2TB drives?

I want to buy a couple external hard drives for backing up my new
Windows 7 computer. My old external drives are 160GB and 320GB Western
Digital My Passport Essentials, and they've worked well.

I was planning to get 1TB drives of this brand, but there are now 2TB
drives that aren't much pricier. Are the 2TB drives generally as
reliable as the 1TB? And is WD still considered a good brand?

--
Jo-Anne

Jo-Anne wrote in :

I want to buy a couple external hard drives for backing up my new
Windows 7 computer. My old external drives are 160GB and 320GB Western
Digital My Passport Essentials, and they've worked well.

I was planning to get 1TB drives of this brand, but there are now 2TB
drives that aren't much pricier. Are the 2TB drives generally as
reliable as the 1TB? And is WD still considered a good brand?


So far as I know, there are no major differences in reliability between 1 T
and 2 T drives.

I bought a new hard drive for an older computer about 18 months ago. I
noticed that the only brands I still saw often were WD and Seagate. The
salesman told me that a lot of HD manufacturers from 15 years ago are gone
now, and then he said that "WD drives are now made by Seagate", but I am
not sure if that is accurate or not.

Tony

In article , says...

I want to buy a couple external hard drives for backing up my new
Windows 7 computer. My old external drives are 160GB and 320GB Western
Digital My Passport Essentials, and they've worked well.

I was planning to get 1TB drives of this brand, but there are now 2TB
drives that aren't much pricier. Are the 2TB drives generally as
reliable as the 1TB? And is WD still considered a good brand?

I still consider WD a good brand. Only caution I would advise is the
included backup software on some of their drives. It apparently
automatically installs a device driver to facilitate encryption. Problem
is you cannot stop it although can remove being able to "see" it. I've
read the details of how it works and personally dislike the idea.

"Jo-Anne" wrote in message
...
I want to buy a couple external hard drives for backing up my new Windows
7 computer. My old external drives are 160GB and 320GB Western Digital My
Passport Essentials, and they've worked well.

I was planning to get 1TB drives of this brand, but there are now 2TB
drives that aren't much pricier. Are the 2TB drives generally as reliable
as the 1TB? And is WD still considered a good brand?

--
Jo-Anne

Drive reliability

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/1...le-hard-drives

Ted...

In article ,
says...

Jo-Anne wrote in :

I want to buy a couple external hard drives for backing up my new
Windows 7 computer. My old external drives are 160GB and 320GB Western
Digital My Passport Essentials, and they've worked well.

I was planning to get 1TB drives of this brand, but there are now 2TB
drives that aren't much pricier. Are the 2TB drives generally as
reliable as the 1TB? And is WD still considered a good brand?


So far as I know, there are no major differences in reliability between 1 T
and 2 T drives.

I bought a new hard drive for an older computer about 18 months ago. I
noticed that the only brands I still saw often were WD and Seagate. The
salesman told me that a lot of HD manufacturers from 15 years ago are gone
now, and then he said that "WD drives are now made by Seagate", but I am
not sure if that is accurate or not.

Tony

Here in Canada you still see other name external hard disks for sale.
Problem is you don't know what's inside for an actual hard disk with
them unless do some research. How easy warranty is also another matter.

I have a 3Tb Seagate, 1TB WD, 2Tb Seagate, 500Gb WD and a 120Gb Toshiba
all externals. Also have a 750Gb Seagate and a 1Tb WD portable. The
portables have run flawlessly for few years now. only on when needed.
The externals are always on 24/7. The two external Seagates both
replaced under warranty some time ago now. The WD external just outlived
itself so opened it up put another WD "Green" in it (it's like an
enclosure). I prefer WD's myself.

On Sun, 12 Apr 2015 18:31:01 -0500, Jo-Anne
wrote:

I want to buy a couple external hard drives for backing up my new
Windows 7 computer. My old external drives are 160GB and 320GB Western
Digital My Passport Essentials, and they've worked well.

I was planning to get 1TB drives of this brand, but there are now 2TB
drives that aren't much pricier. Are the 2TB drives generally as
reliable as the 1TB? And is WD still considered a good brand?


Leaving aside any question of brands (I don't feel qualified enough to
have an opinion), these days I wouldn't buy anything smaller than 2TB.

Jo-Anne wrote:
I want to buy a couple external hard drives for backing up my new
Windows 7 computer. My old external drives are 160GB and 320GB Western
Digital My Passport Essentials, and they've worked well.

I was planning to get 1TB drives of this brand, but there are now 2TB
drives that aren't much pricier. Are the 2TB drives generally as
reliable as the 1TB? And is WD still considered a good brand?


The best part about a 2TB drive, is it is below the 2.2TB capacity
limit. That means you can use the drive on a number of older
computers, without a problem. (The 2.2TB limit comes from
32 bit sector numbers in the MBR partition table.)

If you purchase a 3TB drive, and wish to use the whole thing
as one giant partition, you use Windows 7 GPT (GUID Partition
Table) method. The drive will then work fine on Windows7,
but may not be all that useful for backing up computers
with some older OS on them.

