Are 2TB drives safe now?

D

Dispatch88

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I've been a long time Lacie fan. My first was a 500GB, which has worked like a charm for about 4 1/2 years. When that got full, I bought a 1TB. For about 2 years it worked flawlessly. Unfortunately it's starting to show signs of a critical failure (occasional error messages saying the drive is corrupt, then fixed after reboot). The drive is about 90% full so I think it's time to find a replacement before its too late.

The drive will occasionally travel with me, during holidays, so it needs be sturdy enough to handle light shuffling.

The 1tb drive was the first drive I had which had esata, I've since fallen in love with esata and can not go back. So esata is a must

I'd love to add another Lacie to the family, but alas, 2TB drives are just too pricey. Myy budget is $100-$200. There are 2 drives on newegg that have caught my attention:

Cavalry CAXB CAXB3702T3

Newegg.com - Cavalry CAXB 2TB USB 2.0 / eSATA Black External Hard Drive CAXB3702T3

Fantom Drives G-Force GF2000EU

Newegg.com - Fantom Drives G-Force 2TB USB 2.0 / eSATA External Hard Drive GF2000EU

Does anyone have experience with either of these brands? Or have a better suggestion?
 
I have three Fantom drives, although none are the 2TB ones. They all had Western Digital drives inside, so you can trust them as much as you can trust WD. The enclosures have all worked fine too. I see a few non-positive reviews for the drive you linked, so I guess it's something to think about (although some of the bad reviews are from people who are just hilariously bad with computers :D)
 
Yes, I've seen those bad reviews. I've been looking at hard drives long enough to know that such reviews should be taken with a grain of salt.

It seems about 60% of the reviews were positive though, so thats promising
 
Why not just pick up the best rated 2TB internal drive and put it in an external enclosure? At least this way, you know what drive and expected reliability you are getting.
 
ooh, that's a good idea. Never done that before. Any suggestions on a good enclosure? Simple, nothing flashy, with usb and esata ports.

Edit: I just read a review on that enclosure that looks like a Mac Pro, he said a 2A power supply wasn't adequate for his 1.5TB. I can't seem to find any enclosure with a 3A power supply
 
What I did was install Antec Easy SATA Hard Drive Dock into one of my cases Drive bays.

It is installed between my DVD drives and blends in beautifully with them as all drives are flush with the case.

Now I have speeds way faster than USB and also another eSata slot.

I can add or remove a drive as fast as I need to.

http://www.antec.com/pdf/flyers/easySATA_flyer_EN.pdf
 
Wow thats pretty cool, it'd go great with my antec 300. Unfortunately I couldn't take that with me between home and school. Good find though.
 
Ah, very nice. I like the PPA 2605. Simple, and more importantly cheaper.

As for the hard drive, I've decided to go a more sensible and safer route. My computer has a 1TB Seagate for backup, and I'd much rather have ample back up space than general storage space. So, I'm going to get another 1TB Seagate to double my backup space, which was dwindling, and then get 1TB WD Green drive for the enclosure.

All added up, it costs just as much, a bit cheaper in fact, as getting a 2TB.

I know this doesn't exactly answer the question, "are 2TB drives safe now?". I guess it's a bit too early for a clear answer.
 
Some of those bad reviews make me laugh. You will find that a majority of them are from people who don't know what they are doing.

As for space, why not get a drobo or something? The internal hooked up to an external is a good idea. I kinda like the drobo type thing though because it is raid protected ...
 
I would LOVE to have a drobos, it's one of my goals in life lol. They're just too darn expensive for what I need at the moment. I'm sure at some point I'll be making enough income and I'll buy one in a heartbeat.
 
I've been running a 2TB WD drive for about 12 months now and I've had no trouble with it. Most of the issues people had was from a run of bad firmware on Seagate drives.

I've been doing a lot of research lately on the most reliable 2TB drives around as I'm planning on building a NAS sometime soon. From what I've found out the Samesung Spinpoint F3 drives rate very high in this regard. Granted they are 5400 RPM drives, but for storage this is acceptable in my opinion.

Newegg.com - SAMSUNG EcoGreen F3 HD203WI 2TB 5400 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

As far as drive enclosures go I've been using this:

Newegg.com - Rosewill RX81-MP-SC- BLK 3.5" SATA to USB & 1394 a/b & eSATA External Enclosure (Black)

Absolutely fantastic enclosure, very well made and has all the connections options you will need. USB 2.0, Firewire 400 & 800, eSATA.
 
I am confused, this topic is about issues with external drives?

Don't the 2TB internal ones have issues too, are those issues gone now? Can I buy one from any company without major issues....what about that 3TB external that was just released...
 
Internal and external HDD are exactly the same. The only thing that makes an external drive an external drive is the enclosure that the drive is inside.
 
Internal and external HDD are exactly the same. The only thing that makes an external drive an external drive is the enclosure that the drive is inside.


Not to split hairs, but there is an exception to this. Newer WD 2.5" portable drives are specially built and do not have a SATA board. Instead the drive has the USB logic board built directly into it.
 
Not to split hairs, but there is an exception to this. Newer WD 2.5" portable drives are specially built and do not have a SATA board. Instead the drive has the USB logic board built directly into it.

Ah, interesting. Well let me rephrase then, for the most part Internal and external HDD are exactly the same... blah blah. :)
 
I knew they were the same, have taken many external's apart, yet I always look at them as if they are different lol
 

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