OT - External Hard Drives
I'm currently housing my digital images on a couple of external hard drives. They are filling up and its getting to be time to upgrade. Are there any particular brands to look for or avoid? I am thinking of getting a couple of 4TB drives, to replace a couple of 3TB drives currently in use. I'm currently using two pair of drives with a 3TB and 2TB in each pair. Moving from a 3+2 setup to a 4+3 setup will net an additional 2TB of storage, which should last for a couple years or so. I Googled on this and Hitachi came up as making reliable drives. A quick search on Amazon did not reveal any Hitachi drives in enclosures, but I assume I could buy an enclosure that would support them. Any suggestions? Mark --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: OT - External Hard Drives
I have a 4 year old Hitachi LifeStudio, still working fine with no issues. AFAIK they were bought out by Western Digital. On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 5:49 PM, Mark C pdml-m...@charter.net wrote: I'm currently housing my digital images on a couple of external hard drives. They are filling up and its getting to be time to upgrade. Are there any particular brands to look for or avoid? I am thinking of getting a couple of 4TB drives, to replace a couple of 3TB drives currently in use. I'm currently using two pair of drives with a 3TB and 2TB in each pair. Moving from a 3+2 setup to a 4+3 setup will net an additional 2TB of storage, which should last for a couple years or so. I Googled on this and Hitachi came up as making reliable drives. A quick search on Amazon did not reveal any Hitachi drives in enclosures, but I assume I could buy an enclosure that would support them. Any suggestions? Mark --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: OT - External Hard Drives
Hitachi and western digital are the two highest rated for reliability. I have a few my passport 2.5 drives and they have been solid so far after a few years of use. On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 11:02 AM, Attila Boros attila.p...@gmail.com wrote: I have a 4 year old Hitachi LifeStudio, still working fine with no issues. AFAIK they were bought out by Western Digital. On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 5:49 PM, Mark C pdml-m...@charter.net wrote: I'm currently housing my digital images on a couple of external hard drives. They are filling up and its getting to be time to upgrade. Are there any particular brands to look for or avoid? I am thinking of getting a couple of 4TB drives, to replace a couple of 3TB drives currently in use. I'm currently using two pair of drives with a 3TB and 2TB in each pair. Moving from a 3+2 setup to a 4+3 setup will net an additional 2TB of storage, which should last for a couple years or so. I Googled on this and Hitachi came up as making reliable drives. A quick search on Amazon did not reveal any Hitachi drives in enclosures, but I assume I could buy an enclosure that would support them. Any suggestions? Mark --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: OT - External Hard Drives
Mark, I have a hodgepodge of 2T drives bought as bare drives - Hitachi, Seagate, and Western Digital. All have been working very well with no problems at all. Most of the drives in the $100-250 price class from major vendors are so close in reliability, speed, durability, etc, it's a toss up. I use the Mercury Elite Pro USB 3.0 2.0/FireWire 800/eSATA enclosures available from Other World Computing. They're fast, easy to work with, reasonably priced, and very reliable. http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB Godfrey On Oct 24, 2014, at 7:49 AM, Mark C pdml-m...@charter.net wrote: I'm currently housing my digital images on a couple of external hard drives. They are filling up and its getting to be time to upgrade. Are there any particular brands to look for or avoid? I am thinking of getting a couple of 4TB drives, to replace a couple of 3TB drives currently in use. I'm currently using two pair of drives with a 3TB and 2TB in each pair. Moving from a 3+2 setup to a 4+3 setup will net an additional 2TB of storage, which should last for a couple years or so. I Googled on this and Hitachi came up as making reliable drives. A quick search on Amazon did not reveal any Hitachi drives in enclosures, but I assume I could buy an enclosure that would support them. Any suggestions? Mark -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: OT - External Hard Drives
