Replacing Portable Hard Drive.

[Beardog]

I am looking at getting a USB 3.0 capable of Usb 2.0 500 gig Portable Hard drive. Reading all the reviews is very confusing to say the least. Does anyone have a preference for the best & most reliable drive?

The most pitched in Pattaya are the WD Passport essential & the Seagate go flex. There is also an Acer 500 gig that everyoune carries(but it does not state that it is 2.0 compatible (just 3.0 on the enclosed package & nothing online to go by.

Thanks a lot for any ideas!

Barry

[CharlieH]

Personally I bought a Buffalo mini-station 500gb locally and never had any issues.

Many available and good service from :http://www.invadeit....ble-hard-drive/

Edited August 29, 2012 by CharlieH

[Gary A]

I doubt that there is much difference. I have two USB 3 portables, one is a Seagate and the other a Western Digital. I also have an Acer USB 2 and it works fine also. The Acer is a 320GB and the other two are 500GB.

[pattayadingo]

I have both the Acer and the Seagate ones along with an older Iomega drive.

Starting with the Iomega. I've had it about 2 1/2 years. So far there have been no problems at all and it is in almost constant use d/l u/l torrents as well as transferring data to the other two portable drives.

The Seagate has given me no problems in over a years use. It is mainly used to store torrents from the Iomega and also to transfer to my USB sticks. Sometimes used to watch programmes on the computer.

The Acer is the one to give me most problems. It is used also to store data from the Iomega drive and to transfer to USB or other drives. The Acer will quite often fail to transfer data over and then it has to reboot before it continues.

Of the 3 I do prefer the Iomega though it is a bit small yet reliable.

I'd go for a Seagate out of these 3 drives on availability and price if I was in need of a new one..

HTH

[WhizBang]

The most pitched in Pattaya are the WD Passport essential & the Seagate go flex.

I have both, but prefer the Seagate.

Both of mine are 1TB. The WD has some backup device builtin and EVERY time I plug it in, Windows asks if I want to install some software (I don't). The Seagate does not have this behaviour.

That said, the WD has small rubber pads that beep it from slip/sliding around. The Seagate does not.

So basically, ha sip/ha sip. Both are good and reliable.

[Gary A]

The most pitched in Pattaya are the WD Passport essential & the Seagate go flex.

I have both, but prefer the Seagate.

Both of mine are 1TB. The WD has some backup device builtin and EVERY time I plug it in, Windows asks if I want to install some software (I don't). The Seagate does not have this behaviour.

That said, the WD has small rubber pads that beep it from slip/sliding around. The Seagate does not.

So basically, ha sip/ha sip. Both are good and reliable.

Now that you mention it, I had that problem with the WD drive. I got rid of the problem by formatting the drive. No more pre-installed crap on it.

The Seagate has a backup program called Memeo instant backup. It works quite well. As with a lot of products the Seagate tries to sell you other programs when you first install the free Memeo backup program. The instant backup program is free.

Both the WD and Seagate are also backwards compatible with USB 2.

[ITGabs]

Personally I bought a Buffalo mini-station 500gb locally and never had any issues.

Many available and good service from :http://www.invadeit....ble-hard-drive/

I like the WD passport but...

I think the best is the the Buffalo mini station 3.0 I used to check the 3.0 port since green light indicates usb 2.0 and blue 3.0, usually the people forgot to install the usb 3.0 drivers so by default the 3.0 ports work like 2.0. Good price vs quality, Easy to find, Easy to open for a laptop HDD replacement

Not Acer or Toshiba not good price vs quality.

Not Seagate imposible to open for laptop HDD replacement

[harrry]

What you forgot to mention is that you had a warantee. This required service to be done by a manafactuer recognised service centre, You would have had the service free and maintained your warrantee if you had sent it there. You decided to pay for service at an unauthorised centre and got your repair done quickly and quite well but possibly lost future service. As af as Banana is concerned it seems they had tried to help more than they have to as it is your job to send it to a service centre,.

[aarn]

Going a little off-topic here, I have used a number of HDDs and most problems appear to be related to corrosion in the junction ports. Simply reversing the lead (if the HDD has the same-style port as usb) can fix the problem.

I left a Hitachi (?) 320Gb HDD idle for three months, on firing it up again, it was stoofed. Although I bought it in Trat, it had a 12 month warranty and an IT outlet in Uttaradit was happy to service it (actually, it was replaced with a new unit) for 100B.

[bino]

I have Western Digital Passport 1 TB / USB 3, and have no complaints.

but it does not state that it is 2.0 compatible (just 3.0 on the enclosed package & nothing online to go by.

I've never seen a USB 3 device that wasn't "backwards compatible" with USB 2, so I don't believe this is an issue.

[rixalex]

I've got a WD 500GB and feel very disappointed that one of the main selling points for me, auto-back-up, doesn't very well, and when auto back-up doesn't work very well, you can't trust it, can't use it.

