Help with selecting an external hard drive
 

I need help selecting an external hard drive as I now think my existing one has failed.
It has power going in and every now and the the light flashes but there is no hum from it. I have connected a usb to usb3 lead between my lap top and hard drive and I cant see the hard drive.

My duff hard drive is a Lacie d2 Quadra usb3 with 3TB storage.
I think I need to have a eSATA port.
A replacement hard drive the same but with 4tb of storage is £169.

I have no idea on costs, are there reliable cheaper 3TB hard drives about and if there is, which ones are they?

thank you

macafee2

I've always used Netgear Readynas drives.
I've always found them reliable, they contain from 2 to 6 drives, depending on the model.
They can be configured as all memory, or as a raid array (i've always used raid)
They can be hot swapped with industry standard hard drives, if one goes t*ts up you get an email, hotswap a new drive and its sorts itself out.
Older used ones from £50 or less on ebay, new ones from about £170 upwards, depending on how many drive bays you want.

Phil

You don't need an eSATA port, in fact that's the last thing you want as the interface isn't very resilient to any interruption. Stick with USB, it's faster anyway!


In terms of what to go for:
3.5" external enclosure - Link
Toshiba X300 4TB - Link


Doing it this way, you're just using a standard 3.5" which can easily be upgraded/changed if needed - and it's significantly cheaper!

will the hard drive be powered by the esata cable?


macafee2

ok changing what I need.

I need an external hard drive 3 or more TB, not costing over £100 if possible.
I don't think it matters what connection it uses, usb, esata etc but the cable will need an esata end as the other end is esata

macafee2

Phil, what is all memory and or raid array ? Bays?
I just want an external hard drive that I can connect to my DVR. The DVR end is esata. I'm not good with pc's so I don't understand technology and the terms

macafee2

Buy this https://www.the75andztclub.co.uk/for...d.php?t=306239 and then follow this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9SaTPkbglA total cost £50

Thank you Atlan,good idea. I will see about taking mine apart tomorrow and then see about contacting Stubie. The video made it seem so easy.


macafee2

If you have, for example two 1tb hard discs in your drive bays, you can use the 2 tb as is, or you can set up a "raid array".

This means that you have 1tb of memory to use, but the other disk simply mimics the first disk.

If one disk goes bust, the second disk takes over.

You get a message from the array software.

You buy another disk, slot it in, and the system sorts it all out.

It's like an automatic back up, you just run it and forget about it.

It's gone a bit out of favour nowadays with cloud storage, but I prefer to keep all my data in house.

Phil

If you need to access the old files ? I've had drives stick and not rotate, worth a try powering up and give it good shake, and or good whack with rubber mallet / piece of wood .
Not normally recommended. :duh: but what you got to loose. :D

Plus another thumbs up for Netgear had my NAS for many years