i have been using seagate for my back ups, so far so good On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 10:49 AM, Mark C pdml-m...@charter.net wrote: I'm currently housing my digital images on a couple of external hard drives. They are filling up and its getting to be time to upgrade. Are there any particular brands to look for or avoid? I am thinking of getting a couple of 4TB drives, to replace a couple of 3TB drives currently in use. I'm currently using two pair of drives with a 3TB and 2TB in each pair. Moving from a 3+2 setup to a 4+3 setup will net an additional 2TB of storage, which should last for a couple years or so. I Googled on this and Hitachi came up as making reliable drives. A quick search on Amazon did not reveal any Hitachi drives in enclosures, but I assume I could buy an enclosure that would support them. Any suggestions? Mark --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions. -- Documenting Life in Rural Ontario. www.caughtinmotion.com http://brooksinthecountry.blogspot.com/ York Region, Ontario, Canada -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: OT - External Hard Drives
I’m right where Godders is on this. Numerous drives from different makers, with many of them mounted in Mercury Elite enclosures. I also picked up some empty enclosures with various brand names on them at one of OWC’s garage sales. Those had originally been sold with a drive but had been returned to OWC and disassembled for some reason. Got them for about five bucks apiece and they work fine. Paul On Oct 24, 2014, at 11:31 AM, Godfrey DiGiorgi godd...@me.com wrote: Mark, I have a hodgepodge of 2T drives bought as bare drives - Hitachi, Seagate, and Western Digital. All have been working very well with no problems at all. Most of the drives in the $100-250 price class from major vendors are so close in reliability, speed, durability, etc, it's a toss up. I use the Mercury Elite Pro USB 3.0 2.0/FireWire 800/eSATA enclosures available from Other World Computing. They're fast, easy to work with, reasonably priced, and very reliable. http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB Godfrey On Oct 24, 2014, at 7:49 AM, Mark C pdml-m...@charter.net wrote: I'm currently housing my digital images on a couple of external hard drives. They are filling up and its getting to be time to upgrade. Are there any particular brands to look for or avoid? I am thinking of getting a couple of 4TB drives, to replace a couple of 3TB drives currently in use. I'm currently using two pair of drives with a 3TB and 2TB in each pair. Moving from a 3+2 setup to a 4+3 setup will net an additional 2TB of storage, which should last for a couple years or so. I Googled on this and Hitachi came up as making reliable drives. A quick search on Amazon did not reveal any Hitachi drives in enclosures, but I assume I could buy an enclosure that would support them. Any suggestions? Mark -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: OT - External Hard Drives
Just avoid Western Digital enclosures. Rick http://photo.net/photos/RickW On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 12:42 PM, Paul Stenquist pnstenqu...@comcast.net wrote: I’m right where Godders is on this. Numerous drives from different makers, with many of them mounted in Mercury Elite enclosures. I also picked up some empty enclosures with various brand names on them at one of OWC’s garage sales. Those had originally been sold with a drive but had been returned to OWC and disassembled for some reason. Got them for about five bucks apiece and they work fine. Paul On Oct 24, 2014, at 11:31 AM, Godfrey DiGiorgi godd...@me.com wrote: Mark, I have a hodgepodge of 2T drives bought as bare drives - Hitachi, Seagate, and Western Digital. All have been working very well with no problems at all. Most of the drives in the $100-250 price class from major vendors are so close in reliability, speed, durability, etc, it's a toss up. I use the Mercury Elite Pro USB 3.0 2.0/FireWire 800/eSATA enclosures available from Other World Computing. They're fast, easy to work with, reasonably priced, and very reliable. http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB Godfrey On Oct 24, 2014, at 7:49 AM, Mark C pdml-m...@charter.net wrote: I'm currently housing my digital images on a couple of external hard drives. They are filling up and its getting to be time to upgrade. Are there any particular brands to look for or avoid? I am thinking of getting a couple of 4TB drives, to replace a couple of 3TB drives currently in use. I'm currently using two pair of drives with a 3TB and 2TB in each pair. Moving from a 3+2 setup to a 4+3 setup will net an additional 2TB of storage, which should last for a couple years or so. I Googled on this and Hitachi came up as making reliable drives. A quick search on Amazon did not reveal any Hitachi drives in enclosures, but I assume I could buy an enclosure that would support them. Any suggestions? Mark -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: OT - External Hard Drives
