Hitachi 500Gb Vs Acer 1Tb

[jaideeguy]

Please help me make a decision about purchasing another external hard drive.

the choices are......

Hitachi 500gb......sleek, compact, 5,400rpm, 5 yr warranty, and usb powered @ 2,490thb

VS

Acer 1tb........bigger, not so compact, 7,200rpm, 3 yr warranty, and powered by plug @ 2760thb

I've gone thru at least 10 seagates and have had a 50% failure rate and don't want to suffer that any more....so I now prefer quality to quantity

the obvious is that the acer is 2x the capacity, but is that all that I should consider?? Intended use will be for media storage mainly.

Hitichi has a better reputation?? does the 5 yr warranty confirm that??

which HD would you buy if your budget was around 2,500thb??

and while I have your attention........is it necessary to partition the HD??....advantages/disadvantages??

[damian7000]

laptop or desktop?

regardless,i'd get a 2.5" SATA usb case for about b150-400 and 2.5" western digital.

i would partition 50/50 or 33/33/33 . i'm not sure it offers many advantages (or disadvantages) unless you're running multiple operating systems or dual booting.... i still do it. for me it just neatens things up...documents and important files on one, movies and music on another...or some such. though of course it can be done with folders also. one advantage is you can format them separately if you want/need whereas if it wasn't partitioned you'd have to format the entire drive.

Edited September 22, 2010 by damian7000

[jaideeguy]

laptop or desktop?

regardless,i'd get a 2.5" SATA usb case for about b150-400 and 2.5" western digital.

i would partition 50/50 or 33/33/33 . i'm not sure it offers many advantages (or disadvantages) unless you're running multiple operating systems or dual booting.... i still do it. for me it just neatens things up...documents and important files on one, movies and music on another...or some such. though of course it can be done with folders also. one advantage is you can format them separately if you want/need whereas if it wasn't partitioned you'd have to format the entire drive.

It would be for both a laptop and a pc and that's why i am leaning towards the smaller USB powered for 'on the road' portability. Seemed like in the old days [2 yrs ago] the choices here were only WD and Seagate, but Now I'm seeing many other possible options....Toshiba, WD, and too many others.

the smaller more portable units mostly run at slower rpms......is that good or bad or mai pen rai??

[damian7000]

laptop or desktop?

regardless,i'd get a 2.5" SATA usb case for about b150-400 and 2.5" western digital.

i would partition 50/50 or 33/33/33 . i'm not sure it offers many advantages (or disadvantages) unless you're running multiple operating systems or dual booting.... i still do it. for me it just neatens things up...documents and important files on one, movies and music on another...or some such. though of course it can be done with folders also. one advantage is you can format them separately if you want/need whereas if it wasn't partitioned you'd have to format the entire drive.

It would be for both a laptop and a pc and that's why i am leaning towards the smaller USB powered for 'on the road' portability. Seemed like in the old days [2 yrs ago] the choices here were only WD and Seagate, but Now I'm seeing many other possible options....Toshiba, WD, and too many others.

the smaller more portable units mostly run at slower rpms......is that good or bad or mai pen rai??

...really recommend you just get a USB SATA case and 2.5" drive separate. especially if you'll be using it with your laptop too. the 2.5" cases are small, thin and light, you can choose your size,rpm and brand and if you ever wanted you could just pop that drive out of the case and into any laptop compatible with SATA. maybe even set a 20-50gb partition as the first one in case you want to install an operating system on it someday.

regarding 5400 vs 7200. not a big difference. especially over USB. if you think you might want to use it in a laptop someday, the 7200 could provide some benefit, but with everyday use most people won't be able to tell the difference...

touch of gray

as far as reliability, it's really a crapshoot and may depend on model moreso than brand.

[jaideeguy]

laptop or desktop?

regardless,i'd get a 2.5" SATA usb case for about b150-400 and 2.5" western digital.

i would partition 50/50 or 33/33/33 . i'm not sure it offers many advantages (or disadvantages) unless you're running multiple operating systems or dual booting.... i still do it. for me it just neatens things up...documents and important files on one, movies and music on another...or some such. though of course it can be done with folders also. one advantage is you can format them separately if you want/need whereas if it wasn't partitioned you'd have to format the entire drive.

