Anyone have any suggestions for rugged external hard drives? I'm looking for a 1TB drive, firewire is a must. It's gotta stand up to constant travel and usage. Any suggestions?
Evan
Evan
Rugged external hard drives
- Thread starter Evan Kirkendall
- Start date
Re: Rugged external hard drives
Lacie rugged series http://www.lacie.com/au/products/product.htm?id=10553
We recommend them to our students and they get thrown around in bags, on trains.. general teenage equipment abuse. Never had one fail yet.
Andrew
Lacie rugged series http://www.lacie.com/au/products/product.htm?id=10553
We recommend them to our students and they get thrown around in bags, on trains.. general teenage equipment abuse. Never had one fail yet.
Andrew
Re: Rugged external hard drives
I knew the lacie drives would be the first recommended. I've killed 2 of them now, so I'm looking to try a new brand...
Evan
I knew the lacie drives would be the first recommended. I've killed 2 of them now, so I'm looking to try a new brand...
Evan
Re: Rugged external hard drives
Define "kill". If the internal drive is dead, switching brands won't help much. If it's the outer enclosure/electronics, that may be a different story.
Have you considered a small Pelican case or Otterbox to store the drive in?
Define "kill". If the internal drive is dead, switching brands won't help much. If it's the outer enclosure/electronics, that may be a different story.
Have you considered a small Pelican case or Otterbox to store the drive in?
Re: Rugged external hard drives
The drive itself just doesn't seem to last. Both have developed the clicks and are completely unreadable...
Evan
The drive itself just doesn't seem to last. Both have developed the clicks and are completely unreadable...
Evan
Silas Pradetto
Graduate Student
Re: Rugged external hard drives
That's got nothing to do with the enclosure and everything to do with abuse. You can just pop a new drive into your existing enclosure and it will be fine, till you drop it again. I highly recommend Hitachi drives for reliability, since they bought IBM's server hard drive division and those were some of the best drives made.
That's got nothing to do with the enclosure and everything to do with abuse. You can just pop a new drive into your existing enclosure and it will be fine, till you drop it again. I highly recommend Hitachi drives for reliability, since they bought IBM's server hard drive division and those were some of the best drives made.
Re: Rugged external hard drives
+1
Buy any enclosure with a Seagate or Hitachi drive, or replace the drive in your existing enclosure with one. Then buy a Pelican/Hardigg to put the drive and cables in.
+1
Buy any enclosure with a Seagate or Hitachi drive, or replace the drive in your existing enclosure with one. Then buy a Pelican/Hardigg to put the drive and cables in.
Re: Rugged external hard drives
<big wide grin>
First low frequency drivers, now hard-drives... God help us when you start destroying consoles !
Andrew
<big wide grin>
First low frequency drivers, now hard-drives... God help us when you start destroying consoles !
Andrew
Silas Pradetto
Graduate Student
Re: Rugged external hard drives
I thought he already has? Evan, aren't you on like your 5th SC48? :lol:
I thought he already has? Evan, aren't you on like your 5th SC48? :lol:
Re: Rugged external hard drives
I have two of these enclosures, firewire 400/800/USB2.0/eSATA, with 7200RPM 500MB drives in them, and they have served me well. The main case is metal but the sides are plastic. They have no fan so they're pretty quiet (just the hard drives themselves make noise, and I picked low-noise drives when I put them in).
http://www.acomdata.com/p-262-samba-quad-interface-external-enclosure.aspx
If I were you, and I wanted firewire (I'm assuming you want firewire 800) then I'd buy enclosures, whatever you do. It's cheaper in the long run, and you have more choices for drives. You can put in whatever reliable 3.5" drive you want, whatever speed and size, including SSD's if you want no moving parts for extra robustness. Not that I'm necessarily recommending SSD for your particular application - you'll want to research that thoroughly as they have their own problems....
Hope this helps,
...Greg
EDIT: I see others posted since I wrote that, was late in posting. The lacie enclosure you have looks pretty rugged to me. Can't recommend a more rugged 3.5" drive than the others mentioned, except possibly SSD....
I have two of these enclosures, firewire 400/800/USB2.0/eSATA, with 7200RPM 500MB drives in them, and they have served me well. The main case is metal but the sides are plastic. They have no fan so they're pretty quiet (just the hard drives themselves make noise, and I picked low-noise drives when I put them in).
http://www.acomdata.com/p-262-samba-quad-interface-external-enclosure.aspx
If I were you, and I wanted firewire (I'm assuming you want firewire 800) then I'd buy enclosures, whatever you do. It's cheaper in the long run, and you have more choices for drives. You can put in whatever reliable 3.5" drive you want, whatever speed and size, including SSD's if you want no moving parts for extra robustness. Not that I'm necessarily recommending SSD for your particular application - you'll want to research that thoroughly as they have their own problems....