However you organize things, this may be a good time to retire a set of drives with your entire library backed up on them, just so that you have an (offsite?) archival backup up everything. On the off chance that something goes wrong somewhere along the line. Mark C wrote: I'm currently housing my digital images on a couple of external hard drives. They are filling up and its getting to be time to upgrade. Are there any particular brands to look for or avoid? I am thinking of getting a couple of 4TB drives, to replace a couple of 3TB drives currently in use. I'm currently using two pair of drives with a 3TB and 2TB in each pair. Moving from a 3+2 setup to a 4+3 setup will net an additional 2TB of storage, which should last for a couple years or so. I Googled on this and Hitachi came up as making reliable drives. A quick search on Amazon did not reveal any Hitachi drives in enclosures, but I assume I could buy an enclosure that would support them. Any suggestions? Mark --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com -- Larry Colen l...@red4est.com (postbox on min4est) -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: OT - External Hard Drives
I just saw an excerpt from a conversation: xxx: We had a new SysAdmin starting his work today. The very first thing he did was to backup all the backups. And only then he came to meet us. yyy: Yeah.. He must've had a hard life. Larry Colen Fri, 24 Oct 2014 10:13:12 -0700 wrote: However you organize things, this may be a good time to retire a set of drives with your entire library backed up on them, just so that you have an (offsite?) archival backup up everything. On the off chance that something goes wrong somewhere along the line. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: OT - External Hard Drives
Mark, I have a similar opinion and approach to those of Godfrey and Paul. To that, I would like to add a few thoughts that might be useful to you in make the choice: 1. Distinguish the HDDs from the enclosures. a) Some HDD manufacturers are using other manufacturer's HDDs in their own external drives (enclosures), and not their own. This is the case for the mobile (2.5) HDDs. b) What to watch for: i) some enclosures have problems with heat sink; ii) chipsets make the difference (sorry, I cannot suggest which ones a better or should be avoided at the moment, - read the reviews). 2. All consumer grade HDDs (internal drives themselves) and external drives have a certain percentage of failures, and even DOAs (dead on arrival). That's true for all manufacturers. The question about the quality is which specific models have that fraction smaller. Some models (for the same manufacturer) are beter than others. The reason for that is that in many cases, it is cheaper for these companies to replace a few drives than to thoroughly test all of them. At least, I heard that at some point such a decision made for some cheapest drives that went several years ago into a gaming console like an Xbox or something. 3. A quick comment (just in case) about Hitachi. For a few years, that company has been called HGST, A Western Digital Company 4. For the mobile type of USB drives, I've been happy with Seagate's FreeAgent GoFlex, the line that got replaced with Backup Plus Slim Portable, as far as I understand. However, today, I would probably choose one of the two models of Transcend - 2TB StoreJet (USB 3.0). They are a bit more expensive then the Seagate counterparts, but seem to have a bit more rugged enclosure. 5. For the desktop external USB 3.0 drives, today I would probably choose Seagate - 4TB Expansion External Desktop USB 3.0 Hard Drive http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/936187-REG/seagate_stbv4000100_4tb_expansion_desktop_hd.html or HGST 4TB Touro Deskpro http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/846330-REG/Hitachi_0S03503_4TB_Touro_Deskpro_Hard.html (I am currently using a 3TB Touro drive and a 3TB Seagate that I think was from the GoFlex Desktop family that got replaced by the Expansion External Desktop line). 