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<blockquote data-quote="krs" data-source="post: 1861501" data-attributes="member: 67742"><p>I was following this thread because I'm in the market for a few additional external "spinner" hard drives for backup and for storage of files I rarely need.</p><p></p><p>To start with, today there are actually only three "spinner" hard drive manufacturers:</p><p>Seagate</p><p>Toshiba</p><p>Western Digital</p><p></p><p>All the others that ever existed were eventually bought out by one of those or ceased manufacturing.</p><p>These are manufacturers of the raw hard drive (or internal drive)</p><p></p><p>All of the external drives by other than those three manufacturers have one of these, Seagate, Toshiba or WD drive, inside the enclosure.</p><p>These other manufacturers of external drives often don't tell you which internal drive they use an it's also common that they change the manufacturer of the internal drive depending where they get the best deal.</p><p>Reliability of all three is roughly the same although every once in a while one of them ends up with a specific problem drive - one can usually find which one by doing a search on the net. Reliability also is pretty much the same between 5400 and 7200 drives.</p><p>This btw applies to consumer drives - enterprise drives are a different kettle of fish, both in reliability and price.</p><p></p><p>Years ago, I used to buy 3.5 inch internal drives and a separate enclosure and put the two together to make my own external drive.</p><p>With the Firewire interface that made some sense, but today most drives have a USB 3.0 interface and a pre-packaged external is often cheaper than the basic internal drive that is in the package. Because of that, people buy 2.5-inch externals, open the enclosure and use the drive as an internal drive for their laptop. </p><p>Word of caution, many of the WD 2.5-inch external drives no longer use a standard SATA internal drive with a USB to SATA bridge but have the USB interface built right into the drive, so one can't open a WD 2.5-inch external and expect to find a SATA internal drive like one can with Seagate for instance.</p><p>For practical reasons, size and no separate power supply required, I now buy only 2.5-inch portable drives, either 2TB or 4TB.</p><p>The largest size in a 2.5-inch USB powered external is a 5TB drive, if one wants to go to a higher capacity, one needs to go with a drive with external power.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="krs, post: 1861501, member: 67742"] I was following this thread because I'm in the market for a few additional external "spinner" hard drives for backup and for storage of files I rarely need. To start with, today there are actually only three "spinner" hard drive manufacturers: Seagate Toshiba Western Digital All the others that ever existed were eventually bought out by one of those or ceased manufacturing. These are manufacturers of the raw hard drive (or internal drive) All of the external drives by other than those three manufacturers have one of these, Seagate, Toshiba or WD drive, inside the enclosure. These other manufacturers of external drives often don't tell you which internal drive they use an it's also common that they change the manufacturer of the internal drive depending where they get the best deal. Reliability of all three is roughly the same although every once in a while one of them ends up with a specific problem drive - one can usually find which one by doing a search on the net. Reliability also is pretty much the same between 5400 and 7200 drives. This btw applies to consumer drives - enterprise drives are a different kettle of fish, both in reliability and price. Years ago, I used to buy 3.5 inch internal drives and a separate enclosure and put the two together to make my own external drive. With the Firewire interface that made some sense, but today most drives have a USB 3.0 interface and a pre-packaged external is often cheaper than the basic internal drive that is in the package. Because of that, people buy 2.5-inch externals, open the enclosure and use the drive as an internal drive for their laptop. Word of caution, many of the WD 2.5-inch external drives no longer use a standard SATA internal drive with a USB to SATA bridge but have the USB interface built right into the drive, so one can't open a WD 2.5-inch external and expect to find a SATA internal drive like one can with Seagate for instance. For practical reasons, size and no separate power supply required, I now buy only 2.5-inch portable drives, either 2TB or 4TB. The largest size in a 2.5-inch USB powered external is a 5TB drive, if one wants to go to a higher capacity, one needs to go with a drive with external power. [/QUOTE]
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