External portable HDD storage

[twagenknecht]

Hey all,
The Costco near me has quite the deal either a Western Digital 500GB My Passport Elite, or the same setup from Seagate. Both are USB compatible, and both are quite small. Seeing as the new camera I have saves each picture as a 25-27Mb file, I have run out of room, and do not want to lug my external HDDs around with, given that they need external power, are big, etc. My question is are these drives worth the $120 that they want for them? Has anyone used them before..i.e.: do they work well for a long time, reliability, etc? I have the capacity here at the house, but when I am on the road, I would need more...alternatively, I need to shoot less

Needing more storage (and not just for my computer!!)

Tim

[Tanner_J]

I'm sure you'll love it until it fails. With externals, it's not a matter of if, but when.

Granted, I have 4 large external drives from Western Digital and have had one for over 4 years and haven't had any problems with either. Looks like the model you're looking at is cheapest at CostCo.

[turbotraker]

Hi Tim, I purchased a 500GB external HD over 18months ago. All my camera photos are dumped on there. Can honestly say I have never had a problem with it. As for the two you have mentioned, in my previous job, I used to make the micro-chip designs for Seagate. I would recommend you buy Western Digital.

[tommyalf]

Tim check on line first before going to Costco. I get tons of stuff from Newegg. Dirt cheap and never a problem.

[twagenknecht]

As for the two you have mentioned, in my previous job, I used to make the micro-chip designs for Seagate. I would recommend you buy Western Digital.

HMMMMMMM ok

[twagenknecht]

Tim check on line first before going to Costco. I get tons of stuff from Newegg. Dirt cheap and never a problem.

I will check there as well, but as for Costco...let us just say that their return policy is ...well...lenient bless them...

[livingwarbirds]

I have this drive (from Costco too) and I love it.

As with all computer related stuff, it's going to eventually give out, but I bought 2 and back up everything at least once a week.

[Dantheman]

And what is wrong with their microchips?

Hi Tim, I purchased a 500GB external HD over 18months ago. All my camera photos are dumped on there. Can honestly say I have never had a problem with it. As for the two you have mentioned, in my previous job, I used to make the micro-chip designs for Seagate. I would recommend you buy Western Digital.

[B757300]

Both Seagate and Western Digital are good brands, although I think Seagate has a slightly higher failure rate based on my experience. I work for a company computer so I see exactly how many fail from each manufacturer.

That said, visit the companies' websites and check the warranties for both. Seagate dropped their warranties from 5 years to 3 on most drives except Enterprise class drives, while Western Digital still has 5 year warranties on some internal and external models.

Regardless of where you save the images, you should also back them up on external media such as DVDs as these will not suffer a physical failure as a HDD can.

[turbotraker]

And what is wrong with their microchips?

In a few words, cheapest design, cheapest materials. As I personally put their designs onto Quartz masks for them to make the microchips, I know the quality of the end product could be better. We made the Quartz designs for the for around $500. Compare that to other companies in similar fields who had their masks made by us for $9,000 (Philips).
Some of the masks would be returned to us by Seagate NI, to be re-made. I would love to say more about Seagate but unfortunatley cannot do so.
Please note the above info is from MY experiences making in making masks for Seagate.