External Hard Drive for Vista Ultimate x64

agmiller · Jul 19, 2008

Hi

I would like some advice on which external hard drive to buy for Vista Ultimate x64. I am not a techy and have read some posts which have left me more than a bit confused!

The external hard drive needs to be easy to set up and use. I just want to be able to (very) easily back up my files on a daily basis and save photos, spreadsheets to the external hard drive.

Any advice would be much appreciated.
Thanks.

joel406 · Jul 19, 2008

Newegg.com - Western Digital My Book Essential 2.0 WDH1U5000N 500GB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive - External Hard Drives

Theres your HD

Acronis True Image Home

Theres the best backup software you can possibly imagin.

Day24 · Jul 20, 2008

Hmm.... the backup software is great, I grant you that, but I have a 1 TB version from WD, and the wretched thing keeps overheating. So every hour or so I have to shut the thing off. I'm even considering just taking out the HDs and putting them in my system....which kinds of defeats the purpose....

TheShadow · Jul 20, 2008

Well, in the first place, an external (USB) hard drive was never designed to maintain a 100% duty cycle. I just build my own, by buying a nice little enclosure and putting my own choice of HD in it. I have two (one desktop drive and one laptop drive) and both use the "Air Link 101" brand of enclosure.
They're not expensive and work just great.

The secret to long life is, "Plug in the external drive, write to it and unplug it".
They have NO way to cool in those tight little enclosures and continued use will cause overheating. Heat Kills !!!

A techie friend of mine had the overheating problem and came up with this novel idea for cooling his external HD:

Joking aside, only plug in your external USB drive when you're going to use it.
That keeps it from overheating and extends its life.

I back up my own system to my USB drive about once a week, using Norton's Ghost 2003. Works like a champ!

Cheers mate!
The Shadow :cool:

agmiller · Jul 20, 2008

Thanks very much to you all for your advice. Can someone tell me if backing up files to an external hard drive is safe enough or is there anything else I should do to make sure I don't lose my files?

Day24 · Jul 20, 2008

Uhm....yeah.....but...... My WD thingy has 2 500GB drives in it....PLUS a big fan.... which spins up rather loudly. Most of the time the drive is just sitting there, doing nothing, and it's fine. As long as I don't let it get past a certain point it's fine. My husband, who is on the network, can't seem to grasp the concept of writing to the drive in short burst of about 3 GB max at a time, then letting it rest for about 15 minutes. As long as we DO let it rest for 15 minutes, the fans kick in during the initial copying, and the drive cools down after the copy is over, during the 15 minutes.

For some reason, the drive will use the fan for a short time only. I've no clue why. I've called WD about this, and they basically say the same thing you said, "well don't leave it on". Which basically isn't an option, as various computers over the network need to have access to the drive at varying times.
Anyway, for some reason, if the drive is hot for too long, the fans will simply stop, and the drive will stop working. It then doesn't matter how long I do not use it, it won't start working until I unplug it, let it cool down and then plug it back in.

Anyways, as for the OP, whichever drive you get, make SURE to look for and read reviews on the net before you buy. Just to avoid these types of situations.

TheShadow · Jul 20, 2008

agmiller said:
Thanks very much to you all for your advice. Can someone tell me if backing up files to an external hard drive is safe enough or is there anything else I should do to make sure I don't lose my files?

NO mechanical device is SAFE. Every one of them is subject to failure at any moment without warning.
The question is never "IF" a hard drive will fail....it's always "When".
The only safe place for your valuable files is burned to a CD or DVD.
Then put that disk in a fireproof vault.

My own system gets burned to a DVD every week and that DVD goes into a Fireproof Vault about 20 miles away.

Having the little plastic disk sitting next to your computer when your house burns down, was really NO backup at all. Was it?

Cheers mate!
Shadow :cool:

Day24 · Jul 20, 2008

Hmm even those self-burned DVDs aren't actually failsafe.... cos the medium actually degrades over time..... but I'm sure they should last a few years.....

ltwally · Jul 20, 2008

TheShadow said:
Well, in the first place, an external (USB) hard drive was never designed to maintain a 100% duty cycle. I just build my own, by buying a nice little enclosure and putting my own choice of HD in it. I have two (one desktop drive and one laptop drive) and both use the "Air Link 101" brand of enclosure.
They're not expensive and work just great.

I will agree in that these devices are cheap and designed for light-weight consumer use, nothing heavy duty. That being said, no device should overheat merely from being left powered on for a couple hours. That's a sign of very poor design.

