(Disclaimer: The Amazon links in this blog post are affiliate links, so I can make a few extra coins to help pay for a fraction of the cost to host this website. #CommissionsEarned)
Yesterday, we covered my recommendations for external hard drives, Vantec NexStar CX NST-300S2-BK
for the case. And a good hard drive is a Western Digital 2 TB Caviar Green WD20EARS
. Now let’s cover the details of why I picked these choices. There are four main things to think about when picking an external hard drive.
1) The memory capacity of the hard drive
In terms of size, to me, it’s obvious to get 2TB. You’ll always fill it up. Just get the biggest size that isn’t a rip-off. 2TB has been out for a while now so it’s a good price. If you can only afford something cheaper, then go for that.
+++ Summary point 1: It’s worth the money to get the 2TB.
2) The physical size of the hard drive
2.5-inch drives are for laptops. 3.5-inch drives are used for externals. It may be tempting to get a 2.5-inch drive to be versatile. You can put it on a laptop, and you can buy an enclosure for it too. But there aren’t that many 2.5-inch enclosures. You have many more options for 3.5-inch drives. Besides, how often do you really crack open your laptop?
+++ Summary point 2: Get a 3.5-inch size drive
3) The type of hard drive
What type of internal connection should the hard drive have? There’s IDE, SATA I, and SATA II. You don’t want IDE. That’s old. And there’s really no difference between SATA I and SATA II. Both work together. Both are actually about the same speed when you do speed tests.
+++ Summary point 3: Get either SATA I or SATA II
4) The type of enclosure
The different external connections for an enclosure are USB 2.0, Firewire 400 (IEEE 1394), Firewire 800 (IEEE 1394b), eSATA, and USB 3.0.
Here’s them broken out:
USB 1.0
- 12 Mbps
- First Mac with USB 1.0: 1998
Firewire 400 (IEEE 1394)
- 400 Mbps
- First Mac with Firewire 400: January 1999
- New Macs no longer have Firewire 400 ports!
USB 2.0
- 480 Mbps
- First Mac with USB 2.0: June 2003
- Very standard
Firewire 800 (IEEE 1394b)
- 400 Mbps
- First Mac with Firewire 800: June 2003
- Macbook Pro, iMac, Mac Mini, and Mac Pro all have a Firewire 800 port. the Macbook and Macbook Air do not have Firewire 800.
eSATA
- Buggy
- No way to connect to Mac
USB 3.0
- 5,000 Mbps
- No macs have this yet
So when it comes time to buy an enclosure, what do you want? For now, all you want is USB 2.0. Don’t bother with Firewire 400 or 800. Macs no longer have Firewire 400. The enclosures that have Firewire 800 cost twice as much. When USB 3.0 comes out, your Firewire 800 enclosure is going to be old news.
+++ Summary point 4: Get USB 2.0
Overall summary:
Get a green 2TB 3.5-inch drive that has an internal connection of SATA I or SATA II. The case should just have USB 2.0.
+++ Enclosure: Vantec NexStar CX NST-300S2-BK.
+++ Hard drive: Western Digital 2 TB Caviar Green WD20EARS
Side point
Since you’ll be getting USB drives, you’ll need a hub. I like this seven-port hub because the wires don’t come out the back. It can sit flush against the wall.
Spudart’s guide to hard drives:
These are great recommendations. I’ve struggled with decision process of purchasing external cases and I always end up getting the all-in-one drives. But there’s a huge benefit of being able to swap out drives when troubleshooting a problem. My tech guy at work recommended the StarTech docks. I’m very hesitant about these devices. They’re the kind where you just plop your drive into the dock. There’s no case to put the drive into. I worry about dust collecting in the dock and thusly affecting the reliability of the connectors. I feel more secure buying a drive in a case versus buying a dock that exposes the drive’s connectors.
Your tech guy recommended something he was hesitant about?
I’m not sure if this is a good idea, but why not just buy both an external case AND an all-in-one hard drive? You can get an all-in-one hd for about $5-$10 more than the cost of just the hard drive. Use the all-in-one until it has problems (ALL hard drives eventually have problems). Then crack open the all-in-one case, take out the hard drive, put it in the external case to troubleshoot it. Often times the culprit is the bridge, not the drive. The bridge is the connection device between the hard drive and the transfer cable (USB, Firewire, etc). All 3.5″ all-in-one hard drives have a standard hard drive inside. Essentially you are paying $5-$10 for that all-in-one case. I suppose the biggest challenge in this suggested procedure is cracking open the all-in-one case. They can be pretty tricky to get open. Breaking the case isn’t the end of the world. At that point the device isn’t working and chances are that the issue is related to the bridge. You just want to crack the shell to get to the nut.
This is so weird; I’m reading this post while waiting for my brand new La Cie 1TB HD to start up! Thanks for the good advice, though!
Becky, what model LaCie did you get?
Firewire 800 = 800 Mbps
LaCie 1TB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive, model no. 301304U. Got it on supersale from Dell for $60. My whole life fits on it!
[…] bought the hard drive (WD 2 TB Caviar Green) and enclosure (NexStar CX) recommended on spudart.org (complete with links of where to buy) and they are GREAT! Spudart gives a great rationale about this setup. The post on this blog is […]