Rate these two external HDDs please

[Hokiefyd]

I'm ready to buy an external HDD, to use solely for system backup. No day-to-day data use...backup only. I saw these two models at Best Buy (disregard size, I can get multiple sizes in either model line).

Western Digital MyPassport: BestBuy link

Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex: BestBuy link

Are there any inherent advantages to either one? I can buy either locally at BestBuy. USB 3.0 doesn't matter to me; my computer only has 2.0 anyway. I would prefer a FireWire connection, but few compact external HDDs seem to have them. Would I get any speed advantages anyway? I have both FireWire 400 and 800.

Or are there other recommendations? I would generally prefer the WD model, as I've always had luck with WD. The WD at the store was also made in Malaysia rather than China, but that probably doesn't matter much.

Thanks.

 

[NateDN10]

I've had good luck with both WD and Seagate in the past.

I recently purchased a similar drive (wound up going with a 500GB Toshiba Canvio) and I too wished there were more Firewire options. I decided on the Toshiba because it supported USB 3.0. Although my current PC doesn't support it, it's theoretically much faster than USB 2.0, and my external HDDs usually outlast the PCs I buy them for.

 

[razel]

Go with the Freeagent GoFlex portable. That picture shows both the desktop and portable version. The portable comes with a detachable USB to SATA interface cable. You can remove that and buy their GoFlex Firewire interface cable. The GoFlex interface cables will work on any other laptop SATA drive.

When removed, you can see the drive inside the case uses the standard SATA data/power connector. Western Digital lately has been quietly removing the standard SATA interface off the drives inside their portables. If you need outright speed, you can plug the GoFlex natively inside your desktop if you're lucky. I say lucky because the SATA and power ports are recessed in it's case.

 

[Rhymingmechanic]

I'm trying to decide on a backup drive myself. FYI, the GoFlex portable 1TB for Mac comes with both USB and Firewire cables. I don't know if the extra cost would offset the price of a FW adapter for you. I am leaning toward a Mercury Elite Pro Mini from Other World Computing. It has USB, FW800, and eSATA connections with all cables.

 

[Lead Shoes]

So far I have had 2 Seagates die on me but not a WD (cross fingers).

Based on my experiences with Seagates customer service on dead HD's, I probably won't purchase another, unless it's a smoking deal.

 

[demarpaint]

I had good luck with WD, I wasn't crazy about Seagate.

 

[TxHeat]

If I were going to choose between the two I'd go with the Seagate on the theory that more is better.

Speed difference, USB 2 @ 480mbps, firewire 400 @ 400Mbps, firewire 800 800mbps and Esata(300) @ 3Gbps. These are all theoretical maximums and will almost never be reached. They also depend on speed of drive, quality of connection, size of files being transferred, etc. In general, it's safe to say that USB 2 is faster than Firewire 400 but not quite as fast as Firewire 800 and nowhere near as fast as Esata.

However, depending on how much data you're backing up and how you're accomplishing that, the speed difference may not matter that much to you.

I mean by that, if you're going to install imaging software on your pc and set it to do automatic backups on a regular basis, in the background, speed won't matter as much as if you were going to boot to bootable imaging disk and have to wait for it to finish. Also, if you're only backing up critical data folders it won't take very long in any case whereas if you're imaging a 100GB drive it will take much longer.

While there aren't many external drives or enclosures offering Firewire connections there are many that offer Esata. Have you considered adding an Esata card to your pc?

Here are some ranging from around $10.00 to $40.00 with 1 to 6 Esata ports.

In addition, you can buy an external enclosure/dock and use any regular, size, (actual dimensions), appropriate, internal sata HDD.

As near as I can tell both of these drives spin at 5400 rpm while most internal drives spin at 7200 rpm, (something to look for when buying), and generally speaking higher spin rate means faster access times.

I'm currently using this Thermaltake dock and can use either 3.5 inch or 2.5 inch sata drive with it and can swap them out in a couple of seconds.