6. For a while, I've been considering a Synology Diskstation with 8 or 5 HDDs (slots for HDDs): DS1813+ or DS1513+, which is a NAS server. It would streamline most of the storage needs. You can connect external HDDs to it, and you a video-streaming devices (Roku and alike) seem to work well with it. I might still go that way some day... 7. Finally, some people who have many internal drives successfully using a dock like this from Newer Technology - Voyager s3: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/877711-REG/Newer_Technology_nwtu3s3hd_Voyager_S3_USB_3_0.html I've seen other docks like this, and not all of them a equally good. At the moment, I am using a simler connector from the same company: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/767474-REG/Newer_Technology_NWTU3NVSPATA_USB_3_0_Universal_Drive.html HTH, Igor Paul Stenquist Fri, 24 Oct 2014 09:44:32 -0700 wrote: I'm right where Godders is on this. Numerous drives from different makers, with many of them mounted in Mercury Elite enclosures. I also picked up some empty enclosures with various brand names on them at one of OWC.s garage sales. Those had originally been sold with a drive but had been returned to OWC and disassembled for some reason. Got them for about five bucks apiece and they work fine. Paul On Oct 24, 2014, at 11:31 AM, Godfrey DiGiorgi godd...@me.com wrote: Mark, I have a hodgepodge of 2T drives bought as bare drives - Hitachi, Seagate, and Western Digital. All have been working very well with no problems at all. Most of the drives in the $100-250 price class from major vendors are so close in reliability, speed, durability, etc, it's a toss up. I use the Mercury Elite Pro USB 3.0 2.0/FireWire 800/eSATA enclosures available from Other World Computing. They're fast, easy to work with, reasonably priced, and very reliable. http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB Godfrey On Oct 24, 2014, at 7:49 AM, Mark C pdml-m...@charter.net wrote: I'm currently housing my digital images on a couple of external hard drives. They are filling up and its getting to be time to upgrade. Are there any particular brands to look for or avoid? I am thinking of getting a couple of 4TB drives, to replace a couple of 3TB drives currently in use. I'm currently using two pair of drives with a 3TB and 2TB in each pair. Moving from a 3+2 setup to a 4+3 setup will net an additional 2TB of storage, which should last for a couple years or so. I Googled on this and Hitachi came up as making reliable drives. A quick search on Amazon did not reveal any Hitachi drives in enclosures, but I assume I could buy an enclosure that would support them. Any suggestions? Mark
Re: OT - External Hard Drives
Mark, I have been using the Mac Mini encased drives, all from various sources. I have eight of them, ranging in size from 500GB to 2TB, running 24 hours a day, the smaller sizes for 7 years, larger up to 4 years. Half of them for backup of the similar sized drives. In all that time, only one has failed, a 640GB, after 5 years as a backup drive. OWC currently has some of the larger models on sale. Care must be taken in ordering, as of late, some are sized to match the new, smaller size of Apple Mac Minis post 2010, plus Airports and Time Capsule using 2.5 drives, whereas mine all have 3.5 drives matching the earlier Mac Minis, Airports and Time Capsules. They are stackable, to any height, according to tech supports of the various retailers. I used to have two stacks of four, but they all get pretty hot, enough for me to worry, even though the one on top gets no hotter than the one on the bottom. They have internal fans that vent just below the top on all four sides, which you never hear except under large copies or posts from one to another. Even then not very loud. But I now have them 2 high, really because I have the space now I did not before. Check them out, search for best price. OWC has the: 3.0TB NewerTech miniStack Classic 7200RPM 64MB Cache FireWire 800 USB 2.0 SATA Solution with integrated rear USB 2.0 powered hub. Cables, Prosoft Data Backup Intech HD Speedtools included. 3 Year NewerTech Limited Warranty. (NWTMSC7S30TB64) 3.0TB 7200RPM miniStack now $139.10 after $30.89 OWCtoberFest Bonus rebate through 10/28/2014 On Oct 24, 2014, at 8:39 AM, David J Brooks wrote: i have been using seagate for my back ups, so far so good On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 10:49 AM, Mark C pdml-m...@charter.net wrote: I'm currently housing my digital images on a couple of external hard drives. They are filling up and its getting to be time to upgrade. Are there any particular brands to look for or avoid? I am thinking of getting a couple of 4TB drives, to replace a couple of 3TB drives currently in use. I'm currently using two pair of drives with a 3TB and 2TB in each pair. Moving from a 3+2 setup to a 4+3 setup will net an additional 2TB of storage, which should last for a couple years or so. I Googled on this and Hitachi came up as making reliable drives. A quick search on Amazon did not reveal any Hitachi drives in enclosures, but I assume I could buy an enclosure that would support them. Any suggestions? Mark -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: OT - External Hard Drives
