please recommend a good hard disk

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stevieboy

stevieboy

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hi guys,

am planning to rip my music onto an external 500gb hard disk. this would then be streamed through laptop to squeezebox when i get it or temporary connected wired through laptop out.

would appreciate your experiences/recommendations with the hard drives you use. any benefit of a 2.5" versus a 3.5" drive and one with a higher rpm drive compared to a lower rpm drive. was looking at seagate freeagent 500gb rpm drive of 7200. it has a software that automatically backs up data on the laptop. i presume all hard disks would have such a software?

thanks! :)
 
A seagate Barracuda series 7200.12 stores the entire 500GB on a single platter and is one of the fastest mainstream desktop HDD around today. Just ask to inspect the hdd and read off the label. The shopkeepers wont know what 7200.12 is.

Current price is 2.5K or whereabouts. Make sure you don't pay the price for a 32mb cache disk for the 16MB cache one. I got tricked because I was unawares :)

Edit: didnt read your req for external one. A 2.5" hdd would be optimized for laptops and run at 4800 to 5400 rpm typically. May be quieter as well. Google for seagate replica.

Cheers
 
Last edited:
Looking for an external hard disk .......suggest the highest capacity hard disk available which should be USB powered only (no AC Adapter required).
 
Steven,

since your requirement is mainly storage for home use, you can go for a 'desktop' external hard drive. These are slightly bigger and need to be plugged into a power source but they would have a 3.5in HDD with faster access. These are more reliable than the smaller ones and relatively less expensive too.

Go for at least 1TB. Popular brands are WD and Seagate. WD Home 1TB is also available with network option, might cost you 6K upwards. Seagate's 1TB external HDD is available for around 4K.

Buy something with warranty support.

Desirable features would be network capability and firewire. access speed should be 7200 rpm.
 
Steven, would you require the HDD to be mobile?

If yes, then go for a 2.5 inch external HDD. These are shock resistant to some extent. Max you can get is 500GB in the 2.5 external. 320GB costs around 3k and is more VFM if you go by cost per GB. Ideal for laptops.

If it is likely to be placed in your AV Rack, you can go in for a 3.5 inch external hard disk. These come with an external power supply. So you need to have it connected to an UPS. These are available in various sizes upto a maximum of 2TB. Going by the current prices 1 TB and 1.5 TB is more VFM. Seagate and WD are good brands. Seagate offers 5 years warranty and costs around Rs.4600 while WD offers 3 years and costs around Rs.4800. The WD has a better formfactor, so I opted for that inspite of the 3 years:). Ideal for a PC or in a Home Theater/Music asetup.

If you have a SATA capable computer, you can go in for an internal 3.5 inch HDD. These are the best VFM if you will not move your hard disk around. 1.5TB is available for around 6k. 2TB is almost 10k and makes no sense. Ideal if you have a SATA capable PC and need to store lots of data economically. Not suitable for you as you will have to keep the PC on while listening to music. Average PC consumes more than 60W, so get a NAS in the long term if you go ahead with this HDD.

If you are on ebay, buy it on some deal and you will get it for much lesser. Don't worry about warranty on HDDs, it is all online and there is no dependancy on the seller you buy from.
 
Stevieboy - it all depends on your needs. Would you be keeping the external hard disk at one place? Then a 3.5" HDD would be fine. But if you are always going to keep it hooked with your laptop then a 2.5" HDD may be the way to go.

Please do look for models which are USB powered as opposed to using an external power supply - although most laptop hard disks do use USB power.

500 GB of laptop hard disk would work out slightly expensive than a 1 TB full size external hard drive. I think around Rs. 5000.
 
Hi folks,

This post not to hijack, but to clarify after seeing the above posts.

Which is better:
Western Digital My Book Essential Edition 1TB USB HDD WD 3.5" 3YR
Western Digital 500GB Portable Hard disk WD 3.5" 3YR

not in terms of price (there is only around 500rs difference max)

But for a requirement:
1. Will hookup to WD TV to watch movies and then to laptop/desktop for backup too.
2. No AVR
3. Powered Speakers
4. LCD TV


I suppose the WD HDD (Either 1TB or 500GB), can be connected to WD TV directly which inturn is connected to the TV. The WD HDD will be charged from WD TV? How will be the performance?

Do confirm.
Thanks
 
There should be no performance difference if the data read speed is the same on both and the buffer value too is same. Check those two details out.

The rest depends on convenience (USB powered) and pure space needs.
 
sgmane said:
Hi folks,

Which is better:
Western Digital My Book Essential Edition 1TB USB HDD WD 3.5" 3YR
Western Digital 500GB Portable Hard disk WD 3.5" 3YR

not in terms of price (there is only around 500rs difference max)

But for a requirement:
1. Will hookup to WD TV to watch movies and then to laptop/desktop for backup too.
2. No AVR
3. Powered Speakers
4. LCD TV

Thanks
Click to expand...

The price is a big difference as you are comparing a 500GB one to a TB disk.
If you are not sure of usage pattern, choose the USB powered one as its more flexible. The USB powered ones are built for portability while the external HDD are bulkier and will require AC power and have a fan that can be noisy(although they arent so much nowadays).

From your functionality perspective, either will do. If however, your laptop/TV are in different locations, its more convenient to use the USB powered one. The large disk External HDD are great as a backup tool as they would then be at a fixed location connected to a dektop or laptop and are cheaper per GB of space.
 
I got a Seagate Free Agent Go 500 GB portable USB powered hard disk for 5000 bucks, but for some reason by Philips DVD player refuses to recognise it.... it says "no card" or something like that......otherwise it seems to work fine...anyone have any idea why?

the same DVD player plays my 320 GB WD My Passport drive without a hitch.
 
psychotropic said:
I got a Seagate Free Agent Go 500 GB portable USB powered hard disk for 5000 bucks, but for some reason by Philips DVD player refuses to recognise it.... it says "no card" or something like that......otherwise it seems to work fine...anyone have any idea why?

the same DVD player plays my 320 GB WD My Passport drive without a hitch.
Click to expand...

Well, your DVD player would only recognize FAT32 partitions. And your Hard disk would be NTFS formatted. That is the problem, I would guess.
 
Sorry to derail the thread, but i did suspect this might be the case (purely from reading this kind of stuff on hifivision), but can i do something about this? Can I change this the formatting of the drive to FAT32?

thevortex said:
Well, your DVD player would only recognize FAT32 partitions. And your Hard disk would be NTFS formatted. That is the problem, I would guess.
Click to expand...
 
psychotropic said:
Sorry to derail the thread, but i did suspect this might be the case (purely from reading this kind of stuff on hifivision), but can i do something about this? Can I change this the formatting of the drive to FAT32?
Click to expand...

No matter what partition software you use, there are chances that you may not get your DVD player to recognize the entire hard disk sector. Its a try it and see thing mostly. Different DVD players behave differently.
 
psychotropic said:
I got a Seagate Free Agent Go 500 GB portable USB powered hard disk for 5000 bucks, but for some reason by Philips DVD player refuses to recognise it.... it says "no card" or something like that......otherwise it seems to work fine...anyone have any idea why?

the same DVD player plays my 320 GB WD My Passport drive without a hitch.
Click to expand...

another reason could be that your DVDP reads only USB 1.1 interface and your HDD is 1.2...I have that problem with my LG DV388
 
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