External hard drive purchase

[jazgreen99]

Hi all

Need some advice,I’ve had such bad luck with external hard drives,I’ve had lots of 2.5 seagate’s 3tb ive lost all my data twice and they have been unrecoverable and it took me a Year to download all my media again. Now it happend again with another external hard drive. Just randomly plugged it in a said something critical error and that was that,no recovery software could recover anything,couldn’t even recreate a partition. Is it better to just buy a normal 3.5/2.5 hard drive and use my usb to sata cord?its technically the same it just has no case and they are cheaper

 

[Barty1884]

External drive enclosures offer a bit more protection to physical damage. Unfortunately, it doesn't sound like that's worked for you in the past.

Are you ensuring you're turning off drives within Windows before removing ? That may well be playing a part in your corruption.

If I were you, under the circumstances, I'd invest in two drives (be they 'external' or basis sata bare drives) and copy your data to both - then you have redundancy.

OR, as an alternative, why not look at internal 3.5" drives & configure in RAID with redundancy?


Obviously, it would be helpful to get the root cause of the corruption problems, but at the very least, either option would preserve your data.

 

[jazgreen99]

External drive enclosures offer a bit more protection to physical damage. Unfortunately, it doesn't sound like that's worked for you in the past.

Are you ensuring you're turning off drives within Windows before removing ? That may well be playing a part in your corruption.

If I were you, under the circumstances, I'd invest in two drives (be they 'external' or basis sata bare drives) and copy your data to both - then you have redundancy.

OR, as an alternative, why not look at internal 3.5" drives & configure in RAID with redundancy?


Obviously, it would be helpful to get the root cause of the corruption problems, but at the very least, either option would preserve your data.

What I usually do is safely remove it from the button icon tray,but does it make the HDD corrupt if you plug and play it?i have another seagate 3.5 (3tb) which has been great as it uses it’s own powersupply. That’s full now and I need to get another one. I just threw out 2 (2.5HDD) because those were finished corrupt randomly after using them for about 2 years now maybe less. I keep my internal SSD drive clean on both my laptop and pc and save everything to my external hard which are just normal HDD rather than wasting space and just storing stuff straight. But do you think Seagate is not the way?i would buy another SSD for external but they very pricy especially going up over 1tb

 

[Barty1884]

It's not likely to be a "Seagate" related issue - for the most part, HDD quality doesn't vary much between manufacturers.

 

[jazgreen99]

I guess your right. Thank you

 

[jazgreen99]

Just another question what are your thoughts on these 3?:

Adata HM900 3TB 3.5 With G-Shock Sensor USB3.0 External Hard Drive

Transcend TS3TSJ35T3 StoreJet 3TB 3.5" Aluminum Turbo USB 3.0 External Hard Drive

Seagate Expansion 3.5" Desktop 3TB

 

[Barty1884]

Transcend & Seagate will be using their own HDDs - you're simply paying for the enclosure.

Adata don't made HDDs (AFAIK), so will have something from one of the major vendors inside.

Is there any particular reason you can't go with an internally mounted 3.5" drive, and simply disconnect when not needed?

 

[jazgreen99]

Hi there

Thank you for your reply I also have a laptop so that’s why I want an external HDD. So if I’m working on either I’ll just put them on my HDD as I prefer not using my internal storage Incase of corruption. I’ve constantly had issues with 2.5’s even on my new laptop so that’s why I wanted a 3.5 because it also has its own PSU I no there are disadvantage because it uses plugs but maybe they are better. I’m just not sure which brand to go to as I do have a seagate but the transfer speed is slow. I no I’ll never get speeds of an SSD but I want to buy something which has good reviews from people

 

[jazgreen99]

Hi there

Thank you for your reply I also have a laptop so that’s why I want an external HDD. So if I’m working on either I’ll just put them on my HDD as I prefer not using my internal storage Incase of corruption. I’ve constantly had issues with 2.5’s even on my new laptop so that’s why I wanted a 3.5 because it also has its own PSU I no there are disadvantage because it uses plugs but maybe they are better. I’m just not sure which brand to go to as I do have a seagate but the transfer speed is slow. I no I’ll never get speeds of an SSD but I want to buy something which has good reviews from people