External HDD Purchase Advice

darkredbbb

I've been looking to purchase a 1TB external desktop hard disk drive and I've narrowed down my options to the Seagate FreeAgent Desk http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/external/freeagent/freeagent_desk and the Western Digital Elements Desktop http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=260

On one hand, the Seagate drive is available on PCandParts.com, looks really good and would probably be the drive I'd go for, but I've read not a few but A LOT of bad reviews about it on Amazon. I know that only the people that have an issue with a product post reviews about it, but the number of negative posts on that page is outrageous.

On the other hand the WD drive seems like a great product but I don't know where I can find it here in Lebanon.

Would anyone recommend the Seagate drive? And any ideas where I could find the WD one?

Flakk

I have the Seagate freeagent Go 250gigs and its been working properly for a year and a half. I think the failure of the drives is really random, i mean some people never had any problems with them and some just fail after the first month. Its just you and your luck.

Just be careful while handling the HDD. (moving it around a lot while its running or accidentally dropping it on the floor)

Joe

I second what Flakk is saying.

Personal Experience:
A friend and I both bought the same external HDD from the same guy together. It was in early 2009. His crashed after a couple of months for no apparent reason. Mine is still working.

Also, beware, these are extremely sensitive devices that should be treated gently. If you care about the data on them, that is.

arithma

@Flakk and @rahmu: Random things do go under quality control and inspection. A device design that fails for 1% of the items is much better than one that fails 10% of the time (it's more about variance and length of expected lifetime, but that's too much research to buy an item).
You must hit the internet for such high distribution / high failure rate items.

I once dropped an HDD, it started clicking. After trying everything I could think of, I dropped it again. It started working. HDDs are funny.

Joe

I once dropped an HDD, it started clicking. After trying everything I could think of, I dropped it again. It started working. HDDs are funny.

^_^

darkredbbb

Alright, thanks everyone, I'm getting the Seagate drive. Wish me luck! :P

Samer99

All hard drives at my home are Seagate (internals and externals), and none of them failed.