Hard Drive Bargain Watch

[8bitbytes]

On the subject of enclosures...

In case this sounds like a good idea to any of you, I will be using a USB 2.0 / eSATA enclosure that uses a quick release tray for the drives. I will mount each drive in its own tray - that way I don't need to plug and unplug cables and manhandle the drive excessively. It's basically an extra $20 for each drive, adding on a tray, but worth it to me.

The enclosure:
Newegg.com - ICY DOCK MB559US-1SMB Aluminum body w/ partial plastic 3.5" USB 2.0 & eSATA External Enclosure - Retail

Extra trays:
Newegg.com - ICY DOCK MB123SRCK-1B Extra hard drive tray - Retail

 

[gadgtfreek]

I have to look at those. I had my exthdd in a Apricorn Ez Bus for my Scientific Atlanta 8300hd and was very happy with it. Good and quiet.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817362002

This is a good case from Apricorn:

Newegg.com - APRICORN EZ-BUS-DTC-KIT Aluminum 3.5" USB & 1394 External Enclosure - Retail

 

[EvilEuro]

What I'd like is a suggestion on a top quality 500 or 750, at a reasonable price. And ready to go, in the case, just plug it in.

I'm more interested in buying a drive that will last many years than one that is the cheapest I can find.

If you're concerened about quality of drive and support, then I say get a Seagate hard drive, either a bare drive that you'll put in your own enclosure or one of their ready-made external drives. All Seagate drives come with a FIVE (5) year warranty and they're easy to deal with if a drive does go bad.

Never had a problem with them and the warranty alone is worth it.

 

[8bitbytes]

Im assuming we'd need this one for USB correct?

Newegg.com - APRICORN EZ-BUS-DTC-KIT Aluminum 3.5" USB & 1394 External Enclosure - Retail

Yeah, that would do it. I just don't want to have to take the enclosure apart every time I need to swap a drive...

Hey, stop bumping up your post count!

 

[gadgtfreek]

Yeah, that would do it. I just don't want to have to take the enclosure apart every time I need to swap a drive...

Hey, stop bumping up your post count!

Yeah, I am a watch and delete person so 1 750gig drive will be plenty for me.

I need to delete the other link so it does not confuse people. Wonder why E* opted for usb instead of esata, isnt esata superior?

Also, when you get a chance, I have a projector question for you in the pub.

If I dont keep posting Ill never catch Iceberg

 

[gadgtfreek]

If you're concerened about quality of drive and support, then I say get a Seagate hard drive, either a bare drive that you'll put in your own enclosure or one of their ready-made external drives. All Seagate drives come with a FIVE (5) year warranty and they're easy to deal with if a drive does go bad.

Never had a problem with them and the warranty alone is worth it.

Same could be said for WD Caviars which we found best for video on the Scientific Atlanta Boxes. I dont want a drive that will fail every year just beacause it has a 5yr warranty. Also Im betting some drives will work better with the 622 than others.

Not to start an argument, I just think much is going to depend on the 622 and E*. As soon as this is active we need to start logging drives people are buying and which ones are working.

As far as repair rate, if you look you can find complaints on Seagate, WD and Maxtor.

I personally only buy WD or Seagate, usually WD.

 

[datwell]

Yeah, I am a watch and delete person so 1 750gig drive will be plenty for me.

I need to delete the other link so it does not confuse people. Wonder why E* opted for usb instead of esata, isnt esata superior?

Also, when you get a chance, I have a projector question for you in the pub.

If I dont keep posting Ill never catch Iceberg

USB 2.0 = 480 meg max, SATA III = 3.0 Gb max - USB is plenty fast enough plus USB is cheap, widely understood and widely available.

My guess anyway.

--Doug

 

[gadgtfreek]

USB 2.0 = 480 meg max, SATA III = 300 meg max plus USB is cheap, widely understood and widely available.

My guess anyway.

--Doug

eSata (what the SA8300hd was) is 3.0Gbit/s

Usb 2.0 can burst to 480Mbits/s

Doug, I just noticed you changed your data to reflect the proper number for esata.

 

[ndyclrk]

Here's a rolling list of hard drive deals.

Hard Drives Coupons and Deals

It's also available as an rss feed:

BensBargains.net Most Recent Hard Drives Offers

 

[sgip2000]

Since E* stated that "virtually any drive" will work, I'm assuming that any drive/enclosure that is Mass Storage compliant, will work on the USB port. If this is true, that would open a lot of options.

Too bad they don't support 1394 or ESATA. Much better choices for video.

 

[gadgtfreek]

Since E* stated that "virtually any drive" will work, I'm assuming that any drive/enclosure that is Mass Storage compliant, will work on the USB port. If this is true, that would open a lot of options.

Too bad they don't support 1394 or ESATA. Much better choices for video.

I still think itll be important to track what drives people are buying and if they are working 100% without stuttering.

I honestly do not believe the "virtually any drive" statement.

 

[8bitbytes]

Too bad they don't support 1394 or ESATA. Much better choices for video.

