Ditching the desktop- what USB HDD is reliable?

[mekender]

note: i am referring to specific Porsche-designed cases from 2006-2007 that had no real ventilation on the casing. Current units? don't know, i usually buy an external case and a bare drive.

It does not surprise me, most manufacturers use standard hard drives and those do not like being in enclosed cases... That said, '06 - '07 was a time where certain brands of drives were notorious for failures anyways, most notably Segate and Hitachi... It seems like the new HGST brand (owned by WD now) and current Segates are better now but I still do not trust them, especially at the consumer level. I would rather just get WD drives and not have to worry about it.

[Cobar]

Anecdote, of course, but I've had a 2TB Seagate external that has taken quite a bit of abuse. The cats insist on killing it through blunt force trauma. It keeps ticking a couple years later.

I think the best thing to do is always keep multiple copies and never rely on a single drive. That way if you roll snake eyes with any particular drive you can replace it and copy the data over.

The chances of losing 2 or more drive simultaneously is much much smaller.

[Draven]

note: i am referring to specific Porsche-designed cases from 2006-2007 that had no real ventilation on the casing. Current units? don't know, i usually buy an external case and a bare drive.

It does not surprise me, most manufacturers use standard hard drives and those do not like being in enclosed cases... That said, '06 - '07 was a time where certain brands of drives were notorious for failures anyways, most notably Segate and Hitachi... It seems like the new HGST brand (owned by WD now) and current Segates are better now but I still do not trust them, especially at the consumer level. I would rather just get WD drives and not have to worry about it.

yes, and this gives me a sad, because for many years Seagate drives were *the* drives to get. I have a 9 GB and 18 GB Barracuda that still work great. SCSI drives, too .