Need a new External Drive

Hello,
My old External Drive just broke and I need a replacement. I did some research on Internet and was thinking to buy the Western Digital My Book Elite 1TO

What do you think about this Model? or does anyone have a better choice to suggest?

Thanks

 

i wuldnt get any of the MyBook's ther bulky and overall i just didnt have a good experience with mine, i suggest going out, buying a standard desktop HD and a hard drive enclosure and just assemble it, very easy, better performance and u get more for ur money.

 

I have many WD drives including 2 My Books and they are fine. BTW some WD drives have a 5 year warranty, others 1 or 3. Go for the ones offering the 5, they are more expensive but........

Doing it yourself is a good idea too (as noted in the previous post).

This topic has had a lot of attention, search this forum for much more info on drives.

 

Thanks guys, I will do some more research on the Forum before making my decision.

 

i got this hard drive: http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4034139&CatId=2459

and put it into this enclosure: http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3804512&CatId=2780

and it is working great, also MUCH slimmer than buying a WD MyBook, for similar price, overall much better performance.

 

Sweet.

 

Thank you firzen771. I will look at that when I have some time...

 

hope it helps, and surprisingly as slim and minimal as the enclosure is, the aluminum stays cold to the touch so ur drive does stay cool. and just as reference, the mybook is about double the size of my custom made external harddrive and the mybook is much slower, so really u cant loose

 

Thanks again firzen771 this was of great help. After doing some research, I did order the Western Digital Harddrive and the Aluminum Enclosure. Looking forward to set it up.

 

Good work. WD external HD is too bulky IMO.

 

How do you connect this drive ? Sata,USB,Firewire ?

 

This is the description of the drive on Tiger direct

Western Digital WD1001FALS Caviar Black Hard Drive - 1TB, 7200 RPM, 32MB, SATA-300

 

its a SATA drive, but the enclosure gives u both USB and Sata

 

You made a good choice by buying the drive and enclosure separately. Here are some problems with buying WD External My Book drives.

1) Last time I checked their external enclosures were made of plastic! Plastic is a bad conductor of heat and will cook your drive. It is very important to get a good aluminum enclosure for an external hard drive.

2) Since the enclosure is made of plastic so the max operating temperature for My Book series is 35 C. If your drive exceeds this temperature and then fail, your warranty is void. The temp is recorded by a sensor in the drive. On the other hand the max operating temperature for WD internal drives is 60 C. For comparison, during summer months and extensive use my drives usually hover between 40-45 C.

3) Max warranty for My Book Elite is 3 years. The warranty is void if you open the enclosure. On the other hand WD internal drives have 5 years warranty and after putting them into an 3rd party enclosure you can then open, remove and replace/switch the drive at will.

4) Some My Book external drives do not have a power switch, so you need to manually disconnect the usb cable from your computer for them to power down. The problem is compounded if you use them with an externally powered usb hub for as long as the hub remains powered, they remain powered. You can turn them off by manually unplugging them from the power outlet but it is extremely inconvenient to do this. A power switch on the drive saves a lot of problems.

 

Good points. By the way, i have an external, it's 250 GB SeaGate FreeAgentGo. It's really slim and smart with a very nice metallic case and i do like it, but of course it's much smaller.

 

ye those are 2.5" notebook drives right? not the 3.5" desktop ones.

 

yes, 2.5.

 

I've just bought this Nexstar enclosure and am very happy with it. It houses an older Seagate SATA 120GB hdd.

http://www.vantecusa.com/front/product/view_detail/274

 

I thought we were talking about portable drives. The enclosure setup above sure looked like a portable setup.

In addition I have been using WD drives for years, both external and portable and I have not had one fail me yet. I have been using 2 external Terabyte drives for (I guess 3 or 4 years)(both have power switches) and have had many portables which I keep upgrading as the drives get larger capacity and my strage needs grow, and I pass the old ones on to friends (so they are all still in use as far as I know) and no complaints (and I would hear about it I assure you). And we are talking about drives that have been in service for up to 8 or 9 years in some cases.

I mention this because you seem to be saying WD drives are junk,,,,,,its just not true.

Would an internal with an aluminium enclosure be better? Perhaps, but that does not relegate the WD external line to the junk pile.

OH, by the way, I am not trying to start a fight here, just sharing my experience.

 

Been using WD my book 320GB for 14 months - perfect.
Now using WD My passport 320GB as it fits better laptop usage and such - no complaints. except I prefer the new one over theold one [size, no AC adapter needed]

 

This is not what I said at all. You misunderstood. I was saying that instead of buying an external pre-packaged hard drive from WD, it is better to buy an internal WD drive and put it in a good aluminum enclosure by yourself. There are performance issues, operating temperature issues, etc that I mentioned in my previous post.

Actually, I am sure we are discussing the external 3.5 drives. Portable drives are the small 2.5 laptop drives inside an external enclosure. And even in the portable drives category I would recommend you buy an internal 2.5 drive separately and an external enclosure separately and put them together yourself. By this approach you get a drive with 5 year warranty, you get a drive that has a max operating temperature of 65 C, you have the convenience that you can open the enclosure and replace/switch the drive if need arises and the most important one especially related to the portable drives is that you get around 27 MB/s transfer rate (with USB 2.0) with your custom built option. The pre-packaged WD portables for some reason can not give you more than 18 MB/s.

Other than that I have nothing against WD. In fact just last month I bought a WD drive the WD5000BEVT (2.5" 5400 rpm 500 GB SATA-II) and put it inside an 2.5" external enclosure. I also have a 3.5" 250 GB WD drive inside a NexStar 3 enclosure for the last 5 years and I am very pleased with its performance.

 

well in my own experience with the mybook, its flimsy, fragile and bloated enclosure made of plastic is enuff to make it a skip.

 

Yeah, agree with you firzen771. I just receive my new Aluminum Enclosure this morning and what a difference with the plastic one I had before. It's been on for 3-4 hours now and no overheating like before! This is probably what kills my old one anyway.

 

glad ur as impressed as i was, simplicity is the way to go with enclosures, thers really nothin flashy about it but it works perfect and looks professional.

 

Actually, the Aluminum enclosure will heat up more than the plastic one and it will heat up quicker than the plastic one too. It is because Aluminum is a good conductor of heat, which is what you want in your external enclosure, that it should efficiently dissipates the heat from the hard disk to the environment and keep the hard disk cooler. Plastic is a bad conductor of heat, so by the time the plastic enclosure gets warm, your drive is practically cooking inside. This is the reason why all aluminum pots and pans have plastic handles, to prevent the conduction of heat to your hands. You want the opposite for an external hard disk enclosure. So, Always get an aluminum enclosure for your hard disk.