External Hard Drive Choice

First let me point out that under this section of this forum there is a "sticky" on this subject - so I thought I'll read the many responses and I won't need to post a new thread on "Which External Hard Drive" is best/better. However - the first response is dated 2005, and on the second page of responses many are dated 2007! Hello - it's Jan 2012 - and over time hardware such as an external hard drive changes - the most reliable brand, or the connection - such as now USB 3.0 is an option. So, having defended the rational for this post I ask: for my relatively new iMac, 1 TB hard drive, with USB 2.0 and Firewire 800, which external hard drive do you recommend? The older post (2005 - 2009) seemed to mention Seagate and WD the most - are they still leaders in reliability?
I have not had a problem with my iMac (latest i7 processor/27 inch model), however I received an e-mail from Apple telling my my iMac hard drive is in a group experiencing a lot of failures and they want to replace it. I need to backup the whole drive using the Time Machine soft ware to have Apple swap the hard drive - but which external HD should I get. I am trying to keep the expenditure at $200. or less - if possible. Thanks, Bill

Go to the last pages of that thread. They are recent.
Personally, Toshiba, Hitachi, Seagate, WD, Lacie and Iomega are all drives that I have used without issue, so it really comes down to finding the best deal for the size of drive you want.

Yes, of course the most current responses are at the end of the thread but when you weed out the hard drive comments not related specifically to compatibility and reliability there are only relatively recent responses on the last three pages - I was hoping to get a little bit larger "data base" to gauge user satisfaction with current external desktop hard drives. Thanks for your response. Right now I am leaning to a Seagate 2TB, formatted for Mac and with Firewire 800 connectivity - at a cost of about $200. Thx.

I'm really sorry to post on here but can someone tell me how to post questions on here?
I'm a new member...

tarheel said:

Yes, of course the most current responses are at the end of the thread but when you weed out the hard drive comments not related specifically to compatibility and reliability there are only relatively recent responses on the last three pages - I was hoping to get a little bit larger "data base" to gauge user satisfaction with current external desktop hard drives. Thanks for your response. Right now I am leaning to a Seagate 2TB, formatted for Mac and with Firewire 800 connectivity - at a cost of about $200. Thx.

Click to expand...

Yes, Seagate have become a favorite, due to the 3 year warranty they offer I guess. Of course it doesn't cover loss of data, but it's a bold statement of reliability on thier part. I have a couple of thiers.

berry123 said:

I'm really sorry to post on here but can someone tell me how to post questions on here?
I'm a new member...

Click to expand...

Go to the forum header you want to ask a question in, and click "new topic" in the top corner.
Type and submit.