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ext hd recommendation
  • jclmediajclmedia

    this usb 2 fantom drive is so slow @ 33MB/sec . Ive been doin some research past few hours and ive come down to theses two that seem pretty good. well alot better than what I got right now, This fantom drive is 4-6 yrs old.

    http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/874878-REG/Seagate_stbv2000100_2TB_Expansion_External_Desktop.html

    http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1041061-REG/kingston_fcr_hs3_usb_3_0_card_reader.html

  • 7 Replies sorted by
  • matt_gh2matt_gh2

    @jclmedia I have the 3 TB version of that Seagate Hard Drive and the case is a bit shoddy - it's poorly made so it almost seems to be coming apart right out of the box. I used mine as an archival/backup so I did a backup and it sits in box on shelf, so I can't speak to performance. Seagate makes other drives that are constructed differently, and I have one of those that I've used as a backup that I used fairly regularly and it worked well. My main external HD is a 2TB G-Drive that I connect with esata to my editing computer. I edit 1080P footage shot at bitrate of ~90 Mb/s, and haven't had any speed or performance problems.

  • jclmediajclmedia

    hmm yeah i need to think bout this one, I get people telling me to get the seagate this wd that because its cheaper ect. theres reason for that lol. Yeah I really had my mind set on one of those 2TB G-Drives 7200RPM with USB3 and possibly Esata.

  • DrDaveDrDave

    The best external hard drive is an internal one.

  • 4CardsMan4CardsMan

    I recently upgraded a 500 GB external drive to 4 TB. When I did a search on reliability, Seagate came up not good and WD came up good. So, for backup, I chose a WD Elements, $120 at the local Micro Center. So far, so good. For speed, only a SSD should be considered, with reasonable prices up to 500 GB.

  • chauncychauncy

    Don't buy Seagate. Well known that they are the least reliable. I've had so many die. It's not worth the discount.

    I move around a lot of data, my films, videos, music, terabytes a week. I no longer use external drives with cases. I fill all my internal drive bays and when I use external drives I use a rosewill usb 3 drive dock, similar to this: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/689677-REG/Aluratek_AHDDU200F_SuperSpeed_USB_3_0_2_5_3_5.html

    It will take any size ssd or mechanical drive. I can put the drive in an antistatic drive and archive it. My blackmagic cinema camera uses ssds so I pop it straight in. If I'm travelling I use a usb 3 to sata cable for ssds like this: http://usb.brando.com/dual-power-usb-3-0-to-sata-cable_p03133c0042d015.html The dual usb 3 cables allow it to work without a power plug.

    All this is smaller, cheaper and more reliable than most external drives. Manufactures like to put cheap drives in external drive cases and many are not user serviceable. So if the drive dies, you lose the case as well. If I really wanted a full external drive: buy a good case and then put in a good drive.

    The other option is a NAS drive array but that's a whole other deal.

    No discounted drive is worth the trouble of drive failure.

  • SangyeSangye

    If you're on a Mac and need a portable drive, you can't do much better than a WD My Passport Pro Thunderbolt 4TB. I get faster read/writes on this than on my USB3 G-Drive 4TB, which is a popular choice for editing, plus it's bus-powered so I can use it on the go. Sustained R/W speeds of 180/170 are typical.

  • jclmediajclmedia

    might wait to get a hd/ssd ext. I jus ordered the kingston usb3 card reader so thatl be good to have instead of usb2. right now im kinda stuck with tryin to sell my gtx 970 because I cant use Adobe Premiere Pro CC with it because of CUDA/rayTrace. So ima sell it and buy a used 780 for good price or get a PNY gtx 780 from new egg for $300. $280 after $30 rebate.

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