
Ask HN: Recommended external Hard Drive - nkh
I have had a couple of external dives fail on me over the years.  Before I purchase the next, I was wondering if there are any units that you would highly recommend.
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valarauca1
Generally speaking don't buy a packaged external hard drive. Getting an
enclosure is your best bet. This means you'll actually be able to select the
class of the hard drive, its size, and specs via consumer research. Not buying
some black box.

The second thing to look into is an external power supply. While this seems
bulky, extra cords, etc. It will help extend the life of your drive since
you'll be less prone to rapid plug/unplug/plug cycles that are better left for
USB drives, not spinning hard drivers, and keep its power up allowing for it
to end writes, park heads, close file system, etc. On actual power. Not power
derived from the disk slowly spinning down.

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adventured
I've had a really great experience with the WD Elements line. It seems like WD
is phasing them out in favor of the Passport slim / ultra line though. And
before moving to the Elements product, I had purchased numerous of their my
book line without any failures across several years and being on 24/7.

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ericcumbee
are you wanting external or portable? if your looking for an external that is
just going to sit on a desk. I'd just buy internal drives and a usb/sata
"toaster" dock.

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fsk
Seagate

