Most reliable portable hard drive?

I purchased a Western Digital portable drive a couple years ago and it recently crashed and died with apparently, no recovery available. Is there a portable hard drive that is the most reliable for not dying?

 

IMO you were either unlucky or you might inadvertently banged it while carrying it. I have many of them, and so far they are all working fine some are more than five years old. I don't think one can be 100% sure against sudden death except for the solid state types.

 

Mechanical HDD isn't the best choice for portable applications. I'd recommend something flash based, backed up by mechanical HDD at home.

Having said that, I have a couple of WD 2.5" disks I've thrown around and are still working today.

 

Mine was simply plugged into my computer and never moved from its location. One day it just died and I've not been able to get it working again or recover the contents, even trying it on other computers.

 

To recover data (I don't know if you want to or not anymore) you need to determine the exact cause of HDD failure and then apply the proper tool(s).

 

Hello,

I have had good results with Hitachi LaCie, Seagate and Western Digital external USB drives, as well as just getting an external USB enclosure and putting a hard disk drive in that (such as Fujitsu, Hitachi, Maxtor, Samsung, Seagate, Toshiba, etc.).

When selecting an external enclosure, here are some of the things I look for:

● metal (or mostly metal) enclosure (rubber bumpers a plus)
● metal pillars for screws (copper or brass, most often)
● metal internal frame
● rubber shock mounting
● a barrel power connector
● as many different interface options as possible (eSATA, USB, FireWire, etc.)

Unfortunately, these days, many external USB enclosures are defaulting to a single USB 3.0 connector.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

 

I've had a Western Digital Elements external HD for like 5 years now... lots of use, and just keeps on ticking. I've had good luck with WD drives, both internal & external, and they're all I'll use anymore. I agree with the person below you that said you were unlucky and shouldn't use that small sample size to judge them all by. As for USB/key drives I recommend Kingston DataTraveler 4000 encrypted drives. Periodically you can find some vendor on Amazon offering them for a good price. Like I was able to find a 32 GB one for $39.99 once (new) and jumped on it. Normally they are much more. Though I'd never pay retail for one.

 

I just wanted to add that to avoid situations such as the inability to recover data (it is actually possible, but could cost enormously) it is advisable to have at least 2-3 USB hard drives with the same data copied into them, I think it's called redundancy, if one fails you only lose the hardware.

 

How were you using the drive? Was it 'always ON' or just when you wanted to access some of the data or use it for backups?
Did you ever touch it to see if it was 'hot'?

Years ago I put two Seagate drives into external housings connected to e-Sata ports and left them ON all the time. The housings got quite hot and the drives quit working. I tried the suggested recovery procedures, which didn't work, so I bought new drives but didn't use the same external housings, I switched to using a dual docking station and the drives were much cooler. Then, about 2 years later, just for fun (?) I popped the drives into the docking station and they worked, and are still working.
Why? No idea other than there's a heat switch in the Seagate drives that shut them down and it took awhile for the switch to reset to allow the drives to work again.

J

 

If I can remember correctly WD uses a proprietary interface on their Passport Drives. The micro USB connector is soldered onto the bridge card so if that broke you were basically screwed. I would personally buy a 2.5 SATA drive and an enclosure.

http://community.wd.com/t5/WD-Porta...dard-USB-interface-on-My-Passport/td-p/429792

http://www.hddrecovery.ca/blog/wd-passport-not-recognized/