EXternal H'drive up to 1tb, which 1?

[KradDanteX]

Hey, I'm aware that there are many threads like this but those didn't really seem to suit me.

I'm looking for a 1tb h'drive for my mac, and it should be windows compatible when i get my boot camp running. My maxtor 1tb just died on me... ya so i have to get another hd for backup.

My h'drive can be firewire or usb whichever is better, i won't mind paying more money for it since the data is quite important, my files + Time machine backups. Though it must be 1tb or more, 500 is far too little.

[baggss]

I like FW personally, faster speed is always good.

Is you Maxtor not under warranty? Most drives have a 3 year warranty from the manufacturer.

If you're willing to spend, why not go with 1.5Tb or even 2Tb....?

[KradDanteX]

that could be good, any recommendations?

[baggss]

I've always been a fan of "build your own" when it comes to externals. For instance, I just purchased a 1Tb Seagate SATA II drive for $69.99 this evening and paired it to an external Firewire 400 case that ran me $29.99. Out the door for ~$109. Drives are cheap and so are cases. A comparable name brand off the shelf drive would have run me ~$145 out the door. Not much, but it's something.

On a side note I go with FW as it has a higher continuous throughput when transferring data vice USB 2. It always seemed silly to me to put a large, fast drive into a fairly slow case such as USB 2. I really should be going with FW 800 but I'm not willing to pay for the cases just yet. This is just a personal preference though. IF I really wanted to get speed I'd buy an eSATA PCI card for my Mac and use eSATA vice any FW.

[KradDanteX]

well i can't really make myself a hard drive since i'm kinda rushing for a hard drive... thinking of a seagate or a lacie

[baggss]

Are you buying on-line or in a store?

[KradDanteX]

i'm buying from a store. Challenger, heard of it?

[baggss]

No, but there are lots of chains around. My point though is that you can buy both the drive and the case at Challenger, probably for less money than a pre-assembled drive, and get more "bang" for your buck so to speak. I mean, you have to go to the store already, building your own simply requires you to put the drive in the case, hook it up and format it. Not a lot of work for the potential savings really.

Anyhow, that's just my thinking...

[JUKE179r]

Build your own like baggss recommended. It's cheaper and you can piece together what you want.
And don't forget Firewire baby!!!

[KradDanteX]

yea thats great, thanks for helping. I also thought of making hard drive soon, but its quite difficult to get the parts and make..=.=

[baggss]

It's not that hard. You buy a drive and you buy a case. Putting the two together takes maybe 5 min. I don't mean build your own drive from scratch, or your own case. These are items that should be readily available at you local computer store.

[y-guy]

I have very little trust of anything from Seagate anymore, to many failed drives for me.

I now have two external setups. I use a Macally enclosure with a 500GB WD drive, Firewire 400 for my Time Machine.

And I just purchased a Guardian MAXimus from Newmar Tech. I then added two WD 1TB Black drives and connected with Firewire 800. The Guardian comes setup for Raid-1 Mirror. Its a sweet little box, drives can bit a tad loud but I'll move it off to the lower part of the desk later on and that should solve that issue.