I own a couple 3TB drives and use the Acronis Capacity Manager
driver, which splits the drive into a 2TB physical drive and
a 1TB virtual drive. Two items appear in Disk Management. But
that's not a particularly friendly setup. I've suffered some
hair loss while using it.

So I can thoroughly recommend the purchase of a 2TB drive.
It's the highest capacity that is "care free".

*******

As for reliability, the manufacturers try to keep only
a few platter densities in play on a given year. For
example, a platter may hold 1TB. Using only one surface
of a platter, might make a 500GB hard drive. Using two
platters makes a 2TB drive. Using three platters makes
a 3TB drive. By doing it that way, they're grinding out
the same platter design for all products.

Generally, drive performance is a tiny bit better with
a four platter drive. As some of the accesses don't
require moving the head assembly, and you pay only a
1 millisecond penalty for a "head switch". A four platter
drive has eight heads.

Reliability may be better with a single platter drive
(as airflow over the surface may be able to clear
particulate off it a bit better). But you won't
get much drive density, by using a rule like that.
I have around four drives purchased using the single
platter rule, and it didn't make a damn bit of
difference to how long they lasted. That's because
the current flying height on drives, is just too small.

So far, my latest batch of WD, is lasting better than
my latest batch of Seagate.

And what is really weird, is I have a ST3500418AS from
Seagate, with 22740 power-on-hours on it. It has
significantly outlasted many of its brothers. Reallocated
sectors still reads zero. Even an HDTune benchmark is
"smoother" than many of my other drives. Don't ask me why that
drive is significantly better than my Seagate "DM" series
drives. Sometimes you do get a good one... But not often.

Paul

On Sun, 12 Apr 2015 18:31:01 -0500 "Jo-Anne" wrote
in article

I want to buy a couple external hard drives for backing up my new
Windows 7 computer. My old external drives are 160GB and 320GB Western
Digital My Passport Essentials, and they've worked well.

I was planning to get 1TB drives of this brand, but there are now 2TB
drives that aren't much pricier. Are the 2TB drives generally as
reliable as the 1TB? And is WD still considered a good brand?

I have three WD 2TB drives, one internal and two USB(3) external, and
they have been just fine. I gave up on Seagate years ago. Don't be
tempted to go to 3TB; Win 7 doesn't handle them with some hoop-jumping.

In article , says...

Jo-Anne wrote:
I want to buy a couple external hard drives for backing up my new
Windows 7 computer. My old external drives are 160GB and 320GB Western
Digital My Passport Essentials, and they've worked well.

I was planning to get 1TB drives of this brand, but there are now 2TB
drives that aren't much pricier. Are the 2TB drives generally as
reliable as the 1TB? And is WD still considered a good brand?


The best part about a 2TB drive, is it is below the 2.2TB capacity
limit. That means you can use the drive on a number of older
computers, without a problem. (The 2.2TB limit comes from
32 bit sector numbers in the MBR partition table.)

If you purchase a 3TB drive, and wish to use the whole thing
as one giant partition, you use Windows 7 GPT (GUID Partition
Table) method. The drive will then work fine on Windows7,
but may not be all that useful for backing up computers
with some older OS on them.

I own a couple 3TB drives and use the Acronis Capacity Manager
driver, which splits the drive into a 2TB physical drive and
a 1TB virtual drive. Two items appear in Disk Management. But
that's not a particularly friendly setup. I've suffered some
hair loss while using it.

So I can thoroughly recommend the purchase of a 2TB drive.
It's the highest capacity that is "care free".

*******

As for reliability, the manufacturers try to keep only
a few platter densities in play on a given year. For
example, a platter may hold 1TB. Using only one surface
of a platter, might make a 500GB hard drive. Using two
platters makes a 2TB drive. Using three platters makes
a 3TB drive. By doing it that way, they're grinding out
the same platter design for all products.

Generally, drive performance is a tiny bit better with
a four platter drive. As some of the accesses don't
require moving the head assembly, and you pay only a
1 millisecond penalty for a "head switch". A four platter
drive has eight heads.

Reliability may be better with a single platter drive
(as airflow over the surface may be able to clear
particulate off it a bit better). But you won't

Yea, I've had a couple of drives last significantly longer than ever
expected. In fact think I retired a few simply because they got so small
relative to current size requirements. Think I even still have a couple
old 20-100Mb IDE drives should still work in a box somewhere. A very old
laptop I have still runs has just as old a 3Gb drive in it works fine
etc.

Seems to me as drives got bigger reliability decreased. I'd suggest
manufacturers recognized that and lowered their warranties accordingly,
e.g. it used to be 5 years in late 80's and thru the nineties now most
are 1 yr especially external and portables.

In article ,
says...

On Sun, 12 Apr 2015 18:31:01 -0500 "Jo-Anne" wrote
in article

I want to buy a couple external hard drives for backing up my new
Windows 7 computer. My old external drives are 160GB and 320GB Western
Digital My Passport Essentials, and they've worked well.

I was planning to get 1TB drives of this brand, but there are now 2TB
drives that aren't much pricier. Are the 2TB drives generally as
reliable as the 1TB? And is WD still considered a good brand?

