Lacie vs Western Digital hard drives

parc

Looking for a 500 to 1TB hard drive.

I was going to go with Lacie or western digital but I see some dodgy reviews for western digital on some websites such as crashing after a few weeks. Looking for something really reliable.

Can anyone recommend a decent one for around 80 to 120 quid

Thanks

Voodu Child

Lacie don't make hard-drives, they only make the enclosure and for all you know there's a WD drive inside.

Just buy one with a good warranty and make sure your data is backed up. And don't move the drive around when it is in operation, that's probably the biggest cause of problems with external drives.

Also I recommed you avoid any Western Digital external drive that has anything 'smartware' on it.

Sean^DCT4

For what it's worth, I have a couple of Western Digital internal hard-drives and one external. I have stuck with WD for 15 years. Yet to have a hard-drive failure with one. They have been the best in my experience.

The WD Caviar Black edition is a good model.

Brands I avoid: Seagate
Brands I prefer: Western Digital, Samsung, Hitachi

marco_polo

Sean^DCT4 wrote: »

For what it's worth, I have a couple of Western Digital internal hard-drives and one external. I have stuck with WD for 15 years. Yet to have a hard-drive failure with one. They have been the best in my experience.

The WD Caviar Black edition is a good model.

Brands I avoid: Seagate
Brands I prefer: Western Digital, Samsung, Hitachi

I mix and match drives a fair bit and I think Seagate belong comfortably in the same bracket any of the others to be honest.

Irish_Elect_Eng

Most of the major manufacturers are about the same reliability wise. (I have had good XP with Seagate and WD, Bad XP with Samsung and Conner RIP)

Models of drives on the other hand are a completely different kettle of fish, each model family has it's own issues. But I would take online horror stories with a pinch of salt unless it is a reliable review source. Given the number of drives sold and how poorly people often treat them I am surprised that there is not more people posting complaints, remember nobody with a working drive posts to forums praising the drive, reliability is expected.

Avoid "cutting edge" and cheap drives, reliability suffers at the bleeding edge where it is sacrificed for performance and also from those drives in the bargain basement.

But rather than paying a fortune for a high reliability RAID array, you are much better off dealing with any reliability concerns by having a good back-up strategy. Make yourself immune to HD failures, with a good back-up plan and then you can shop for your hard drive(s) with peace of mind.

If you really want your data secure then I would recommend a WD NAS located away from your PC for physical security, some protection against physical threat, theft, water, fire. (Mine lives in an upstairs wardrobe, but you could also have it in a friends house and back-up via the net). Invest in good back-up software, there are many to chose from. Do selective back-up, only store the data that would upset you to lose it.

Skalragg

I've 4 WD,s, 1 samsung, 1 seagate hdd#s

WD have never failed or caused me any trouble, one of them external , runs great too

WD is a good brand and is worth getting