You might want to consider G-Technology G-Drives. The smaller capacity ones seem to have the higher buyer satisfaction. Also, if you are on a Mac, you could do worse than to consider Apple's Time Capsule product for backups with Time Machine. Drop dead simple to set up. On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 2:58 PM, Joseph McAllister pentax...@mac.com wrote: Mark, I have been using the Mac Mini encased drives, all from various sources. I have eight of them, ranging in size from 500GB to 2TB, running 24 hours a day, the smaller sizes for 7 years, larger up to 4 years. Half of them for backup of the similar sized drives. In all that time, only one has failed, a 640GB, after 5 years as a backup drive. OWC currently has some of the larger models on sale. Care must be taken in ordering, as of late, some are sized to match the new, smaller size of Apple Mac Minis post 2010, plus Airports and Time Capsule using 2.5 drives, whereas mine all have 3.5 drives matching the earlier Mac Minis, Airports and Time Capsules. They are stackable, to any height, according to tech supports of the various retailers. I used to have two stacks of four, but they all get pretty hot, enough for me to worry, even though the one on top gets no hotter than the one on the bottom. They have internal fans that vent just below the top on all four sides, which you never hear except under large copies or posts from one to another. Even then not very loud. But I now have them 2 high, really because I have the space now I did not before. Check them out, search for best price. OWC has the: 3.0TB NewerTech miniStack Classic 7200RPM 64MB Cache FireWire 800 USB 2.0 SATA Solution with integrated rear USB 2.0 powered hub. Cables, Prosoft Data Backup Intech HD Speedtools included. 3 Year NewerTech Limited Warranty. (NWTMSC7S30TB64) 3.0TB 7200RPM miniStack now $139.10 after $30.89 OWCtoberFest Bonus rebate through 10/28/2014 On Oct 24, 2014, at 8:39 AM, David J Brooks wrote: i have been using seagate for my back ups, so far so good On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 10:49 AM, Mark C pdml-m...@charter.net wrote: I'm currently housing my digital images on a couple of external hard drives. They are filling up and its getting to be time to upgrade. Are there any particular brands to look for or avoid? I am thinking of getting a couple of 4TB drives, to replace a couple of 3TB drives currently in use. I'm currently using two pair of drives with a 3TB and 2TB in each pair. Moving from a 3+2 setup to a 4+3 setup will net an additional 2TB of storage, which should last for a couple years or so. I Googled on this and Hitachi came up as making reliable drives. A quick search on Amazon did not reveal any Hitachi drives in enclosures, but I assume I could buy an enclosure that would support them. Any suggestions? Mark -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions. -- Photographers must learn not to be ashamed to have their photographs look like photographs. ~ Alfred Stieglitz -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: OT - External Hard Drives
Thanks Godfrey - I especially appreciate the recommendation regarding the enclosures. I've had mixed luck with some of the no-brand enclosures I've bought on eBay in the past, so knowing what look for is helpful. I Mark On 10/24/2014 11:31 AM, Godfrey DiGiorgi wrote: Mark, I have a hodgepodge of 2T drives bought as bare drives - Hitachi, Seagate, and Western Digital. All have been working very well with no problems at all. Most of the drives in the $100-250 price class from major vendors are so close in reliability, speed, durability, etc, it's a toss up. I use the Mercury Elite Pro USB 3.0 2.0/FireWire 800/eSATA enclosures available from Other World Computing. They're fast, easy to work with, reasonably priced, and very reliable. http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB Godfrey On Oct 24, 2014, at 7:49 AM, Mark C pdml-m...