Good, reliable external hard drive?

bigben

bigben

Master Poster
Hi guys,

My external hard drive seems to be playing up at the moment so can anybody recommend a good replacement with usb 3? Or are they all pretty similar in performance?


Also, trying to transfer a couple of movies I bought on itunes onto it and it is saying file is too large for destination but it has 280gb free. The files are only 4gb each. Any ideas?

Thanks
 
steaky360

steaky360

Moderator
Moderator
Ive had a WD my passport for work for the last two years and its been great. Not as good value as the Touro Boozad mentions above though but I've had no issues with it. I've got the WD mybooks at home too and have had no problems with them either. I would recommend them but they are a wee bit pricey compared to other brands.
 
tom_gr7

tom_gr7

Life Serving
nice thread :)

im also looking out for a new external drive...

i was looking at the wd drives, it says they have an auto backup which would be useful for me to auto backup uni work...

Keynes, does the samsung drive have autoback up software?
 
keynes

keynes

Multiverse Poster
Keynes, does the samsung drive have autoback up software?
Click to expand...
As with the sound card I threw the box away with any CDs :( the link I provided indicates auto backup software is included.
 
keynes

keynes

Multiverse Poster
tom_gr7 said:
lmao... you have a habit of chucking packaging away!

did you get the sound card sorted?
Click to expand...

Not yet. It works fine I just can't get speakers and headset work from the sound card, only the headset is recognised if both are plugged.
 
tom_gr7

tom_gr7

Life Serving
keynes said:
Not yet. It works fine I just can't get speakers and headset work from the sound card, only the headset is recognised if both are plugged.
Click to expand...

when you can, send me a pm with some screenshots of the sound settings/asus dx settings...
 
L

LFFPicard

Godlike
bigben said:
Hi guys,

My external hard drive seems to be playing up at the moment so can anybody recommend a good replacement with usb 3? Or are they all pretty similar in performance?


Also, trying to transfer a couple of movies I bought on itunes onto it and it is saying file is too large for destination but it has 280gb free. The files are only 4gb each. Any ideas?

Thanks
Click to expand...

I use WD MyBook 2TB and 1.5TB both faultless

Also as for you moving video files, check the file format of the external hard drive, looks suspicious as though it could be in FAT32 format which wont accept files larger that 2gb? Something like that.
 
bigben

bigben

Master Poster
Cool, thanks guys, am currently using a (five year old) WD mybook and have always been pretty happy with it so will probably just replace it with the same, quite like the sound of the auto backup as well.

Couldn't actually see the touro on here..

LFFPicard said:
Also as for you moving video files, check the file format of the external hard drive, looks suspicious as though it could be in FAT32 format which wont accept files larger that 2gb? Something like that.
Click to expand...

Thanks, do you know what format it should be in? Will changing the format get rid of everything on it?
 
steaky360

steaky360

Moderator
Moderator
NTFS accepts files larger than 2Gb but formatting the drive would unfortunately remove its contents. IF you got another harddrive you could backup your original one first then re-format it to the new file system and copy them back :)
 
vanthus

vanthus

Member Resting in Peace
bigben said:
Thanks, why have a format like fat32 then?
Click to expand...
FAT32 is the file system used in older Windows systems. It has been replaced by NTFS in the newest Windows operating systems,far as I know Vista and Windows 7 and I assume windows 8 won't even install to a FAT32 drive.
Also I think some cards like SD cards for example need to be FAT 32 to work properly.
 
Last edited:
bigben

bigben

Master Poster
Hi guys, bringing this one back up again..

You can get some which are powered from the mains and some which just go straight into the usb. Is there a difference in speeds? My usb2 one needs power but is pretty quick compared to my portable usb sticks.

Does anybody know if there is still a difference in performance and if so is it a lot?

Thanks again.
 
steaky360

steaky360

Moderator
Moderator
I think the ones that require power through USB (as opposed to mains) are slower in general, unless they have 2x USB's on them. I don't know for sure and I certainly don't have any clue how much faster/slower they are. I am pretty sure that is the case though.

Definitely go for a USB 3 one though if you can :)
 
bigben

bigben

Master Poster
steaky360 said:
I think the ones that require power through USB (as opposed to mains) are slower in general, unless they have 2x USB's on them. I don't know for sure and I certainly don't have any clue how much faster/slower they are. I am pretty sure that is the case though.

Definitely go for a USB 3 one though if you can :)
Click to expand...

Thanks, that's what I expected.
Definitely gonna get a usb 3 one.
 
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