It would be for both a laptop and a pc and that's why i am leaning towards the smaller USB powered for 'on the road' portability. Seemed like in the old days [2 yrs ago] the choices here were only WD and Seagate, but Now I'm seeing many other possible options....Toshiba, WD, and too many others.

the smaller more portable units mostly run at slower rpms......is that good or bad or mai pen rai??

...really recommend you just get a USB SATA case and 2.5" drive separate. especially if you'll be using it with your laptop too. the 2.5" cases are small, thin and light, you can choose your size,rpm and brand and if you ever wanted you could just pop that drive out of the case and into any laptop compatible with SATA. maybe even set a 20-50gb partition as the first one in case you want to install an operating system on it someday.

regarding 5400 vs 7200. not a big difference. especially over USB. if you think you might want to use it in a laptop someday, the 7200 could provide some benefit, but with everyday use most people won't be able to tell the difference...

touch of gray

as far as reliability, it's really a crapshoot and may depend on model moreso than brand.

Reliability is a crapshoot??

So, you're saying Damian that all hd's are created same same/crap?? The 'story' that I've heard is that locally made seagates and wds are cheap replacable [for 5 yrs] crap and that if you want a hd that lasts, then you have to go with the big name brands......samsung, hitachi and toshiba.

Your idea of a buying a 2.5 case and hd separately can save afew baht and I may go for that and go with a branded hd......anything but seagate!!

what's the best 500gb-1tb hd in ur opinion??

and do they run cool?? I think that my seagate failures have been due to overheating.

touch of grey......how do you know??

[siamect]

.... if you want a hd that lasts, then you have to go with the big name brands......samsung, hitachi and toshiba.

WD and Seagate are the biggest producers....

http://mastegar.blog...-hard-disk.html

Martin

Edited September 22, 2010 by siamect

[Crushdepth]

Hitachi are more reliable than Seagate in my experience, I use Hitachi by preference now although they are harder to get hold of.

Higher capacity drives are less reliable than low capacity drives, I'd go for the 500 myself, and not so keen on 2.5s even if they are more portable.

[nikster]

...really recommend you just get a USB SATA case and 2.5" drive separate.

...

as far as reliability, it's really a crapshoot and may depend on model moreso than brand.

No, and no.

I have about 5 2.5" and 3.5" "no-name" external boxes that died.

I also have 2 WD, 1 Buffalo, 1 Toshiba, and 1 Fujitsu branded external cases + HD which all work fine (well the Toshiba _would_ probably still work fine if my toddler hadn't thrown it around the room a few times).

What's a crapshoot is the reliability of no name brand external boxes - and those are all you're ever going to find. Those "Philips" brand external boxes are not made my Philips, BTW.

So I recommend buying HD + box from one manufacturer, and I have to say I like WD and Buffalo the best - just the fit and finish, size, and operation of these is flawless. WD has a great reputation for reliability too. It's also usually cheaper than buying it separate, and you can be sure it will work. The boxes by WD are sold under the WD brand in the west too, so you can be sure there's some serious QA behind them - they can ill afford product recalls or a bad rep if those cases fail. Like I said, none have failed me so far.

On the other hand, manufacturers of no-name boxes really don't care. They just produce under a different brand name next month. I have a graveyard of these at home, some of them took the HD with them when they died.

Agree about speed - speed of the HD doesn't matter as the USB bus is the limiting factor.

If you need more than 500MB, go with the 3.5" - WD Elements is cheap and works great. If 500MB is enough, the 2.5" HD has the advantage of being bus-powered - less fiddling with cables and when it's on the laptop power outages are no issue.

Edited September 22, 2010 by nikster

[jaideeguy]

OK, it looks like I'm leaning towards a 500gb 2.5" portable and lots on the market now.

2 questions remain......

1] Do the smaller [lower rpm] portables run cooler?? I am a believer that it is heat that kills hds.....2 hot seagates fried on me.

2] and I have one of those 7" screen portable tv/dvd/usb for the kids to watch movies while traveling and would the portable hd work in that?? be recognised like a flash drive?? better than bringing a lot of flash drives or dvds.

3] and I'm now seeing lots of 'buffalo' on the market now.....to me that's a new name.....but is it a 'no name'??

Edited September 23, 2010 by jaideeguy

[damian7000]

Reliability is a crapshoot??

