External Hard Disk - USB HDD - what Brands?
 

I am looking for an external hard disk drive to backup my PC (and maybe even transfer all my files over to a Mac).

I hear various concerns about quality for Seagate and sometimes others.

As usual, there's no reason to waste money buying more than I need, so I think 1 Tbyte and USB 3.0 should do the trick.

what brands or models should I get?
(WD, La Cie, Seagate, Toshiba are commonly seen in web searches)

TIA

I have a WD that I use like a thumb drive (I don't use the backup software that comes with it) but after about 1.5 years it appears that it has gotten a worn out segmet as there are a couple files that I cannot modify (erase) but everything else functions normally.

Just to give you one data point (or a datum if you prefer).

See there's the problem.

I have never had a Seagate fail and have had nothing but problems with WD.

Hitachi have been good to me.

I'd buy 2 and mirror or 3 500's and go raid 5.

I bought the WD because it was cheaper. I figured the chances that both it and the laptop's hard drive would fail at the same time were low enough to go cheap. By that I mean total failure.

WD Elements.

And use Ghost to make an image backup onto it.

Never had any problems with La Cie. I have about 6 of them.

Maybe a separate NAS drive that you can add to a wireless network?

Bad luck here with WD consumer level drives. No bad luck with Seagate so far.

that's WD -2
Seagate -1

Have used both brands.About equal quality IMHO. Now that they're cheap, I have a 1tb WD that | also back up to a 1tb Iomega. Might make sense to check out cloud services these days.

Stay away from Western.

I have a pile of dead drives - all brands.

Bottom line is if you use them often (the cheap consumer ones) - its just a matter of time before they die.

I play with huge files - audio and video. The drives then to write and access for a long time. Maybe that's why my drives only make it 3-4 years.

I buy from Newegg and stay away from the models (not brands) that people return the most. Read the reviews. If you notice a trend in lots of DOA and dead drives after a few months, then move on to the next one down the list.

+1 on reading the newegg reviews. all brands seem to have their good or bad models.

I just got a 2 Tb G Technology External drive. I'm very happy with it. The company discount is nice too.!