Hope this helps,
...Greg
EDIT: I see others posted since I wrote that, was late in posting. The lacie enclosure you have looks pretty rugged to me. Can't recommend a more rugged 3.5" drive than the others mentioned, except possibly SSD....
Re: Rugged external hard drives
I don't believe the linkage between IBM's server drive technology and their workstation drive technology is as strong as you make it out to be - there are major differences between a 100% duty cycle server/SAN drive and a much lower duty cycle workstation drive.
I believe Seagate and Hitachi are as good as anyone else, but the only way to keep important data on hard drives is to have multiple copies. As you suggest, the expected service life of any particular drive is closely related to how it has lived, and is IMO much less closely related to what brand it is.
My day job is in IT, and part of my responsibility is overseeing all my company's desktops and laptops. I have replaced failed drives from absolutely every manufacturer - IBM, Toshiba, Samsung, Hitachi, Seagate, WD, etc. As a company, we made the move to SSDs about 2 years ago, both for performance reasons, and also because rebuilding dead laptops was taking a big chunk of my time. I've replaced one dead SSD, but other than that, there has been a huge reliability improvement from moving to SSDs, and for corporate use an 80 or 128GB drive is perfectly adequate.
I don't believe the linkage between IBM's server drive technology and their workstation drive technology is as strong as you make it out to be - there are major differences between a 100% duty cycle server/SAN drive and a much lower duty cycle workstation drive.
I believe Seagate and Hitachi are as good as anyone else, but the only way to keep important data on hard drives is to have multiple copies. As you suggest, the expected service life of any particular drive is closely related to how it has lived, and is IMO much less closely related to what brand it is.
Re: Rugged external hard drives
Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex is my drive of choice. But as others have mentioned, it generally isn't the brand of drive, but rather the treatment of the drive (vibrations, shock, etc) that is the general end of the device.
You could get crafty and mod up one of the small pelican camera cases and mount a drive like the seagate in there in foam and have yourself a nice little very rugged portable drive.
Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex is my drive of choice. But as others have mentioned, it generally isn't the brand of drive, but rather the treatment of the drive (vibrations, shock, etc) that is the general end of the device.
You could get crafty and mod up one of the small pelican camera cases and mount a drive like the seagate in there in foam and have yourself a nice little very rugged portable drive.
Re: Rugged external hard drives
We're on our 2nd hard drive in a 6 month old SC-48. Next time I'm installing a SSD.
We're on our 2nd hard drive in a 6 month old SC-48. Next time I'm installing a SSD.
Re: Rugged external hard drives
if you can deal with usb 3.0, which is faster than firewire, you could give one of these a try. The price per GB is higher, but they are much more rugged.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227546
you could also purchase an internal drive and put it inside an exclosure, but to get large capacity, you have to pay a large price.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167061
if you can deal with usb 3.0, which is faster than firewire, you could give one of these a try. The price per GB is higher, but they are much more rugged.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227546
you could also purchase an internal drive and put it inside an exclosure, but to get large capacity, you have to pay a large price.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167061
Re: Rugged external hard drives
In addition to this, server, or "enterprise" class drives typically offer lower error rates (100 to 1000 times lower) and are often made of sturdier materials. There is a trend as of late where manufacturers have begun to sell "near-enterprise" class drives. There increased reliability over standard consumer drives is a gray area.
Personally... and this is only my personal experience, I've had pretty terrible luck with Seagate over the years. Most of my drives are Western Digital, and I've had several Maxtors as well (they are now part of Seagate). I used to buy IBM drives back in the day, but they had a HUGE issue with there Deskstar 75GXP drives (a.k.a. "Deathstar") which led to a lawsuit and terrible reviews. They lost a lot of credibility after that fiasco.
I second the idea of some SSDs. Evan, my guess is that your failure problems are probably mechanical and that an SSD, having no moving parts, will fix this.
Another idea might be to look into laptop drives. The smaller disks have less flex in them and I've never had a laptop drive die on me, and my laptop has fallen on the floor several times. That said, laptops typically have G sensors that spin down the hard drive when they detect free fall. Not sure if that is built into the drive, or an extra sensor in the laptop.
