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jaylach
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 Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2014 9:31 pm |
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| Resident Geekazoid Administrator |
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Joined: Wed Mar 21, 2012 5:09 am
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Location: The state of confusion; I just use Wyoming for mail.
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My 2TB external drive has become too small for my media and I'm casually looking at 4TB externals. Yes, both my laptop and media systems will handle the drive size. I wish that we still had the option of Hitachi Desk Stars but, alas, we don't. Looking at a Seagate and a Western Digital. Both get bad and good reviews. The Seagate averages a 4.5 out of 5 star rating while the WD averages a 4.4. The Hitachi 2TB external I'm currently using is the largest I've ever had so have to admit a bit of ignorance in the 4TB range. If either of the following which would you recommend? If neither, what would you recommend instead? http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... viewsBlockhttp://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... viewsBlock
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sboots
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Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2014 10:56 pm |
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Joined: Tue Apr 10, 2012 9:48 pm
Posts: 2955
Location: New Jersey
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I'd go for the WD unit. I've seen too many Seagate drives fail in the past few years.
-steve
_________________ stephen boots Microsoft MVP 2004 - 2020 "Life's always an adventure with computers!"
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jaylach
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Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2014 11:09 pm |
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Joined: Wed Mar 21, 2012 5:09 am
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Location: The state of confusion; I just use Wyoming for mail.
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Thanks, Steve, ... Still wish that I could get a Hitachi...
Kind of sad that it always seems that a smaller company has a GREAT product then a larger company just sucks them in.
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MacDuffie
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Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2014 11:32 pm |
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Joined: Wed Mar 21, 2012 5:42 am
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I don't know anything about them, but personally, I would start researching Samsung drives - and anybody else out there that makes them.
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Patty MacDuffie
Computer Haven Administrator
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jaylach
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Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2014 11:41 pm |
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Joined: Wed Mar 21, 2012 5:09 am
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Location: The state of confusion; I just use Wyoming for mail.
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MacDuffie wrote: I don't know anything about them, but personally, I would start researching Samsung drives - and anybody else out there that makes them. You caught me a bit off guard... If you know nothing about them why the recommendation to look at Samsung?
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MacDuffie
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Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2014 10:33 am |
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Missed my point. My point is look at anything else but WD and Seagate. See if there is something better out there. Because I'm not satisfied with either of those alternatives.
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Patty MacDuffie
Computer Haven Administrator
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jaylach
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Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2014 10:57 am |
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Joined: Wed Mar 21, 2012 5:09 am
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OK, got it.  I had noticed a couple that I didn't even recognize such as Fantom. I'll have to look at some reviews.
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Peter2150
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Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2014 5:00 pm |
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I would add Lacie to the do not list. I have a shelf with 5 dead WD and Lacie external drives. Since Iomega went out of business I've given Transcend a drive. I have now purchased a 1tb and a 2tb USB 3.0 drive from their ruggedized line. These are designed to military drop standards. I've had one a year and the other a month. So far so good.
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MacDuffie
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Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2014 12:21 am |
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Is Transcend the name of a company? Got a link? (Do you have any idea how many hits I'd get if I searched for Transcend? LOL)
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Patty MacDuffie
Computer Haven Administrator
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jaylach
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Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2014 12:28 am |
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I'm figuring the following link, Patty. I searched fort 'transcend hard drive'. At first I just went for transcend.com but that absolutely is NOT it, totally worthless site. http://www.transcend-info.com/index.aspx
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MacDuffie
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Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2014 1:14 am |
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Joined: Wed Mar 21, 2012 5:42 am
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I was certain it would be, Jay. 
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Patty MacDuffie
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Mr. Spock
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jaylach
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Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2014 1:22 am |
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Location: The state of confusion; I just use Wyoming for mail.
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MacDuffie
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Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2014 10:08 am |
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Joined: Wed Mar 21, 2012 5:42 am
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OK. They don't make computer hard drives though. Only Solid State, and External Hard Drives.
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Patty MacDuffie
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Peter2150
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Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2014 12:45 pm |
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MacDuffie wrote: OK. They don't make computer hard drives though. Only Solid State, and External Hard Drives. That is the site and you are correct Patty. I just assumed that was what Jay was looking for. Pete PS I had trouble finding it on the site, but their techsupport participates in the customer reviews. Found a number there and called. They were very responsive and helped me pick exactly the right drive for my needs.
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Acadia
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Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2014 12:56 pm |
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MacDuffie wrote: I don't know anything about them, but personally, I would start researching Samsung drives - and anybody else out there that makes them. I absolutely swear by Verbatim external hard drives, 7 year guarantee (that's not a typo, 7 year). We own three of them. Upon checking Computer Management, or Disk Management, or "whatever" management, you know, the feature in Windows that shows you everything about everything ... I was surprised to learn that evidently Samsung made our Verbatim external drives; I have no problem with that.  Acadia
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MacDuffie
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Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2014 12:18 am |
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Joined: Wed Mar 21, 2012 5:42 am
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Wow! Is that true of Verbatim CDs and DVDs too? Which I have always liked.
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Patty MacDuffie
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Mr. Spock
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MacDuffie
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Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2014 12:20 am |
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Peter2150 wrote: That is the site and you are correct Patty. I just assumed that was what Jay was looking for.
