External Hard Drive

[Bob D]

thanks Bob. The 5 year warranty on Seagate is a interesting draw to their product too. I'm going to tread slowly, but definitely purchase something by this weekend.

Bob D

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

From previous posts you will know that my internal drives are all WD. BUT I do also have an external 100Gb Seagate (USB powered; almost shirt pocket sized) drive. I have never used it for video capture etc. but it is hugely useful for swapping files from one system to another. Never had any problems with it.

Otherwise can't really contribute more than has been said.

[Barb O]

Bob D,

If you have a Costco membership, check there. Last week my local store had 500 GB and 1 TB in stock. The 500GB was a higher model than the Essential but it was $109 (before tax) after a $20 off Costco coupon good till March 9: I don't know the 1 TB cost.

An unrelated comment on the Essential drives. Earlier I had purchased an Essential 320 drive elsewhere and then I discovered that some Essential drives (including mine) are 5400 RPM. So this is where I think the WD site can be helpful for the details it has on each drive model.

Barb

[Bob D]

Thanks Barb. Not a Costco member, but I might be able to find someone I know that is. I'll look into it. Otherwise I think Circuit City has the lowest 750GB and Staples the lowest 500GB. I'm glad to hear the WD's are not fan cooled as I find that makes the noise level too much. I have 2 computers in the family room/basement already, but I'm trying to not add to the noise level.

Bob D

[Chuck Engels]

BUT I do also have an external 100Gb Seagate (USB powered; almost shirt pocket sized) drive.

John, I have 3 of those drives and love them. They are only 5400rpm so I don't think video capture would work but they are great for everything else.
No power cord, only the USB connection, I take at least one with me where ever I go. I can't even count how many times they came in very handy.
They make a variety of sizes
http://astore.amazon.com/chuckengelsco- ... 64-0063219

[Clayton]

I have 2 (250) and 2 (200) Maxtor one-touch and all have been good except the switch is in the back. All are both firewire/USB. Also have a 500 Lacie (my favorite). Switch is in the front. I use this one for video only. No problems with any of them. The maxtors are 3-4 years old and the Lacie about 2 years.

[Jayell]

I have 2 Seagate externals .. 1 200 MB, 1 300 MB that are also both USB/Firewire. Is either one better than the other? I have them both plugged into individual Firewire ports, rather than chaining them. Does that make any difference?

[Chuck Engels]

Is either one better than the other?

Are you saying that one is 200 mbps and the other is 300 mbps? That would be the speed of data to/from the drive, not the size of the drive. In that case the 300 mbps drive is a little faster, that's all.

I don't like to chain drives or any other USB or Firewire devices for that matter, separate ports is best IMO.
I wouldn't try capturing to one of those drives with a camcorder plugged into the same firewire card though.

[Jayell]

Are you saying that one is 200 mbps and the other is 300 mbps? That would be the speed of data to/from the drive, not the size of the drive. In that case the 300 mbps drive is a little faster, that's all.

Sorry Chuck, I was sleeping through my response. They're 200 GB and 300 GB drives (which is completely irrelevant anyway). What I was wondering is having the choice of USB or Firewire .. is either one of those two a better option to use?

I don't like to chain drives or any other USB or Firewire devices for that matter, separate ports is best IMO.
I wouldn't try capturing to one of those drives with a camcorder plugged into the same firewire card though.

The two firewired drives plug into the back of the machine. The capturing is done through a port in the front. I will assume that's two different cards.

Thanks for the quick response.

[Chuck Engels]

Ahhh, sleeping, what is that like exactly?

All of my external drives are connected USB, firewire is not any faster or better except for capturing video where it is more important to have a constant flow of data. USB will provide a random rate depending on what else is going on, Firewire provides a constant rate and that rate will slow down if you have more than one device connected and running. That is the best way I can explain it, hope that helps.

[Bob D]

Well, just to update everyone. I picked my WD My Book Essential 750Gb drive today from Circuit City for $180 (couldn't wait!). I haven't taken it out of the box yet. Going to have dinner and then start into it . Thanks everyone for the advice.

Bob D

[Chuck Engels]

Bob, That's only .24 cents a GB, what a deal !!

[Dave McElderry]

I've been thinking about getting one of these large capacity WD drives Bob. Please keep us informed.

[Bob D]

Ok... need some help. Got it plugged in and no problems getting it recognized by the computer. I didn't install any of the stuff it wanted to install (google junk). I just registered the product.

I don't recall how to reformat it to NTFS. Can someone share the instructions?

Also it is kind of weird that it shows only 698GB. When I look at what's on it it totals to less than 100MB. Where are all the rest of the gigs? I'm hoping that reformatting will help.

[Chuck Engels]

Bob, When reformatting you will get the option to choose the file system and you can choose NTFS there.
You may need to go to Disk Management first and change the drive letter, it probably wants to use a drive letter already in use.
You can also format the drive from there as well.

Control Panel/Administrative Tools/Computer Management/Disk Management

You will have options there to change the drive letter and check the file system. You can also see how much space is being used, what is left and what you have overall. Remember, the disk won't be displayed as exactly 750GB

Stole this from Yahoo Answers

The 750GB refers to 750,000,000,000 bytes roughly, i.e. 1GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes. (The actually storage usually is slightly larger).
However, when the computer calculate the storage size, it uses 1GB = 1024*1024*1024 = 1,073,741,824 bytes.
So for 750,000,000,000 bytes drive, reported number is, 750,000,000,000 / 1073741824 = 698.49 GB.
The actual size of your drive is approximately 698.63 * 1073741824 = 750,148,250,501 bytes.