So, you're saying Damian that all hd's are created same same/crap?? The 'story' that I've heard is that locally made seagates and wds are cheap replacable [for 5 yrs] crap and that if you want a hd that lasts, then you have to go with the big name brands......samsung, hitachi and toshiba.

Your idea of a buying a 2.5 case and hd separately can save afew baht and I may go for that and go with a branded hd......anything but seagate!!

what's the best 500gb-1tb hd in ur opinion??

and do they run cool?? I think that my seagate failures have been due to overheating.

touch of grey......how do you know??

... basically yes, all hd's are created same same in regards to choosing one that might or might not fail...assuming we're talking about one of the major brands.... sometimes you can determine reliability better through model than through brand...but even that is just guess work...so yes, all hd's are basically cheap/replaceable and usually no matter the brand don't expect it to last more than 3 years. which is a pretty long time considering it's got all those little moving parts in there and the relatively inexpensive price..i mean the amount of storage you get for the price is really quite remarkable imo. i remember when 20 MEGA(not giga)byte hard drives were $600.

if you really want something that lasts, look at SSD, but they are way too pricy at this point imo.

it's actually funny (well not funny, but...) you mentioned seagate as being crap because it's generally considered to be one of if not the most reliable hd manufacturer's. seagate and wd are considered to be at the top. that's all they really concentrate on is HD's. computer 'geeks' usually don't even consider toshiba, hitachi etc... not to say they're bad, but they're not considered to be up there with WD and Seagate... WD is known to have the best warranty program.

i would go with WD if not for their warranty alone.... they run relatively cool, though contrary to popular belief high HD temperatures do not usually correlate with drives going bad. also with utilization (how often the hard drive is actually being used) there is only weak correlation between the amount of time the drive is in use and it's failure rate... one thing to keep an eye on is SMART status. a drive is 39x more likely to fail within 60 days once SMART read errors start showing up. not to say they can't fail w/o smart errors showing up...but it's a good indicator.

re touch of grey, saw your avatar i'm gonna listen me some dead right now...

Edited September 23, 2010 by damian7000

[damian7000]

OK, it looks like I'm leaning towards a 500gb 2.5" portable and lots on the market now.

2 questions remain......

1] Do the smaller [lower rpm] portables run cooler?? I am a believer that it is heat that kills hds.....2 hot seagates fried on me.

2] and I have one of those 7" screen portable tv/dvd/usb for the kids to watch movies while traveling and would the portable hd work in that?? be recognised like a flash drive?? better than bringing a lot of flash drives or dvds.

3] and I'm now seeing lots of 'buffalo' on the market now.....to me that's a new name.....but is it a 'no name'??

1, yes lower RPM drives will GENERALLY run cooler..especially if transmitting lots of data at a time.

2, unlikely that plugging the usb portable into the portable DVD will work.

3, buffalo is fine.

[Peterbigeyes]

I would say WD whenever possible but if I had to pick between the 2 you listed, Hitachi.

[sillyman99]

3, buffalo is fine.

Both of My Buffalo 500gb USB powered external drives have a Seagate drive inside.

Edited September 23, 2010 by sillyman99

[damian7000]

3, buffalo is fine.

Both of My Buffalo 500gb USB powered external drives have a Seagate drive inside.

i still think it's fine... but maybe not for this guy since he is trying to stay away with seagate.. nothing wrong with that... i do think WD is the best choice regarding warranty and quality imo.... hitachi is fine too regarding quality but not sure about warranty policies.

[jaideeguy]

Interesting [and confusing] getting all these [conflicting] comments.

"Both of My Buffalo 500gb USB powered external drives have a Seagate drive inside."....makes me wonder who is making the HD for acer??

"2, unlikely that plugging the usb portable into the portable DVD will work.".......r u sure??.....it's not the same as a flash drive??

"you mentioned seagate as being crap because it's generally considered to be one of if not the most reliable hd manufacturer's. seagate and wd are considered to be at the top.".........actually the 50% failure rate is my own personal experience with seagate.....got a lot of lemons??

"re touch of grey, saw your avatar i'm gonna listen me some dead right now..." another "dead head" comes out of the closet!! 'we miss you Jerry!!'

Thanks for all the confusing input......my conclusion is that life and HDs are a crapshoot!!!