Pete
I believe it is what Jay was looking for. I'm just bewailing the fact that so many HDDs today are such crap. 
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Patty MacDuffie
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Acadia
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Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2014 10:40 am |
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MacDuffie wrote: Wow! Is that true of Verbatim CDs and DVDs too? Which I have always liked. Many years ago I checked into that and all I was able to determine was that Verbatim made their own CDs (back then), don't know about the DVDs, and I don't know what the situation is today. But I can say this, I have used a couple hundred Verbatim CDs and never had a single failure which is one of the reasons I checked into the Verbatim external drives when we were in the market (that 7 year guarantee helped too). There used to be a website that told you who made the various CDs for the various big names, I wish I had saved that bookmark if that site still exists. Acadia
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The blazing evidence of immortality is our dissatisfaction with any other solution. -- Emerson
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MacDuffie
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Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2014 12:32 pm |
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Thanks, Acadia.
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Patty MacDuffie
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JoanA
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Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2014 9:14 am |
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Location: Pembrokeshire, South Wales, UK
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I'll have to look into those, at present my external hard drives are Seagate and so far no problems, touch wood.
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jaylach
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Posted: Sat Oct 04, 2014 8:30 pm |
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Well I finally did it and will get yelled at as I went for a Seagate drive. At least it gets 4.5 stars out of 5. Through an email promotion via Tiger Direct I got it for $119.00 instead of the $139.00 in the link below. I also got free shipping. There was no issue with connection, was recognized immediately. One odd thing is that it does not have an on-off switch that I can find. If I were to decide that I needed one it could be easily added but would void the warranty. Since I use the 'USB Safely Remove' utility that can turn on and off my 2TB Toshiba external I will hope that the same is true with this drive. I would proof that right now but have already started my data transfer. One reviewer said that the drive was slow but I did not see that when I formatted. I won't wait the time for a hard format but always do, at least, a quick. It had to be less than 5 seconds. We will see what happens. Since I have drives to do images for both my systems I'm in no hurry. I will leave the 2TB Toshiba as is for at least a few months while the Seagate proofs. After that I don't know. My first thought was to partition the thing into two equal parts and use if for system images as both my systems use 1TB drives. Then I had the thought that I don't really know if I want images of both systems on the same drive. Since the purpose of both drives is/was media storage I may just keep the 2TB Toshiba as media storage as archive but only for the top movies that will fit. Sigh, that also opens a potential issue. By US copyright laws I AM allowed my archival backup of a DVD that I have purchased. If I have movies backed up to two different hard drives that would mean that I have two archival copies instead of the allowed one. Going to have to ask a lawyer friend about that... http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... &CatId=136
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MacDuffie
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Posted: Sat Oct 04, 2014 10:31 pm |
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What drive did you get, Jay? I don't have too much quibble with Seagate quality, other than they are a bit noisy, but they got very restrictive about what you could do with the drives. They were backup, or they were extra storage, and in both cases used Seagate's software (the ones I looked at a few years ago for a client). And of course that meant you couldn't use Windows own utilities. I hate that.
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Patty MacDuffie
Computer Haven Administrator
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Mr. Spock
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jaylach
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Posted: Sat Oct 04, 2014 10:54 pm |
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LOL! Same drive I linked to in my last post... (chuckle) http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... &CatId=136As to noise my apartment is silent at the moment and I cannot hear the drive running. WOW! I REALLY mean the last. I have my media system running of course along with both external drives. There is no traffic outside and nothing playing in my apartment. With two external drives churning away it is almost eerie that I can hear absolutely nothing. I just got on the floor and cannot even her a fan unless within about 3 feet. I WILL call that a silent system. I'm not sure what you mean about not being able to use Windows utilities... My motherboard includes a utility to take control of a drive of 4TB or more. Mayhaps that is why I don't understand your thought on this. I ran the Seagate install that was included on the drive to complete the registration then formatted the drive with a quick format. Since I formatted I am, of course, not using Seagate's software. I don't quite get what you mean about not being able to use Windows utilities. I am using Windows Explorer to copy the almost 2 TB of data from the old 2TB Toshiba to the new drive and all is going totally fine. There have not been any errors o anything. Is it possible that with the systems that you saw issues the 4TB patch had not been applied? Actually I just tried something. I have a LONG time before the data move is complete but yet I can play a movie off of the new drive even though the copy is still going on. Mayhaps it is due to my formatting the drive which is much like removing crap-ware from a new system...
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MacDuffie
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Posted: Sat Oct 04, 2014 11:33 pm |
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Likely, yes. Things may have changed in the last couple of years also.
Well, not so much. That's the Expansion drive. A client of mine bought one to do his backups on, and there was no way to use the drive for backups. It was weird.
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Patty MacDuffie
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jaylach
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Posted: Sat Oct 04, 2014 11:42 pm |
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I still have to express a bit of surprise. I sit about 6 feet or so from my HDTV and media system. I never really paid attention before but at this distance the thing is totally and absolutely silent. I can hear absolutely nothing except that my fridge in the kitchen is running at the moment.
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