Both personally and at work, we use little other than actual NAS appliances and SANs for storage. However, we do have several Maxtor OneTouch devices that we use in place of tape-backups. I've never really paid any attention to their performance, but I know that they stay often stay powered on for long periods of time (days or weeks). So, it would seem that maybe the Maxtor units are a better choice than the WD jobbies.

TheShadow · Jul 20, 2008

So, it would seem that maybe the Maxtor units are a better choice than the WD jobbies.

That's the same thing I've found in my 28 years as a computer tech.
I won't have a WD drive on the place.

I know....I know....some people just love them, but for me, being in the business, I just can't rely on them. When you're a PC builder and you have to stand the warranty on a PC for a year, you don't put in anything that you can't fully rely on. It's pure suicide if you do.

My dislike for WD drives is based on personal experience, not personal prejudice.

I run dual-fan HD coolers on all my internal HD's and never have one fail due to overheating. You can't properly cool a HD that's locked up in a tight little box.

As I said before, I have two external drives....a full size and a laptop drive.
I plug them in when I want to use them, use them and then unplug them. I never leave them connected when not in actual use. To me, that just makes good sense.

To each his own, I guess.

Cheers mates!
The Shadow :cool:

bearjakewulf · Jul 20, 2008

joel406 said:
Newegg.com - Western Digital My Book Essential 2.0 WDH1U5000N 500GB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive - External Hard Drives

Theres your HD

Acronis True Image Home

Theres the best backup software you can possibly imagin.

This is what I use except I use the 750g version to backup my 320g hard drive. I went this route so after doing a successfull second backup to the external hard drive, I can delete the previous one that is there.

Mark

ltwally · Jul 20, 2008

I would tend to agree with you on the WD issue; it has also been my experience that they have a higher failure rate than some of their competitors. I mostly stick to Seagate disks for both home and the office.... and Seagate has 450gig 15k RPM SAS drives out, now. If I only had an excuse to buy a new DB server....

larryvtg · Jul 24, 2008

I am brand new to vista 64 and am having the same problem with external hard drives. I plugged in a western digital drive via fire wire and the software for it would not open. I called technical support and they repeated they do not support 64 bit versions of Vista. So I removed the drive and software and tried a Maxtor Onetouch 4 drive. It installed and seems to run fine and I can see it on my computer and connected it via USB.

To confirm I called Maxtor tech support and they told me they also do NOT support vista 64 bit and while it works now it will become unstable and start getting various errors? I am not interested in building a drive but want one that works any advise for a newbee?

ltwally · Jul 24, 2008

I seriously doubt anything bad will come of using it under Vista64. If it does, they didn't do their jobs correctly.

External hard drives are little more than an IDE/SATA drive with a USB/Firewire chip built on. You should not need any extra software to make the device work, any more than you need for a USB Flash-Drive/Jump-Drive.

If you do need to install special software from WD or Maxtor just to get the thing to work properly... well, shame on them.

Day24 · Jul 24, 2008

My WD drive needs special software cos it has two drives, and works as a raid setup. It needs the software for that.
Not that I am in any way happy with that drive, but well....

ltwally · Jul 24, 2008

Day24 said:
My WD drive needs special software cos it has two drives, and works as a raid setup. It needs the software for that.
Not that I am in any way happy with that drive, but well....

Aaah. Yes, that at least makes some sense.

But if it were just a normal, single-drive unit, and required "special" drivers.... I think it take it back, immediately. No basic USB or Firewire drive of any type (dvd, hard disk, flash drive) should require any type of added drivers under a modern OS.

swarfega · Jul 24, 2008

One of the fastest makes at the moment is Samsungs F1 series. This is because they use less platters than other manufacturers. You need one with at least a 32mb cache buffer so anything above 500gb I'd say.

ltwally · Jul 24, 2008

Don't get me wrong - faster is better and all that... but what about heat and longevity? For me, that is more important than speed. Especially if I was going to be using it for a backup device.

umt001 · Dec 31, 2008

HI guys I am after 64bit of version OS, and looking to get an external USB HARDDRIVE... Juts wondering if anyone can recomend me which model is works best with 64bit verson OS like vista 64 bit and MAC OS?

Thanks

ltwally · Dec 31, 2008

umt001 said:
HI guys I am after 64bit of version OS, and looking to get an external USB HARDDRIVE... Juts wondering if anyone can recomend me which model is works best with 64bit verson OS like vista 64 bit and MAC OS?

Thanks

Just find one that says Vista and/or OSX compatible, and you should be golden.

External Hard Drive for Vista Ultimate x64

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