I’ve had a series of bad experiences with cheap-ass external USB drives. I’ve bought some that sucked right away, and some that look like they’re working right at first but which get slower and slower and slower. One I have now that I’ve had for years is working perfectly, and another transfers a few files quickly and then bogs down hugely and gets slower than USB 1. I’ve also got a couple of Seagate Free-Agents that are working perfectly (after I discovered how to turn off sleep mode).
So I’m thinking that from now on I should stick to the known brands. Also, my backup needs are getting bigger, so I’m thinking of getting a 1Tb disk. Does anybody have any specific recommendations in that size range? Stick with Seagate? Right now the price leaders seem to be Iomega (the company that brought you the term “click death”) and LaCie. Any experience with them, especially as TimeMachine drives or doing hourly rsync backups on Linux?
I’ve also had bad luck with USB drives. I’m buying one of these next:
http://ihnatko.com/index.php/2008/02/18/sun-times-drobo-and-droboshare
A friend of mine has a Drobo and he’s had some unspecified problems with it recently. It also seems pricey for what it does – but on the other hand, I can’t think of any other RAID box that doesn’t require all your disks to be the same size.
Paul,
It doesn’t meet your 1TB requirement, but I am really happy with my Western Digital Passport. 250GB in a TINY portable package for $169 at Costco. (Also available for a few bucks more at BestBuy)
It, of course, is USB 2.0, and requires no external power. I use it as a MP3 repository…an iPod with no software, if you will.
STICK to Seagate. They just work and work and work and just in case, they have a 5 year warranty. I have a few of their 1TB drives (zipzoomfly.com) and love them.