[X4U] External HD Reliability?

[Randy B. Singer]

On Feb 27, 2008, at 10:48 AM, Zane H. Healy wrote:

> I'm curious if anyone has any comments about the reliability of  
> external HD's, especially the Lacie, and Western Digital models.  I  
> really need a couple external drives for photo vaults, and am  
> trying to decide if I should buy something, or build something.

LaCie used to be the no-brainer choice for an external hard drive for  
the Macintosh.  They offered excellent performance at really good  
prices.  But something happened to the company...maybe they became  
too complacent once they swallowed their biggest competitor, but they  
started to turn out drives with big problems.  First there was the  
data-loss problem that all Oxford-based drives had with the  
introduction of OS X 10.3, but with the introduction of OS X 10.4  
LaCie alone seemed to have similar data-loss problems.  Not good.

Recently I've been warning Mac users against the Western Digital My
Book drives, as they can't boot (startup) PowerPC-based Macs.
<http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php? 
p_faqid=1715&p_created=1199999177&p_sid=clkPRBWi&p_accessibility=0&p_red 
irect=&p_lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9zb3J0X2J5PSZwX2dyaWRzb3J0PSZwX3Jvd19jb 
nQ9MTEzLDExMyZwX3Byb2RzPTAmcF9jYXRzPTAmcF9wdj0mcF9jdj0mcF9zZWFyY2hfdHlwZ 
T1hbnN3ZXJzLnNlYXJjaF9mbmwmcF9wYWdlPTEmcF9zZWFyY2hfdGV4dD1QUEMgYmFzZWQgQ 
XBwbGUgY29tcHV0ZXI*&p_li=&p_topview=1>

or

http://oomiiw.notlong.com

Also, Western Digital has decided to include software on their  
external storage drives that
restricts them from being used for network file sharing.
http://www.gearlog.com/2007/12/western_digital_blocks_nas_fro.php
http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml? 
articleID=204702710
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/12/western-digital.html

Both problems can be worked around...but why should a user have to?   
These are issues that show that Western Digital is not customer- 
oriented, and users, Mac users in particular, should express their  
displeasure by not purchasing their crippled products, despite the  
fact that some Macintosh resellers seem to be selling them at  
unusually low prices.

I think that drives with a Hitachi or Seagate mechanism are a cut  
above...and I give the nod to Seagate because their (internal)  
mechanisms come with  a 5 year warranty.

If you would like to get a 250GB external hard drive to back up to,  
egoodz.com is offering a Seagate 250GB IDE Hard Drive (8MB cache,  
7200 rpm) installed in the Silver Metal Gear Box II 3.5" FireWire/USB  
2.0 Hard Drive Enclosure for $100, with free shipping. Cables and AC  
adapter are included.  The internal drive mechanism comes with a 5  
year warranty. This is a dynamite buy on a pre-assembled FireWire  
drive with a premium Seagate mechanism.

http://www.egoodz.com/product.asp?pf_id=3506UEPSILST250


___________________________________________
Randy B. Singer
Co-author of The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th, and 6th editions)

Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance
http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html
___________________________________________