Which Portable HD is better? - Calgarypuck Forums - The Unofficial Calgary Flames Fan Community

saskflames69 · 03-23-2012, 05:21 PM

I went looking for portable hard drives today. I have narrowed my choice down to two options.
Hitachi Touro Mobile 750GB portable hard drive for $100 at Best Buy
Seagate GoFlex 500GB portable hard drive for $100 at Best Buy

I am wondering how reliable are these? I know the 750GB option sounds better, but I have never dealt with Hitachi before. What would be the better buy?

Vulcan · 03-23-2012, 05:42 PM

I'd check out the speed and the software that comes with the hard drive as well as any reviews you can find, to find an answer.

saskflames69 · 03-23-2012, 05:44 PM

I'm more worried about reliability and failure rates. I really do not want to end up having to replace this in a year.

Hack&Lube · 03-23-2012, 05:50 PM

Buy a laptop drive of your choice and enclosure of your choice separately and build your own portable drive.

Is USB 3.0 important to you?

sclitheroe · 03-23-2012, 05:52 PM

Pretty much impossible to know, since we don't know the specs on the drives inside the enclosure - what G and vibration ratings, load/unload mechanism, and whether they have any kind of auto-park sensing built in.

And generally speaking, none of that matters - mobile hard drives take a lot of abuse, and I doubt either is going to have a huge reliability advantage compared to the other. On that basis, I'd get the larger drive simply because its better value (The Seagate is USB3, but I doubt a 5400 RPM laptop drive can take advantage of USB3, so the USB2 interface on the Hitachi is fine)

MrMastodonFarm · 03-23-2012, 05:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

Buy a laptop drive of your choice and enclosure of your choice separately and build your own portable drive.

Is USB 3.0 important to you?

Come on Hack&Lube, not everyone thinks like this, nor can or has the desire to do so.

Hack&Lube · 03-23-2012, 06:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrMastodonFarm

Come on Hack&Lube, not everyone thinks like this, nor can or has the desire to do so.

It's literally putting something into a box. Everybody can do that. Buying a drive separately allows someone much more choice because you often don't know what drive is actually in a commercial enclosure. Like sclitheroe said, you don't know the specs of the drives inside commercial enclosure packages so it's hard to say anything in regard to reliability which is what the OP asked. The best you can do is buy the one with the best warranty but that won't protect your data.

My main concern with a portable HD is speed so it's fair to ask if he wants USB 3.0 or not although I assume many store bought drives are USB 3.0 compatible now, some stock and models are still not.

Isn't saskflames96 like 16? He's not 64. He can do it.

saskflames69 · 03-23-2012, 06:06 PM

The Hitachi is USB 2.0

No word on warranty.

Hack&Lube · 03-23-2012, 06:06 PM

USB 2.0 will be much slower but many computers don't have USB 3.0 slots yet.

Hack&Lube · 03-23-2012, 06:08 PM

Seagate drive has 2 year warranty compared to 1 year warranty for Hitachi. Go for Seagate if that's USB 3.0. It will make a huge difference if you have USB 3.0 ports (usually blue).

saskflames69 · 03-23-2012, 06:15 PM

My laptop only has 2.0 ports, so I don't know if the benefits would be the same.

sclitheroe · 03-23-2012, 06:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

It will make a huge difference if you have USB 3.0 ports (usually blue).

On a 5400 RPM 2.5" SATA drive? Do you think so? I have't tried USB3, since I'm a firewire snob, so I don't know.

Hack&Lube · 03-23-2012, 06:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sclitheroe

On a 5400 RPM 2.5" SATA drive? Do you think so? I have't tried USB3, since I'm a firewire snob, so I don't know.

The mechanical drive is certainly a bottleneck but I've seen burst speed about 2-3x over USB 3.0. Sustained transfer is not always that fast but it has usually been faster for me. I was dumping some virtual images onto external HDDs and the USB 2.0 one was going about 20-30MB/s and the USB 3.0 one was 60-90MB/s.

sclitheroe · 03-23-2012, 07:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

The mechanical drive is certainly a bottleneck but I've seen burst speed about 2-3x over USB 3.0. Sustained transfer is not always that fast but it has usually been faster for me. I was dumping some virtual images onto external HDDs and the USB 2.0 one was going about 20-30MB/s and the USB 3.0 one was 60-90MB/s.

Nice!

SebC · 03-23-2012, 09:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

It's literally putting something into a box. Everybody can do that. Buying a drive separately allows someone much more choice because you often don't know what drive is actually in a commercial enclosure.

The thing is internal drives often cost more than external ones. Add to that the cost of the enclosure and it makes building your own tough to justify most of the time.

sclitheroe · 03-23-2012, 10:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

Seagate drive has 2 year warranty compared to 1 year warranty for Hitachi. Go for Seagate if that's USB 3.0. It will make a huge difference if you have USB 3.0 ports (usually blue).

Another interesting angle on the warranty is that buying a bare drive and putting it in an enclosure yourself usually gets you a better warranty - a bare Seagate hard drive will come with a 3 or 5 year warranty (pretty sure the Momentus line is 5 years), compared to 2 years on their pre-assembled consumer lineup.

sclitheroe · 03-23-2012, 10:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SebC

The thing is internal drives often cost more than external ones. Add to that the cost of the enclosure and it makes building your own tough to justify most of the time.

A top of the line Momentus with the auto-park shock protection is like $104, and comes with a 3 year warranty:
http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX23361

Add a $12 enclosure:
http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX24680

And now, for $20 more than the Seagate or Toshiba originally listed, we've got a 7200 rpm drive, with double the cache, plus the shock protection and a 3 year warranty.

Jimmy Stang · 03-24-2012, 10:08 AM

After my little work backup drive failed, I replaced it (in the same enclosure) with a 120 gig solid state drive. Because it goes back and forth to and from work every day, I think that it simply took too much abuse for a mechanical drive and eventually failed.

Obviously the cost per gig is a lot higher, but if reliability and portability are more important than the size, it is an option to consider.

And although it sounds really nerdy and technical for someone who hasn't done it before, putting a drive in an enclosure really is one of the easiest things you can do. Can you tighten a few screws? You're qualified.