I have three WD 2TB drives, one internal and two USB(3) external, and
they have been just fine. I gave up on Seagate years ago. Don't be
tempted to go to 3TB; Win 7 doesn't handle them with some hoop-jumping.

I had no problems whatever hooking a 3Tb Seagate up to my Win7 pc. I
suspect it'd been factory formatted to GPT. Mounted without issue and
allowed me to copy off the crap they included on it.

3Tb likely a problem want to use it with older OS's but I have other
externals if need be for that. In fact even keep one formatted "exfat"
so it'll work in a Mac also.

On 4/12/2015 6:31 PM, Jo-Anne wrote:
I want to buy a couple external hard drives for backing up my new
Windows 7 computer. My old external drives are 160GB and 320GB Western
Digital My Passport Essentials, and they've worked well.

I was planning to get 1TB drives of this brand, but there are now 2TB
drives that aren't much pricier. Are the 2TB drives generally as
reliable as the 1TB? And is WD still considered a good brand?


Thank you, everyone! Looks like it'll be one or two 2TB drives from WD
(although I saw from the article Ted linked to that Hitachi is supposed
to be very good). If I have trouble figuring out how to get rid of, or
at least hide, WD's software, I'll come back here for help. I remember
having to get rid of WD software on my 320GB drives a few years ago.

--
Jo-Anne

Jo-Anne wrote:
I want to buy a couple external hard drives for backing up my new
Windows 7 computer. My old external drives are 160GB and 320GB Western
Digital My Passport Essentials, and they've worked well.

I was planning to get 1TB drives of this brand, but there are now 2TB
drives that aren't much pricier. Are the 2TB drives generally as
reliable as the 1TB? And is WD still considered a good brand?

FWIW I have five Western Digital My Passport Ultra drives, for backing
up my Windows 7 computer.

Three 2TB drives have been used (in rotation) every day for the last two
years, and the two 1TB for rather longer but less frequently.

They've all been 100% reliable. The only improvement I could reasonably
wish for is the inclusion of a soft case in the box.

--
Mike Barnes
Cheshire, England

Jo-Anne wrote:
I want to buy a couple external hard drives for backing up my new
Windows 7 computer. My old external drives are 160GB and 320GB Western
Digital My Passport Essentials, and they've worked well.

I was planning to get 1TB drives of this brand, but there are now 2TB
drives that aren't much pricier. Are the 2TB drives generally as
reliable as the 1TB? And is WD still considered a good brand?

Some years ago, I wouldn't have given a plugged nickel for WD, had two 150
GB drives expire within a week after the 1 year guarantee. Now, I think
they are fine.

Hint #1: Avoid drives with only a one year guarantee, go for three at least.

Hint #2: check your credit cards to see if they extend the seller's warantee
when paying with the card. In the case of my two WD drives, paying with my
Master Card doubled the warantee to two years and - since they died in
slightly over a year - MC reimbursed me in full. Took some arguing but they
did it

--

dadiOH
____________________________

Winters getting colder? Tired of the rat race?
Taxes out of hand? Maybe just ready for a change?
Check it out... http://www.floridaloghouse.net

Jo-Anne wrote:
I want to buy a couple external hard drives for backing up my new
Windows 7 computer. My old external drives are 160GB and 320GB Western
Digital My Passport Essentials, and they've worked well.

I was planning to get 1TB drives of this brand, but there are now 2TB
drives that aren't much pricier. Are the 2TB drives generally as
reliable as the 1TB? And is WD still considered a good brand?


I'd like to put in a recommendation for "portable" 2TB drives; USB power
is sufficient, which makes them like a large memory stick. I can easily
put two in a pocket. They come in different colours too.

I started with a WD one, but put it in the cupboard after I became
thoroughly pestered and annoyed with the virtual CD drive it installs
(no "don't install" option). I moved to Seagate, and haven't look back.
I have one each on three desktops (red, brown & yellow to avoid
confusion), and I use the pesky WD one for backing up various tablets
and phones.
http://tinyurl.com/n2nat9e

Ed

Ed Cryer wrote:
Jo-Anne wrote:
I want to buy a couple external hard drives for backing up my new
Windows 7 computer. My old external drives are 160GB and 320GB Western
Digital My Passport Essentials, and they've worked well.

I was planning to get 1TB drives of this brand, but there are now 2TB
drives that aren't much pricier. Are the 2TB drives generally as
reliable as the 1TB? And is WD still considered a good brand?


I'd like to put in a recommendation for "portable" 2TB drives; USB power
is sufficient, which makes them like a large memory stick. I can easily
put two in a pocket. They come in different colours too.

I started with a WD one, but put it in the cupboard after I became
thoroughly pestered and annoyed with the virtual CD drive it installs
(no "don't install" option).

This is the second reference I've seen to WD software. Is any software
needed? I just plugged my new drives in and they started working
straight away. Has that changed?

I did find some software on the drives but I just created a "WD
software" folder, moved it there, and have never felt the need to look
at it since.

--
Mike Barnes
Cheshire, England