External HD

[realisticphish]

I'm looking for a good external hard drive. I'm thinking at least 300 GB, preferably 500. But i'd like the price to be under 200, and more around 150 if possible (I know, that's the bitch). Staples had a couple great deals on 500GB drives, but I was kind of scared off my some of the reviews.

Any recommendations I can check out?

I have an iMac with an Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GHz. 1 GB RAM

[SeattleVet]

1. I've always had good luck with Other World Computing's products.

I have their "Mercury Elite" 500Gb and it works flawlessly.

They're at macsales.com

Been buying from them for several years (drives, memory, CPU upgrade for my old system, etc.) and they always seem to have a decently priced, reliable product.

[realisticphish]

6. thanks, i'll check them out nt

[Lost-in-FL]

2. I have problems with my Western Digital (My Book) 1TB

because it has an auto shut off that activates when it is idle for long. I get error messages when I run Time Machine so I have to turn off/disconnect the HD from the computer which is a PITA. I was told to download a driver from the website but it did absolutely nothing. I was happier with my 250G LaCie. If my WD dies, I'll get a LaCie in a heartbeat.

[moggie]

3. Ugh, I have one of those WDs

1 TB. It's not in heavy use (other than during my nightly backup, using SuperDuper), so it's been *mostly* ok, but every now and then it will spontaneously unmount itself, requiring a power cycle to bring it back. Piece of crap, whose only saving grace is that it's quiet. Agreed about LaCie: I've used a number of their drives, and they've all been solid.

[struggle4progress]

5. I had an error with TM after about a week of use with a WD 750GB but googling suggested

the following explanation:

The TM backup dismounts and remounts the drive. Unfortunately, the drive can't be dismounted if it's in use -- and you get an error. "But nothing else is using it!" you say? That may be untrue: Spotlight (that little magnifying glass thingy that lets you search for files on your Mac) might be using it. Spotlight always wanders around building an index for your files, and sometimes it may be indexing your TM drive. But you can completely prevent Spotlight from indexing things: go to System Preferences > Spotlight > Privacy and drag your drive icon into the privacy zone. Then, no Spotlight indexing of the drive, so TM won't give that particular error at least

[realisticphish]

7. western digital is one of the ones I was scared away from

too many reported data loss issues

[MilesColtrane]

4. Happy with my 250 GB LaCie.

[realisticphish]

8. damn

just checked them out, some good leads there. Thanks! :)

[supernova]

9. Good to know LaCie still

has a good reputation. I work in IT and I used to work with LaCIe backups serveral years ago, but didn't know how they were now.

I'm looking for a backup, myself.

Ya'll have scared my off the Western Digital MyBooks.

[realisticphish]

10. check this out

http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=11014

so far, great reviews and only 100 bucks. I may buy this in the next few days.

[supernova]

11. That's awesome!

:thumbsup: Thanks, RF!

[Stinky The Clown]

12. I have a 500 GB Maxtor One Touch Plus that seems to be working just fine.

I use it as a place to dump stuff from anywhere on the network (Mac/Win mix). It is connected to a Windows machine, but accessible to all machines. It does just fine. No problems and damned near silent.

It was ... I dunno ..... $119? $149? at Office Depot. It was a total impulse buy, so I have NO idea how the reviews are.

[realisticphish]

13. i read some terrible review of maxtor one touches

i mean, there will always be bad reviews for anything, but they talked about drive failure and very slow copying speeds

but, again, those are individual machines. overall it had a good average, but i always check out the lowest and highest reviews first

[Pierre.Suave]

14. get one of these empty cases

and put a Seagate drive inside it.

Enclosure...

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/MEFW934FWU2K/

Seagate drive, 250gb...

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Seagate/ST3250620NS/

Seagate Drive 500gb...

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Seagate/ST3500320AS/

grand total about 130 to 150 bucks and Seagate drives are Uber reliable.

[realisticphish]

15. i'll think about that

i hadn't considered it, but that may be a way to cut costs. I like seagate but couldn't really afford a full package external

[Spritz57]

16. I purchased a G-Drive Q

So far so good. It won many awards in Mac Magazine and the consumers ratings were also high at various sites.