In addition to this, server, or "enterprise" class drives typically offer lower error rates (100 to 1000 times lower) and are often made of sturdier materials. There is a trend as of late where manufacturers have begun to sell "near-enterprise" class drives. There increased reliability over standard consumer drives is a gray area.
Personally... and this is only my personal experience, I've had pretty terrible luck with Seagate over the years. Most of my drives are Western Digital, and I've had several Maxtors as well (they are now part of Seagate). I used to buy IBM drives back in the day, but they had a HUGE issue with there Deskstar 75GXP drives (a.k.a. "Deathstar") which led to a lawsuit and terrible reviews. They lost a lot of credibility after that fiasco.
I second the idea of some SSDs. Evan, my guess is that your failure problems are probably mechanical and that an SSD, having no moving parts, will fix this.
Another idea might be to look into laptop drives. The smaller disks have less flex in them and I've never had a laptop drive die on me, and my laptop has fallen on the floor several times. That said, laptops typically have G sensors that spin down the hard drive when they detect free fall. Not sure if that is built into the drive, or an extra sensor in the laptop.
Re: Rugged external hard drives
IBM made all kinds of drives, not just enterprise ones.
For the record, rumors have it that Hitachi's drive division is probably going to be sold to Western Digital soon.
IBM made all kinds of drives, not just enterprise ones.
For the record, rumors have it that Hitachi's drive division is probably going to be sold to Western Digital soon.
Tim Weaver
Senior
Re: Rugged external hard drives
The Lacie enclosures are pretty good, but the drives inside suck. They likely would have failed even if you just had them sitting on a desk and not traveling. Get a good pair of laptop sized drives and stick it in the lacie enclosures you have (you DO still have them right?) and have a main and a backup. Hitachi and seagate seem to be the most reliable, in that order. If you are multitracking then remember to get at least 7200 rpm drives.
The Lacie enclosures are pretty good, but the drives inside suck. They likely would have failed even if you just had them sitting on a desk and not traveling. Get a good pair of laptop sized drives and stick it in the lacie enclosures you have (you DO still have them right?) and have a main and a backup. Hitachi and seagate seem to be the most reliable, in that order. If you are multitracking then remember to get at least 7200 rpm drives.
Re: Rugged external hard drives
For years I'd used Western Digital 3.5" drives with good results. Based on that experience I started buying WD external drives. Uggg.
I've had 2 Acom external firewire drives die, one was drive the other was controller. I own 1 Lacie and it's used as a record drive twice a year. Still working, but the experience of others led me to back it up to another drive (2 copies + original).
Moved to Seagate external drives and so far are happy with them (but the just sit on the desk most of the time). YMMV.
For years I'd used Western Digital 3.5" drives with good results. Based on that experience I started buying WD external drives. Uggg.
I've had 2 Acom external firewire drives die, one was drive the other was controller. I own 1 Lacie and it's used as a record drive twice a year. Still working, but the experience of others led me to back it up to another drive (2 copies + original).
Moved to Seagate external drives and so far are happy with them (but the just sit on the desk most of the time). YMMV.
Re: Rugged external hard drives
Where is he going to find a 1 terabyte external SSD? And if he does, how much is it going to cost? $800? $900? More probably?
edit: here's one on Newegg an OCZ for $2,419.
Where is he going to find a 1 terabyte external SSD? And if he does, how much is it going to cost? $800? $900? More probably?
edit: here's one on Newegg an OCZ for $2,419.
Last edited:
Silas Pradetto
Graduate Student
Re: Rugged external hard drives
Get one of the enclosures that can do RAID1. They aren't expensive, drives are cheap, and they're barely larger than a single drive. And you will have a mirrored copy of all your data all the time.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817332018
AMS is excellent, highly recommended...
Edit: if you really care about your data (like I do), you should be touring with a server with a RAID 5 or RAID 6 array. A separate shock rack for a 4U computer shouldn't be that big of a deal, and you will be guaranteed to never lose data. Make it a 6U rack and stick a UPS in there too.
Get one of the enclosures that can do RAID1. They aren't expensive, drives are cheap, and they're barely larger than a single drive. And you will have a mirrored copy of all your data all the time.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817332018
AMS is excellent, highly recommended...
Edit: if you really care about your data (like I do), you should be touring with a server with a RAID 5 or RAID 6 array. A separate shock rack for a 4U computer shouldn't be that big of a deal, and you will be guaranteed to never lose data. Make it a 6U rack and stick a UPS in there too.