Terabyte Drives

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Is a getting a terabyte drive a good idea?

NO! - mostly because they are crap and break
1
13%
NO! - mostly because there are better alternatives
2
25%
YES! - The terabyte is the best, nothing like a trillion
2
25%
Don't know, just show me the results...
3
38%
 
Total votes: 8

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Homestar
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Terabyte Drives

Post by Homestar »

Recently (since I'm going to film school) I've had a strong desire to get a about a Terabyte of memory to store my video files, artwork, and everything else under the sun. I've been looking for a long time for these external (and internal as I can mod it to be an external) and have noticed the terabyte drives come down to $250.00 at times.

This being said I have heard several horror stories of these larger size memory drives failing to record memory, losing memory, running very slow, and dying a hard-disk destructive death after about a year (also resulting in loss of memory). However, I have considered getting several smaller drives, which becomes a little of a hassle, as I can't just carry my entire archive around at once, and I then have to label, and know which drive holds what. That being said as few drives as possible is the desirable, while maintaining a long lasting reliability and getting the most for my money. Are there any brands you guys personally recommend spending the extra buck for (whether 1TB, 200 GB or anything in between).

Also is there any technology on the horizon I should be looking toward or wait for rather than rushing to a decision? Yes, I've tried the DVD archiving system, but they get lost, scratched, are a hassle to organize, and only last 5 years before becoming unreadable.

:mrgreen: Besides, having a terabyte drive separates the men from the boys (aren't I gonna get it for saying this)



BTW: This is a cool picture: The sizes of Video... and real size
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Re: Terabyte Drives

Post by CoBB »

Homestar wrote::mrgreen: Besides, having a terabyte drive separates the men from the boys (aren't I gonna get it for saying this)
Indeed, real men need no more than a few kilobytes. :mrgreen:
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Post by King Harold »

If you're looking for reliability, any hard disk will suck (or so people tell me).
Although, I did hear a thing or two about certain RAID systems that are pretty smart with failing hard disks, and supposedly better than a single hard disk of the combined size.
But no hard disk of mine has ever failed.. and I just use the cheapest I can find
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Post by JoostinOnline »

I discourage buying an external hard drive. What I did was buy a 60GB HD for $90 (It was 2 years ago and it was a laptop drive) and then buying a hard drive enclosure for $10, so I ended up saving a bunch of money. The only two problems are that you need to have a highpower USB port and you have to be carful with the drive. As for brands, I am afraid that I can't help you there
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Post by Delnar_Ersike »

King Harold wrote:If you're looking for reliability, any hard disk will suck (or so people tell me).
Although, I did hear a thing or two about certain RAID systems that are pretty smart with failing hard disks, and supposedly better than a single hard disk of the combined size.
Show me a 200GB Flash Drive and I'll show you a prize.

Well, I don't think getting 1 TB of space is worth it, since many things can go wrong during the transferring of the data and having 1 TB of space will encourage you to keep useless files instead of throwing them away. IMO, 500 GB should already be enough, and you can get 500 GB external hard drives for 150-200 USD.
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Post by kalan_vod »

JoostinOnline wrote:I discourage buying an external hard drive. What I did was buy a 60GB HD for $90 (It was 2 years ago and it was a laptop drive) and then buying a hard drive enclosure for $10, so I ended up saving a bunch of money. The only two problems are that you need to have a highpower USB port and you have to be carful with the drive. As for brands, I am afraid that I can't help you there
He said he would be doing this ;).

I think the price you said you have found is great, but I would not be comfortable with such a large drive holding all of my stuff..But you will use it as an external HDD, so it would be on even less which would increase the life of the drive. Also I would suggest a seagate, this is personal opinion, as I have yet to have one fail on me (hitachi and Western Digital have failed on me...but that is what happened with me, hitachi within one year and WD after 6 months)..Now I go with seagate since they have a 5 year warranty, and WD went from 5 to 3 not to long ago...hint hint ;)
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Post by Homestar »

Delnar_Ersike wrote:Show me a 200GB Flash Drive and I'll show you a prize.
Image
You're looking at a 64 Gigabyte flash drive, that's the biggest I've seen, and for $4,799 too. :no:

How would I go about turning an internal drive external?
It's hard to resist sometimes when I see 400GB going for about $92. :yes: (free shipping) Image
(this particular model drops to $85.99 with the coupon code "drop7off")
_:yes: :yes:


@kalan_vod: I do like the 5 year warranty and would pay more for it. From the other reviews I looked at online,
seagate seemed to keep a constant 4.5 - 5 out of 5 stars.
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Post by kalan_vod »

You find a External Encloser and a HDD that is the same (ATA old or SATA new), either way work. I would suggest this EE and it has a limit of 750GB (3.5in drive), that would work with SATA and would be a fair deal...I would say shop around, I bought this brand and love it ;).

Edit:You could RAID a few drives in a double EE, that would be good ;).
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Post by Halifax »

I would go with 2 500GB's in RAID 1, and another 2 500GB's in RAID 1.

Now unless both drives die in one of the arrays, then your screwed, and have lost your data, but if only one fails then you are fine.

If you don't want to keep a copy, then I would just get 2 500 GB's to make 1TB and put them in RAID 0 instead of getting a 1TB drive.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822136143

or 4 of these

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822136153
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Post by JoostinOnline »

kalan_vod wrote:
JoostinOnline wrote:I discourage buying an external hard drive. What I did was buy a 60GB HD for $90 (It was 2 years ago and it was a laptop drive) and then buying a hard drive enclosure for $10, so I ended up saving a bunch of money. The only two problems are that you need to have a highpower USB port and you have to be carful with the drive. As for brands, I am afraid that I can't help you there
He said he would be doing this ;).
He said that he was considering both.
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Post by King Harold »

Delnar_Ersike wrote:Show me a 200GB Flash Drive and I'll show you a prize.
What do flash drives have to do with anything?
Aren't they less reliable than HDD's anyway, seeing as writing to them and erasing them actually harms them?
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Post by Delnar_Ersike »

King Harold wrote:
Delnar_Ersike wrote:Show me a 200GB Flash Drive and I'll show you a prize.
What do flash drives have to do with anything?
Aren't they less reliable than HDD's anyway, seeing as writing to them and erasing them actually harms them?
If you want a way to store data without using a Hard Disk Drive, you have to use a Flash Drive (or a ton of CD's/DVD's). Simple enough, unless you can show me another way to store data without using a HDD.
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Post by King Harold »

Diskette, tape, those cards with little holes, holo-disks, those are all different ways..
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Post by Homestar »

King Harold wrote: those cards with little holes.
:lol: Punch-cards? If you can even find a USB punch card printer and reader... I wonder how many millions of cards it would take? lose one and you'll have some time filling in the blank.
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Post by hop »

You could just use a terrabyte drive, 99% chance it won't explode/break down/whatever.
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