@charter.net wrote: I'm currently housing my digital images on a couple of external hard drives. They are filling up and its getting to be time to upgrade. Are there any particular brands to look for or avoid? I am thinking of getting a couple of 4TB drives, to replace a couple of 3TB drives currently in use. I'm currently using two pair of drives with a 3TB and 2TB in each pair. Moving from a 3+2 setup to a 4+3 setup will net an additional 2TB of storage, which should last for a couple years or so. I Googled on this and Hitachi came up as making reliable drives. A quick search on Amazon did not reveal any Hitachi drives in enclosures, but I assume I could buy an enclosure that would support them. Any suggestions? Mark --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: OT - External Hard Drives
Thanks, Dave. My latest drives have been Seagates, but I used WD before that. Some of the websites ran across were not flattering to Seagate, but I have had not problems. Mark On 10/24/2014 11:39 AM, David J Brooks wrote: i have been using seagate for my back ups, so far so good On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 10:49 AM, Mark C pdml-m...@charter.net wrote: I'm currently housing my digital images on a couple of external hard drives. They are filling up and its getting to be time to upgrade. Are there any particular brands to look for or avoid? I am thinking of getting a couple of 4TB drives, to replace a couple of 3TB drives currently in use. I'm currently using two pair of drives with a 3TB and 2TB in each pair. Moving from a 3+2 setup to a 4+3 setup will net an additional 2TB of storage, which should last for a couple years or so. I Googled on this and Hitachi came up as making reliable drives. A quick search on Amazon did not reveal any Hitachi drives in enclosures, but I assume I could buy an enclosure that would support them. Any suggestions? Mark --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions. --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: OT - External Hard Drives
That's a good point. Putting a set of drives in a safety deposit box would solve two problems - it would provide an archive copy of my library and also prevent me from having a bunch of drives sitting around doing nothing I actually have an arrangement with a local PC store that does offsite backups for businesse, and a copy of the library resides on their servers. I have FTP access but given the amount of data involved I usually just bring a spare copy of the drives to them a few times a year to have them archived. Mark On 10/24/2014 1:12 PM, Larry Colen wrote: However you organize things, this may be a good time to retire a set of drives with your entire library backed up on them, just so that you have an (offsite?) archival backup up everything. On the off chance that something goes wrong somewhere along the line. Mark C wrote: I'm currently housing my digital images on a couple of external hard drives. They are filling up and its getting to be time to upgrade. Are there any particular brands to look for or avoid? I am thinking of getting a couple of 4TB drives, to replace a couple of 3TB drives currently in use. I'm currently using two pair of drives with a 3TB and 2TB in each pair. Moving from a 3+2 setup to a 4+3 setup will net an additional 2TB of storage, which should last for a couple years or so. I Googled on this and Hitachi came up as making reliable drives. A quick search on Amazon did not reveal any Hitachi drives in enclosures, but I assume I could buy an enclosure that would support them. Any suggestions? Mark --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: OT - External Hard Drives
Thanks, Igor - that's very helpful. I was thinking of something like the New Technology - Voyager S3 docking station. The only drawback to getting a couple of those is that I would need to extract at least a couple drives from their existing USB enclosures. Probably not a hard thing to do but I'm always reluctant to destroy something that is perfectly functional. So, I will probably go with a couple drives in enclosures. Thanks - Mark On 10/24/2014 2:34 PM, Igor PDML-StR wrote: Mark, I have a similar opinion and approach to those of Godfrey and Paul. To that, I would like to add a few thoughts that might be useful to you in make the choice: 1. Distinguish the HDDs from the enclosures. a) Some HDD manufacturers are using other manufacturer's HDDs in their own external drives (enclosures), and not their own. This is the case for the mobile (2.5) HDDs. b) What to watch for: i) some enclosures have problems with heat sink; ii) chipsets make the difference (sorry, I cannot suggest which ones a better or should be avoided at the moment, - read the reviews). 