way of verifying that the mybook essential 500g has a GP inside? There is not a fan in there is there?

Thanks

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