When i started with it, it seemed ok, but after a few weeks, it just stopped updating certain files.

Anyway, i can obviously still use the drive, just save things manually. Wish i'd gone for a different brand, although don't know if the other brands are any better with regards their auto back-up software.

[transam]

Don't know what I've got, but it has a nice blue light on it. ..........................

[harrry]

What you forgot to mention is that you had a warantee. This required service to be done by a manafactuer recognised service centre, You would have had the service free and maintained your warrantee if you had sent it there. You decided to pay for service at an unauthorised centre and got your repair done quickly and quite well but possibly lost future service. As af as Banana is concerned it seems they had tried to help more than they have to as it is your job to send it to a service centre,.

sorry this ended up in the wrong thread

[Beardog]

Out of WD, line & Seagate I notice there are better units than others in all the reviews. I won't be using it as a data backup except manually....more for music & movies Utilities & games so Backup won't be a problem.

Anyone find the best models to use compared to others that are not as great? Thanks for the help. Its funny most of the drives are made here & the U.S. carries a way better selection. Has any one ever found the Iomega line of HD's. I read they have the top reviews compared to the other brands but have not seen anyone carry them.

[Chicog]

I stopped using Buffalo after two different devices went pear shaped on me. I don't think their QC standards are as good as Western Digital or Seagate.

[ITGabs]

I stopped using Buffalo after two different devices went pear shaped on me. I don't think their QC standards are as good as Western Digital or Seagate.

Out of WD, line & Seagate I notice there are better units than others in all the reviews. I won't be using it as a data backup except manually....more for music & movies Utilities & games so Backup won't be a problem.

Anyone find the best models to use compared to others that are not as great? Thanks for the help. Its funny most of the drives are made here & the U.S. carries a way better selection. Has any one ever found the Iomega line of HD's. I read they have the top reviews compared to the other brands but have not seen anyone carry them.

Go for WD or the buffalo mini station (use WD HDD too) and iomega they not produce HDD, only external units as buffalo, so maybe they use WD too.

if you want more details all the time can check in tomshardware.com or another techy review site

[Gary A]

I have to retract my statement about the Seagate free backup. It went all to hell the same as the WD backup. I gave up and formatted the Seagate the same as I had done with the WD. I now depend on the MS restore and use the portable hard drives to backup my entire library. At least all my personal files are safe.

Does anyone use a backup program that the computer will boot directly from the portable drive and restore the entire system? The OEM Windows backup stinks. In fact it no longer works at all. It takes a long time and then gives the message that it didn't complete successfully.

[Dork]

I have Western Digital Passport 1 TB / USB 3, and have no complaints.

but it does not state that it is 2.0 compatible (just 3.0 on the enclosed package & nothing online to go by.

I've never seen a USB 3 device that wasn't "backwards compatible" with USB 2, so I don't believe this is an issue.

This is correct. The USB3.0 specification calls for backwards compatibility to 2.0.

If you're copying large amounts of data you will definitely want USB3.0 because it is (theoretically) 10 times faster than 2.0. However in real life, with USB3.0 the bottleneck will be the HDD speed rather than the USB2.0 interface.

Roughly speaking that means that a typical "green" HDD with USB2.0 the maximum speed will be approx 25MB/s. Whereas with USB3.0 the same drive will get closer to 100MB/s and an SSD with USB3.0 might get 250MB/s.

[astral]

I bought Buffalo, and when I plugged it in, my computer told me the drive inside was WD.....................

My personal preference is for Seagate, having had some bad experiences with WD in the past.

[Beardog]

Starting to sound like 6 of 1 & a half dozen of the other. I was leaning towards a WD passport or Seagate . I buy around the 6th so I can get a new Ipod in the states & load it with the backup drive I get. I was happy with the 120 gig Ipod & the Smart brand HD but the kamoies relieved me of it so I got to get my music back up for my home trip to the U.S.

[JSixpack]

I have to retract my statement about the Seagate free backup. It went all to hell the same as the WD backup. I gave up and formatted the Seagate the same as I had done with the WD. I now depend on the MS restore and use the portable hard drives to backup my entire library. At least all my personal files are safe.

Does anyone use a backup program that the computer will boot directly from the portable drive and restore the entire system? The OEM Windows backup stinks. In fact it no longer works at all. It takes a long time and then gives the message that it didn't complete successfully.

No, that's done w/ an imaging program such as Acronis, ShadowProtect, Paragon, or Macrium Reflect. You use their boot disk to boot and then restore from the previously created image on the portable drive.

But maybe proprietary systems like the WD or Seagate can do it; I never used one of those as for a portable drive I just stick a drive into a generic enclosure. Your BIOS will have to be set to boot from USB if there's a bootable drive connected.

Edited September 2, 2012 by JSixpack