My experience suggests HD brands are a crapshoot. They've all had
periods of trouble, but if I was buying today I'd go with Seagate or
Western Digital. For external drives, I suspect that it's best to have
a metal case for cooling.
I think the external, powered drives are the best for backup, but
online ("Cloud") storage supplemented by optical media is a must for
critical data.



On Mon, Jul 20, 2009 at 1:04 PM, Betti Ann and Preston
Smith<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Good Afternoon!
>
> My backup hard drive, an external Samsung, is operating intermittently -
> power is dying and kicking back in - both in and out of the case.  So it is
> time to look for an alternative
>
> First question - what is the pecking order of Hard Drives?  I seem to get
> the impression that Hitachis are best followed by Western Digital, Seagate -
> I have no idea where Samsung's, Fujisto and Maxtor stand.  Or at the end of
> the day, are they all sorta kinda the same?
>
> I use my Back up drive to back up the data from my Desktop, to transfer that
> same data to my laptop, and to backup my laptop.  Synchtoy 2 keeps it all
> synchronized nicely and only Microsoft's inability to maintain standard data
> sub-folders between Vista and Xp causes a problem.  I suppose Windows 7 will
> have a new set of 'standard' folders.  Except for my annual 4 month
> migration to southern climates the external drive sits on my desk.  When I
> travel I wrap in layers of towelling and carry it in a dedicated laptop bag
>
> With the above lead in, my second question is what are your thoughts on
> which is the better alternative - an external desktop drive, a portable hard
> drive or one or more internal drives plugged into a hard drive porting
> device?
>
> Thanks for any info you might provide that will help me make a better
> decision.
>
> Preston

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