[artshow_photo] Re: Online Storage?

> Has anyone had experience with the Western Digital MyBook II hard
> drives? I
> just installed 2 of the MyBook II 4GB external hard drives.
> Supposedly they
> have a 5 year warranty. I have had three Lacie external drives fail
> with in
> the last year! A coincidence possibly but I switched brands. I don't
> mind
> spending a little more if they are, indeed better....but how does
> one really
> know?
> Thanks to anyone who may have info on this issue.

I have several WD external drives. IMHO, they can be unreliable. I
have two that routinely refuse to mount when the computer reboots.
They also used to use the cheap WD hard drives, not the Caviar Black,
which is the only mechanism that WD makes with a five year warranty. I
have about four of them, in various configurations.

LaCie, on the other hand makes a decent mechanism. I have five of the
older ones, in 200, 250, 500 and 750Gb capacity. I've had several of
them fail, but it has ALWAYS been the power supply, not the drive.
They warranty the power supply in their short 1 yr period, and the pwr
supplies are cheap to replace after that. Once the power supply was
replaced, the failed drives were fine. I've brought this issue up with
them several times, and note that they've changed to a higher rated
supply on the newer, bigger drives. The build quality on these is much
superior to the WD drives, which I really hate because of their cheap
build quality and unreliability.

That said, I don't use either of these external manufacturers' drives
for critical backup anymore. OTOH, the Thermaltake trays are
inexpensive, and you can hotswap bare drives in an out. They come with
one or two slots, the drives sit exposed to the air, so cooling is
less of an issue. They are NOT really portable, and you need to keep
them dusted, and away from vibration. But for backups, they seem to be
very reliable.

One advantage to the WD and LaCie externals, is that you can get them
with a FireWire or eSATA interface. The Thermaltakes only come USB and
eSata.

Jim Parker
parkerparker :: design | photography
http://www.parkerparker.info
@dakkid / twitter

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