2. All consumer grade HDDs (internal drives themselves) and external drives have a certain percentage of failures, and even DOAs (dead on arrival). That's true for all manufacturers. The question about the quality is which specific models have that fraction smaller. Some models (for the same manufacturer) are beter than others. The reason for that is that in many cases, it is cheaper for these companies to replace a few drives than to thoroughly test all of them. At least, I heard that at some point such a decision made for some cheapest drives that went several years ago into a gaming console like an Xbox or something. 3. A quick comment (just in case) about Hitachi. For a few years, that company has been called HGST, A Western Digital Company 4. For the mobile type of USB drives, I've been happy with Seagate's FreeAgent GoFlex, the line that got replaced with Backup Plus Slim Portable, as far as I understand. However, today, I would probably choose one of the two models of Transcend - 2TB StoreJet (USB 3.0). They are a bit more expensive then the Seagate counterparts, but seem to have a bit more rugged enclosure. 5. For the desktop external USB 3.0 drives, today I would probably choose Seagate - 4TB Expansion External Desktop USB 3.0 Hard Drive http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/936187-REG/seagate_stbv4000100_4tb_expansion_desktop_hd.html or HGST 4TB Touro Deskpro http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/846330-REG/Hitachi_0S03503_4TB_Touro_Deskpro_Hard.html (I am currently using a 3TB Touro drive and a 3TB Seagate that I think was from the GoFlex Desktop family that got replaced by the Expansion External Desktop line). 6. For a while, I've been considering a Synology Diskstation with 8 or 5 HDDs (slots for HDDs): DS1813+ or DS1513+, which is a NAS server. It would streamline most of the storage needs. You can connect external HDDs to it, and you a video-streaming devices (Roku and alike) seem to work well with it. I might still go that way some day... 7. Finally, some people who have many internal drives successfully using a dock like this from Newer Technology - Voyager s3: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/877711-REG/Newer_Technology_nwtu3s3hd_Voyager_S3_USB_3_0.html I've seen other docks like this, and not all of them a equally good. At the moment, I am using a simler connector from the same company: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/767474-REG/Newer_Technology_NWTU3NVSPATA_USB_3_0_Universal_Drive.html HTH, Igor Paul Stenquist Fri, 24 Oct 2014 09:44:32 -0700 wrote: I'm right where Godders is on this. Numerous drives from different makers, with many of them mounted in Mercury Elite enclosures. I also picked up some empty enclosures with various brand names on them at one of OWC.s garage sales. Those had originally been sold with a drive but had been returned to OWC and disassembled for some reason. Got them for about five bucks apiece and they work fine. Paul On Oct 24, 2014, at 11:31 AM, Godfrey DiGiorgi godd...@me.com wrote: Mark, I have a hodgepodge of 2T drives bought as bare drives - Hitachi, Seagate, and Western Digital. All have been working very well with no problems at all. Most of the drives in the $100-250 price class from major vendors are so close in reliability, speed, durability, etc, it's a toss up. I use the Mercury Elite Pro USB 3.0 2.0/FireWire 800/eSATA enclosures available from Other World Computing. They're fast, easy to work with, reasonably priced, and very reliable. http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB Godfrey On Oct 24, 2014, at 7:49 AM, Mark C pdml-m...@charter.net wrote: I'm currently housing my digital images on a couple of external hard drives. They are filling up and its getting to be time to upgrade. Are there any particular brands to look for or avoid? I am
Re: OT - External Hard Drives
Mark, That docking station solution is for the case when you are have just bare internal drives and have a bunch of them. There is no reason to take the drives for that out of their existing USB enclosures (assuming those are perfectly functional and have the optimum connectivity). Igor Mark C Fri, 24 Oct 2014 15:50:34 -0700 wrote: Thanks, Igor - that's very helpful. I was thinking of something like the New Technology - Voyager S3 docking station. The only drawback to getting a couple of those is that I would need to extract at least a couple drives from their existing USB enclosures. Probably not a hard thing to do but I'm always reluctant to destroy something that is perfectly functional. So, I will probably go with a couple drives in enclosures. Thanks - Mark -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: OT - External Hard Drives