Except that the 622 and other boxes don't have a firewire or eSata port on them. USB 2.0 is more than enough.

 

[kstuart]

On the subject of enclosures...

There was only one trend that jumped out at me from the data above on how well drives worked with that cable DVR - that external drives with built-in enclosures all worked fine, while the drives put into enclosures worked less well.

These days, the external USB drives are no more expensive than separate drives and enclosures, and you don't have to do anything - just plug it in.

I think that the WD and Seagate engineers are better judges of what is a good, reliable enclosure - and their huge volume purchasing power is that gets the total price of an external drive to be roughly equivalent to putting it together yourself.

 

[gadgtfreek]

There was only one trend that jumped out at me from the data above on how well drives worked with that cable DVR - that external drives with built-in enclosures all worked fine, while the drives put into enclosures worked less well.

These days, the external USB drives are no more expensive than separate drives and enclosures, and you don't have to do anything - just plug it in.

I think that the WD and Seagate engineers are better judges of what is a good, reliable enclosure - and their huge volume purchasing power is that gets the total price of an external drive to be roughly equivalent to putting it together yourself.

Mine was a Apricorn eSata enclosure with a 250gig WD Caviar 7200rpm (SE16 was recommended for the 16mb cache and 3gig transfer rate) and worked fine. I also put it together at the time for cheaper and buying a WD external HDD.

Ill re-evaluate it all again, but will most likely stick with the WD 7200. As far as enclosure or not will depend on pricing at the time.

 

[8bitbytes]

There was only one trend that jumped out at me from the data above on how well drives worked with that cable DVR - that external drives with built-in enclosures all worked fine, while the drives put into enclosures worked less well...

...I think that the WD and Seagate engineers are better judges of what is a good, reliable enclosure - and their huge volume purchasing power is that gets the total price of an external drive to be roughly equivalent to putting it together yourself.

Exactly, most likely due to "handling". The circuits are sensitive and if people handle the drives the way I see people tossing around laptops, it's no wonder they fail.

That's whay I am going to enclose mine ONCE in a tray and leave them that way.

As for Seagate and WD being better judges... LOL

The article also said the large companies attitude was one of 2year lifespan throw aways.

HANDLING is the big reason for external drive failure.

 

[gadgtfreek]

Exactly, most likely due to "handling". The circuits are sensitive and if people handle the drives the way I see people tossing around laptops, it's no wonder they fail.

That's whay I am going to enclose mine ONCE in a tray and leave them that way.

As for Seagate and WD being better judges... LOL

The article also said the large companies attitude was one of 2year lifespan throw aways.

HANDLING is the big reason for external drive failure.

Handling is not an issue in my case, like I said I just hav eit for overflow backup. I dont think my apricorn moved in the 4 mo's I had it.

 

[shanewalker]

Newegg.com - Buy Computer Parts, PC Components, Laptop Computers, Digital Cameras and more!

Well, with a number of solid choices for 1TB drives from New Egg (Fantom, Western Digital and Maxtor, etc.), many w/ triple-interface (USB 2.0/Firewire 400/Firewire 800)...for $350, I'm hoping that the 'terabyte' issue is resolve by the time the feature is released. Amazon also had some Lacie and such in the low 300s (via Beach Photo, I think). My feeling is, get a solid unit that runs as quiet as possible...spending a couple of bucks more for a retail enclosure instead of a DIY (esp. when they're this cheap) is worth it IMHO for piece of mind via a little thing called a warranty.

I've had good luck w/ my Maxtor 1TB OneTouch III triple-interface (have played back vip622/R5000-HD recorded files and archived/dubbed to D-VHS several times via USB 2.0 and my trusty 6yr-old Mac laptop). Actually, its almost full of HD recordings, so I need to get another one soon, regardless of E*s plans.

 

[8bitbytes]

The line of drives made by Seagate SPECIFICALLY for DVRs is the DB35 family. Here's why you should spend more on them versus the deal of the day:

Thermal Control: On board sensors monitor temperature and adjust characteristics as necessary to keep the temperature optimal.
Acoustic Management: DVR-specific drives are specially tuned to run as quietly as possible.
A/V Streaming: DVR-specific drives have been optimized and tuned to provide consistent data to the PVR processor. Standard desktop drives can hang while retrying drive reads - QuickView drives know to move ahead and provide more data to keep video smooth.
Error Recovery: Desktop drives retry on errors to make sure that your Excel spreadsheet is exactly right - it's imperative. But when watching video, if one block of data is bad, you may not even notice a dark spot on one frame for 1/30th of a second. So these drives are tuned to move past errors faster, putting the stream of data as top priority. Where desktop drives often cause stutters, these drives run smooth.

http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/consumer_electronics/db35_series/

 

[Smith P.]

Yea, AV grade disks was on the market for last few years.
Was it Maxtor the first company who invent it for hotel's VOD systems - remember RAIDIION ?

 

[KAB]

What do you all think about this supplier/price?
SEAGATE - ST3500830ACE - Seagate DB35 Series 7200.3 Hard Drive