I also use a couple of enclosures that have to be unscrewed, drive mounted inside and the enclosure screwed back together. Not as handy and quick as the dock but work fine if you're going to install a drive and leave it alone for awhile. Here's an example of what I mean. If you click on the overview tab there's a video of how it works.

Also, if you happen to be using 64 bit os such as Windows 7/Vista or whatever 64 bit with ahci then your Esata drives are hot swappable. I mean, you plug it in it's online, unplug and it's offline.

Hope I haven't droned on too long!

Good luck,

Larry

 

[NateDN10]

Originally Posted By: bornconfuzd
If I were going to choose between the two I'd go with the Seagate on the theory that more is better.

Speed difference, USB 2 @ 480mbps, firewire 400 @ 400Mbps, firewire 800 800mbps and Esata(300) @ 3Gbps. These are all theoretical maximums and will almost never be reached. They also depend on speed of drive, quality of connection, size of files being transferred, etc. In general, it's safe to say that USB 2 is faster than Firewire 400 but not quite as fast as Firewire 800 and nowhere near as fast as Esata.

Actually, in the real world Firewire 400 often achieves faster speeds than USB 2.0. This is because Firewire relies on the interface chip for much more, while the USB software stack does more work on the main processor. With processors getting ever faster this is not as much an issue as it used to be, however.

 

[TxHeat]

Originally Posted By: NateDN10
Originally Posted By: bornconfuzd
If I were going to choose between the two I'd go with the Seagate on the theory that more is better.

Speed difference, USB 2 @ 480mbps, firewire 400 @ 400Mbps, firewire 800 800mbps and Esata(300) @ 3Gbps. These are all theoretical maximums and will almost never be reached. They also depend on speed of drive, quality of connection, size of files being transferred, etc. In general, it's safe to say that USB 2 is faster than Firewire 400 but not quite as fast as Firewire 800 and nowhere near as fast as Esata.

Actually, in the real world Firewire 400 often achieves faster speeds than USB 2.0. This is because Firewire relies on the interface chip for much more, while the USB software stack does more work on the main processor. With processors getting ever faster this is not as much an issue as it used to be, however.


Thanks for that Nate, I may have over edited my response and been too focused on guiding the op toward Esata.

Thing is, I don't believe he'll see much difference between them using either of those 5400rpm drives since the drives probably cannot sustain either theoretical maximum transfer rate.

 

[Hokiefyd]

Thanks everyone. The computer is a mid-2007 24" iMac, and I will be using this drive as the target for regular Time Machine backups. It has one FireWire 400 port and one FireWire 800 port. I didn't realize the Seagate had the option of a FireWire cable. That's why I ask you guys the tough questions. If I do use the FireWire 800 cable, that is the only cable connection I'll need, right? Like USB, FireWire has the capability of conveying power AND data?

The other upside of FireWire is I don't lose a USB port on the back, which is useful for things like our printer, camcorder, etc. The FireWire ports sit empty and unused right now.

 

[TxHeat]

I think that's a good choice in your situation. If you can achieve the result you want without adding expense, what's not to like?

Yes, both data and power.

 

[Virtuoso]

I have *not* had good luck with Western Digital's external hard drives. I haven't tried a new one within the past couple years, though. But I've had one warrantied and the one that replaced it has failed SMART checks for spin-up time for a long time now, though.

Internal hard drives, different story. WD every time. But here, I would go Seagate.

 

[Hokiefyd]

I got the Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex. I saw the FireWire 800 cable there, but actually didn't get it for now. The more I thought about it, the less I think I need high speed. It'd be nice for the first backup, where it's copying every file on the computer. But for every backup thereafter, it's doing incremental backups so we're only talking about a few files at a time.

Time Machine is really neat. It apparently keeps hourly backups (incrementally) for the last 24 hours, daily backups for the last week, and weekly backups for the last month, and it does all of that until it fills the drive and then replaces the oldest backup with the newest files. So you can conceivably go back a few versions of a file if you need to retrieve something from a few backups prior. It also keeps a complete copy of the entire system at all times. So if the main drive goes down, I just boot off the Time Machine drive and I'm back online with a system image that's never more than an hour old.

Too cool.