[siamect]

The problem is that as private user of disk drives we simply do not have enough statistical material to be able to make anything but wild guesses about what is reliable and what is not.

I guess some of the readers of this forum are in position where they handle larger amounts of disk drives (handling warranty claims from customers, or representing companies with larger populations of computers).

Maybe we should ask them to bring some sense to this... anyone?

Martin

[jaideeguy]

The problem is that as private user of disk drives we simply do not have enough statistical material to be able to make anything but wild guesses about what is reliable and what is not.

I guess some of the readers of this forum are in position where they handle larger amounts of disk drives (handling warranty claims from customers, or representing companies with larger populations of computers).

Maybe we should ask them to bring some sense to this... anyone?

Martin

Yes, I agree!! Let's hear from the PROS!!

So far, it seems like Chevy vs Kia vs Toyota etc....

It's wierd that even my best friend 'google' won't tell 'bottom line' when it comes to which is best.....or maybe I haven't looked in the right places.

Problem is there is just too many choices nowadays. I miss the good old days where there were fewer choices.

[nikster]

You asked for advice, and you got it.

I agree with Jaideeguy on most things. Except the all-in-one vs separate parts, I am firmly on the all in one camp, as explained above.

Buy a WD box - cost the same as the Buffalos and are available everywhere. Barring that, Buffalo is a good brand. Not a no-name, they have a good rep, I think it's a Japanese brand, actually. Made in China of course like everything else, but a Jap brand.

7200 RPM runs hotter, yes (I put a 7200 in my easy to overheat old Powerbook and it fried after a few weeks - the 5400s were fine in the same environment).

It's unlikely the portable box will work in the DVD USB port because of power requirements. Portable HD needs much more power than a Flash stick. The only way to know is to try it though. Didn't work in my Panasonic DVD player.

[bkk_mike]

As you're planning on taking it on the road with your laptop get the smaller drive.

The 2.5" drives are designed and built for laptop use, so they use less power (which is why they can run off the USB without a power supply), but more importantly they're built with the assumption that they'll be moved around a bit.

The 3.5" drives need that external power, so are more bulky when carrying around as you need the power supply too, and are made for desktop PCs, so tend to be less forgiving of heat issues, and aren't really designed for moving around.

I'd only get a 3.5" based external drive if it's never going to be moved, and then only if itsin a room where you'll always have the aircon on when it's in use, and also only if you've used up all the hard drive bays in your PC. I've had far more issues with external 3.5" drives than with external 2.5" ones, where I've never had a problem... (touch wood).

[bkk_mike]

As you're planning on taking it on the road with your laptop get the smaller drive.

The 2.5" drives are designed and built for laptop use, so they use less power (which is why they can run off the USB without a power supply), but more importantly they're built with the assumption that they'll be moved around a bit.

The 3.5" drives need that external power, so are more bulky when carrying around as you need the power supply too, and are made for desktop PCs, so tend to be less forgiving of heat issues, and aren't really designed for moving around.

I'd only get a 3.5" based external drive if it's never going to be moved, and then only if itsin a room where you'll always have the aircon on when it's in use, and also only if you've used up all the hard drive bays in your PC. I've had far more issues with external 3.5" drives than with external 2.5" ones, where I've never had a problem... (touch wood).

One more thing. If the main issue is that your laptop's hard drive is too small, it's a good opportunity to upgrade your laptop hard drive (assuming you still have the disks to re-install the OS, or have something like ghost which will let you clone the existing drive to the new one first.)

i.e. Get a new hard drive and an external case, but put the new hard drive into the laptop and use the external case for the old laptop drive.

[jaideeguy]

Thanks again all for confusing me more than I was......but the information overload was enlightening.

I finally bit the bullet and bought the acer PC [3.5"]HD 1tb and will wait until I've saved up enough to buy a smaller portable 2.5"....by that time, they will be cheaper, faster and more reliable.

My decision was based mostly on my pc guru.....a brilliant Thai guy that has always found the easiest cheapest fixes around. He said that more than likely the HD in the acer was toshiba or hitachi, which made me feel more secure. I think I agree with the last two posts re: smaller is cooler, more heavy duty and uses less power.

Anyway, thanks again until the next time.......

I'll report if the acer is a DUD!!