upgrades and harddrives and bad breath

[Mandalaholic]

I posted this question, in another thread but it seems to have gotten over looked. Hope you don't mind my posting it again here.....
I did not purchase the upgraded TV paint when many of the Miragers did. I was wondering what the cost for the newest upgrade would be, given the fact that that I did not purchase the last one? So theres a gap.
Unfortunately I'm in dire need of space and speed first. My machine is stuffed to the max, and has become extremely sluggish. I tried to experiment with a 5 sec. HD project, and my computer just laughed at me before it took a nap. I'm looking at external hard drives, can anyone make any recommendations? I was told to steer clear of western digital. I'm considering getting a HD camcorder, so I figure it might b nice to have a TB. If anyone can make a suggestion, I'd really appreciate it. So does anybody even use an external hard drive?

[ematecki]

For an external drive used as a "working" drive (vs. a drive for your backups), stay clear of USB drives, they are too slow.

Choose either FireWire or e-SATA (or fibre channel if your budget allows it :)

As for Western Digital or not, it isn't really a brand problem, each brand has good drive models and really crappy ones.
(On our old server (5 years ago) we had to change all 4 drives during the first year, and they where of our prefered brand, we still have
even older drives of that same brand running without trouble today)
You have to look at the exact model of the drive you intend to purchase and check on the web what people are saying about this exact model.

If you want a Tb, go for 2x500Gb drives, they are so much reliable than the 1Tb drives... and by stripping them they'll even be faster !

[Patrice]

Hi Mandalaholic,
You will find all the answer of your questions on these two official announcement :
- First announcement
- Second announcement

[User 767]

Hard Drives:

http://www.g-technology.com/

would be my first choice. The Raid or the single. Consistently good results with them. G drive Q takes care of most interface issues.

http://www.lacie.com/us/index.htm

Inconsistent results with them, but generally good.

If you're going to build it yourself, Seagate drives are usually good. Samsung and Hitachi have been fairly good lately. IBM's are generally OK, though some aren't. Toshiba is generally OK. Still avoid Maxtor (even though they're owned by Seagate). Western Digital can be OK or not.

Interface-wise, SCSI (SAS) is probably still best. Fiber channel depends on a few things-one of them being what kind of drive it's attached to (which would functionally be an SAS array) Firewire is OK. ESata is fast and cheap, but there are some data stability issues with it.

I generally go through a couple of external drives a month. G Tech has been working well. Maxtor not, Seagate (external drives) OK, but sometimes funky.

[Mandalaholic]

Thank you guys very much for the very valuable information. Much appreciated. I have very little computer savvy so it's great to have your input. I'm so challenged in this department that I'm not even sure if my machine will support SATA. I'll check. You guys are awesome!