Igor - I should clarify: I was looking at a 2 drive station and thought I could put a 4 and a 3 TB drive in it instead of having the 2 drives in enclosures. So I was considering buying 2 4 TB drives and extracting the 3 TB drives from their enclosures to create this system. The advantages might be - using one socket on the power strip vs 2 and having flexibility in cloning the master library onto backups. Thanks again - Mark On 10/24/2014 6:59 PM, Igor PDML-StR wrote: Mark, That docking station solution is for the case when you are have just bare internal drives and have a bunch of them. There is no reason to take the drives for that out of their existing USB enclosures (assuming those are perfectly functional and have the optimum connectivity). Igor Mark C Fri, 24 Oct 2014 15:50:34 -0700 wrote: Thanks, Igor - that's very helpful. I was thinking of something like the New Technology - Voyager S3 docking station. The only drawback to getting a couple of those is that I would need to extract at least a couple drives from their existing USB enclosures. Probably not a hard thing to do but I'm always reluctant to destroy something that is perfectly functional. So, I will probably go with a couple drives in enclosures. Thanks - Mark --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: OT - External Hard Drives
I have a number of La Cie drives and so far have not had a problem. Philip Northeast www.aviewfinderdarkly.com.au On 25/10/2014 1:49 am, Mark C wrote: I'm currently housing my digital images on a couple of external hard drives. They are filling up and its getting to be time to upgrade. Are there any particular brands to look for or avoid? I am thinking of getting a couple of 4TB drives, to replace a couple of 3TB drives currently in use. I'm currently using two pair of drives with a 3TB and 2TB in each pair. Moving from a 3+2 setup to a 4+3 setup will net an additional 2TB of storage, which should last for a couple years or so. I Googled on this and Hitachi came up as making reliable drives. A quick search on Amazon did not reveal any Hitachi drives in enclosures, but I assume I could buy an enclosure that would support them. Any suggestions? Mark --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: OT - External Hard Drives
Mark, Aah, sorry, I hadn't gotten that part. Thanks for clarifying that. I don't know what your requirements, but you might consider you might consider a NAS (network-attached storage) solution. From a good friend of my, who is a sysadmin and has used Synology a lot, I hear good recommendation for their devices. If you are actually looking for a 2-drive station, here are 2-drive version you might consider: DS214 or DS214+: https://www.synology.com/en-us/products/DS214+#spec https://www.synology.com/en-us/products/DS214#spec or DS213air: https://www.synology.com/en-us/products/DS213air#spec You can have those 2 drives configured as RAID-1, if you wish, - to have the redundancy. And you can attach your existing HDDs (assuming the correct connectivity, - see the specs) Or, you can buy a 4-disk device (such as 412+), and have all your four disks in one enclosure. And as far as I know in (at least some) Synology devices you can mix different HDD sizes. My apology if this is far beyond what you wanted to hear. Igor Mark C Fri, 24 Oct 2014 16:14:10 -0700 wrote: Igor - I should clarify: I was looking at a 2 drive station and thought I could put a 4 and a 3 TB drive in it instead of having the 2 drives in enclosures. So I was considering buying 2 4 TB drives and extracting the 3 TB drives from their enclosures to create this system. The advantages might be - using one socket on the power strip vs 2 and having flexibility in cloning the master library onto backups. Thanks again - Mark On 10/24/2014 6:59 PM, Igor PDML-StR wrote: Mark, That docking station solution is for the case when you are have just bare internal drives and have a bunch of them. There is no reason to take the drives for that out of their existing USB enclosures (assuming those are perfectly functional and have the optimum connectivity). Igor -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
