Seagate is one of the better ones that I've heard of and what I'm currently trying (500gb) - I had a 120gb WD one before that just died unexpectedly one day... Took a week to recover all my data from it...
Only speaking from experience of the >120 hard drives that I've used over that past 5 years. Most of them internal on servers to web browsers - but the guts of all externals use the brands of internals.
Maxtor (Lacie): BAD - very BAD - the worst failure rate of all my drives (like close to a dozen)
Seagate:had 1-2 go bad so far.
Western Digital: maybe 1 failure.
I've been using Seagate and WD external drives without a hitch - both USB, FW and e-SATA versions. I will avoid Maxtor at ALL costs (Lacie's use Maxtor)
Unfortunately, there has been a lot of consolidation among hard drive manufacturers. Currently, there's only four manufacturers. I have to agree with Hammy, Maxtor/Lacie are my least favorite and in my experience have had failure rates far beyond acceptable. I stopped using Maxtor YEARS ago; Lacie was one of my favorites (primarily because they had nice clean enclosures) up until about a year ago when I had six drives go bad within a couple months (3 of the 6 drives were only a year old - that's just an unacceptable lifetime.).
Western Digital and Seagate have always been reliable for me, and having done a lot of IT consulting in my past, I have found that they are the best for business/always-on applications. Be careful what you buy though, some drives are made for Personal Computers and others are made for Servers. I would suggest you buy the drives that are MADE for servers and put them in an enclosure; They are manufacturered to withstand consistant 24/7/365 use.
My favorite enclosures right now are the SilverSata series made by Wiebe Tech (www.wiebetech.com).
Also, remember, hard drives DON'T last forever. One of the biggest reasons why I use Wiebe Tech's Silver Sata series of enclosures is I can create two identical drives (RAID 1 - mirrored) and have one to work off of, and one to sit in the archives off-site. Even with that security, I tend to copy data every 1 to 2 years on to new drives (especially the drives that I keep online all the time) - they WILL all eventually fail.
About WD, I've ONLY had problems with it and my Lacie drives (maxtor) have been chugging away for years desipite a bit of rough handling on my part and lots of travel worldwide... I've never had complete drive failure, but my Westerndigitals have corrupted many images along the way which is a real bummer if you don't catch it. (having to get the backup off of the dvd I archived it on, wherever that is Drives DON't last forever, but with Lacie drives, many don't have cooling fans and aren't meant to be left on. That's the biggest mistake I think you can make with external drives and computers in general...24/7, 365 on all the time is just hard on stuff and if there's not proper cooling going on, your external WILL fail. I turn all my computers and drives off when I leave unless they are processing files and have found it to make a difference in how things last. I can say I'm a fan of the metal enclosures of the Lacie Porche drives because well, they're made of metal. IF you go to the Lacie.com site you'll find great deals on their drives. I think that people have mixed responses about them.
Like any technology, it would help if you stated how you'll be using the drive. IF you plan on using as a scratch disk or having it on for 15+ hours at a time, make sure you get something fan cooled. If you need it to occasionally backup/transfer files, then I'd say get something with a more sturdy enclosure. That's why I have one Lacie that's super durable for travelling and such and a WD that's less sturdy but fan cooled that sees more time running when needed, but stays at home, or only leaves in a super padded case.
I have a 250gb WD Mybook and it works grteat. No issues so far. Totally plug and play with self monitoring power.
I had a 300gb Seagate that died on me about 8 months ago. Not really sure if it was the drive or not. I bought an internal drive that someone else put into a case, so IMO it was only as good as the person that put it together.
From now on I'm only buying manufactured external drives. No more "kits".
Thanks for all the info. I'm wanting it mainly for back up when I'm shooting events and to keep my main computer uncluttered. While doing research I noticed consistently poor user ratings for the Lacie products. Has anyone used Acomdata or SmartDisk units?
I have used Iomega ZIP drives and had only one failure after many years of service from it. I currently have an Iomega 250GB external I have had for over a year and no problems from it. Iomega also has both plain hard drives and server models with up to 1 TB capacity. They also are currently advertising a 20GB shirt pocket hard drive. Their prices for most of their products are reasonable.
I would be interested in hearing if anyone has had trouble with Iomega.
Maxtor has given me nothing but grief, whether they were inside a failed 320GB drive from LaCie, or a failed 160GB drive from laCie. I've had the best luck with Seagate, have no recent experience with Western Digital.
Seagate, Western Digital, Maxtor, I have used them all currently have mostly Maxtor. I have had failures over the years but inspection has shown it was related to power surges with the African line current, everything now goes through UPS, does not run 24/7. I think HD's are so complicated mechanically and so cheap that there is going to be a percentage that just don't work long or well. So i think you should be far more concerend about redundant back-ups then brand name, because as many have said they all fail.
I use a two HDs (Maxtor and WD) 300GB each which are a backup of my internal 'backup' HD (300GB Maxtor), enclosed in Vantec NexStar 3 eSATA 3.5 inch cases. This way I have all important data on three different HDs.
I have a couple of Nikon Coolwalkers - pulled the 30GB hard drive out and replaced with 160GB drives from the local PC shop. Works great plus I have the screen to view and the compact flash reader. If I am careful the batteries will last a day in the field, and the units go in the carry on and the chargers in the hold. If I lose the chargers at last the drives can be mounted in another unit.
(Most of these portable units have standard interfaces and the drives can be swapped. Cheaper to upgrade than buying the whole new unit.)
I have a couple of external drives - Iomega 160GB and Toshiba 250GB. They've been around the world with no problem except the power supply and plugs. Admittedly they go in the bags in the hold - they are bigger and with all the cables it is just too much to go with the cameras in carry on.
I have a fileserver with 8 Maxtor HD's in them. It's been on for around two years now. I have it set so that when the drives go unused the platters stop spinning. Either way, they've been reliable. I'll admit though. All the drives in the file server are on RAID 1.
Drives DON't last forever, but with Lacie drives, many don't have cooling fans and aren't meant to be left on. That's the biggest mistake I think you can make with external drives and computers in general...24/7, 365 on all the time is just hard on stuff and if there's not proper cooling going on, your external WILL fail. I turn all my computers and drives off when I leave unless they are processing files and have found it to make a difference in how things last. I can say I'm a fan of the metal enclosures of the Lacie Porche drives because well, they're made of metal. IF you go to the Lacie.com site you'll find great deals on their drives. I think that people have mixed responses about them.