Average Life of External Hard Drive

thanhtan · 12-13-2008, 04:41 PM

I seem to be having a lot of problems with external firewire drives. I've lost 2 in the last 6 months. One makes a weird clicking noise and the other just refuses to mount. Both drives have been Lacie drives. I know that can't be the norm. What kind of life do you get out of your external drivers? Do anyone recommend a good brand to use? I'm getting tired of my Lacie drives dieing

busweb · 12-13-2008, 08:07 PM

I made an external drive from a laptop drive and I bought a special case for it. It goes very well, it already has 1 year and goes better than ever.

PC eye · 12-13-2008, 09:21 PM

While external enclosures have been available for some time the line up of external self powered external drives has been rather recent in the last 2yrs. where no one can say just how long a good working drive will last. The initial complaints by some were that some ran hot? I haven't that to be the case with the Western Digital model in use here.

Lacie sounds like a generic brand just like any of the other quick popup names where they simply bulk order drives from a manufacturer(no one knows who) and slaps them in some cheap external casings! Stay with an established brand like WD or Seagate there.

As far as the drive not mounting you have to download the replacement zip files for the software and unpack that onto the drive to see the installer come up again or simply change the Factory Fat32 partition to NTFS where Windows will automatically install it as a new logical drive. With the Fat32 gone here I can unplug and replug the drive in to see the autoplay popup as the drive is redetected by Windows.

Twist86 · 12-13-2008, 10:24 PM

I have to agree with the above...Seagate or WD are a good choice.

I have had Seagate drives last over 32,000 hours and still kicking which is pretty impressive imo....though I don't use them but for internal storage drives (leave un-powered till I need um) since 2mb cache = SLOW vista boot ^-^

PC eye · 12-14-2008, 04:37 AM

From what others have mentioned lately they can take the drive out of an external housing and run the drive internally since the drives are still either a standard ide or sata drive simply placed in the self powered external housing. I haven't tried that one here quite yet since why break what isn't broke already!

12-13-2008, 04:41 PM	#1 (permalink)
thanhtan New Member Join Date: Dec 2008 Posts: 3	Average Life of External Hard Drive I seem to be having a lot of problems with external firewire drives. I've lost 2 in the last 6 months. One makes a weird clicking noise and the other just refuses to mount. Both drives have been Lacie drives. I know that can't be the norm. What kind of life do you get out of your external drivers? Do anyone recommend a good brand to use? I'm getting tired of my Lacie drives dieing __________________ Coupon Thunder

12-13-2008, 10:24 PM	#4 (permalink)
Twist86 Diamond Member Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Missouri Age: 23 Posts: 2,331	I have to agree with the above...Seagate or WD are a good choice. I have had Seagate drives last over 32,000 hours and still kicking which is pretty impressive imo....though I don't use them but for internal storage drives (leave un-powered till I need um) since 2mb cache = SLOW vista boot ^-^ __________________ Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 400x8- 3.2ghz / XFX GTX 260 868mb 192 Core 2x2GB G-skill PC6400 DDR2 800 / Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST3500418AS GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3R LGA 775 (rev. 1.0) / TX750w Corsair PSU Antec 900 Case / 1680x1050 Acer X223W 22'' Logitech S-220 Speakers / Windows 7 Ultimate x64

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12-13-2008, 08:07 PM	#2 (permalink)
busweb New Member Join Date: Dec 2008 Posts: 10	I made an external drive from a laptop drive and I bought a special case for it. It goes very well, it already has 1 year and goes better than ever.

12-13-2008, 09:21 PM	#3 (permalink)
PC eye banned Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 21,091	While external enclosures have been available for some time the line up of external self powered external drives has been rather recent in the last 2yrs. where no one can say just how long a good working drive will last. The initial complaints by some were that some ran hot? I haven't that to be the case with the Western Digital model in use here. Lacie sounds like a generic brand just like any of the other quick popup names where they simply bulk order drives from a manufacturer(no one knows who) and slaps them in some cheap external casings! Stay with an established brand like WD or Seagate there. As far as the drive not mounting you have to download the replacement zip files for the software and unpack that onto the drive to see the installer come up again or simply change the Factory Fat32 partition to NTFS where Windows will automatically install it as a new logical drive. With the Fat32 gone here I can unplug and replug the drive in to see the autoplay popup as the drive is redetected by Windows.

12-14-2008, 04:37 AM	#5 (permalink)
PC eye banned Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 21,091	From what others have mentioned lately they can take the drive out of an external housing and run the drive internally since the drives are still either a standard ide or sata drive simply placed in the self powered external housing. I haven't tried that one here quite yet since why break what isn't broke already!