I have bought about 5 Western Digital drives since I got Serato, but I just got a Passport yesterday and I have to warn all my fellow DJs do not get a Western Digital hard drive.

You know how we don't want our drives to go to sleep right? Causes a freeze/pause while the hard drive wakes up again. Well with these new drives, setting the Windows setting to "Never let hard drives go to sleep" doesn't do anything. If you want to get rid of the sleep, you have to install their bloatware/rootkit software called SmartWare. Well the first problem is that it takes up hard drive space and you can never get rid of it, even if you never install it. So you do not get the full hard drive space that was advertised and that you paid for. You can hide it but it's in the firmware so you can't get rid of it. I can't even get it to install anyway so I'm returning it because I can't .

Look at their own forums to see all the complaints about Smartware: community.wdc.com They have been receiving complaints for a year and still haven't done anything about it, so it's safe to say they won't. I would highly recommend all my fellow DJs not to get any WD drives anymore.

Also if anyone knows any USB powered hard drives that don't come with any extra software and never sleep as long as you set the Windows setting, please let me know. I'm considering getting the Seagate but I'm actually fucked cuz I bought it at Best Buy with a gift card and cash, and they don't have any other USB powered drives there. Fuck.

Don't buy usb powered, get firewire, or buy a laptop hard drive and buy and OWC case from macsales.com

I got two of em and I use them for videos.

www.facebook.com

eshop.macsales.com

Thanks, yeah I've seen those on the forum before. I would love to get a Firewire powered one but my laptop is a Dell Vostro and only has the smaller Firewire connection (4-circuit). So as far as I know you need the bigger Firewire 6 circuit to have a Firewire powered drive. (en.wikipedia.org)

This sucks, I doubt Best Buy will let me return so I gotta sell it used.

shrink wrap it.

it doesn't even come in shrink wrap, it comes in two plastic pieces. but I ripped the box cuz the plastic wouldn't come out.

two questions here, isnt usb 2.0 faster then firewire? and has anyone heard about Iomega hd's? they have the 1tb's on sale for 70 bucks at frys right now? im about to grab a western digital since everyone on i have heard of recommends them...

This thread is called don't buy WD drives. not very many people recommend them.

Firewire 400 is faster than usb2.slow and fw800 is way faster than both.

that iomega is probably just a usb 3.5" external and buying an external drive with just usb is a big waste.

Also my post was about bus powered drives not ac adapter powered

Yeah Firewire is faster because the data rate is more constant. USB2 speed might be faster but that's the max speed, it doesn't actually run at that speed the whole time.

Usb it slower than firewire.

hhmmm... the search continues...

Best buy might take it back. When I first got Scratch Live I bought a WD hard drive and it crapped out on me about 3 days later. Best Buy took it back and let me get an Seagate drive with no questions asked. I recently bought another WD hard drive because it was on sale, but I've managed to not have anyproblems with it and I didn't install any of the bloatware. Maybe I'm just lucky though.

Yeah they did actually. They were hella nice about it, they accepted it no questions asked. The lady asked while she was ringing it up, but all I said was it just wasn't right for me, it wasn't like it was a requirement to return it. Well if you don't install the bloatware, you can't remove the sleep function from the drives. Even if you have "Never put hard drives to sleep" in Windows or OS X, it'll still sleep. Load 2 tracks in serato, scratch for a while or something, then after 10-15 minutes load a new track. Guarantee your computer freezes up for a sec while the hard drive comes back to sleep. I just can't have that happening to me, too risky. Granted, I realized that now, most hard drives come with this feature that you can only turn off with their software, not thru the OS like you used to be able to. But I got a Seagate and the bloatware wasn't as bad as WD, and at least you can remove it off your drive unlike WD.

so what you guys are saying seagate is the way to go, also should i get one with a fan in it or do the compact ones not get that hot?

The solution is don't buy cheap drives. If you are DJing and making money why try to save $20 or $30 by getting a no name drive just because it's on sale.

Oh and Western Digital makes great drives if you get their Scorpio Blue or Black drives. I have been using Scorpio Blues for my Macbook Pro and for all three of my video externals and have had 0 problems and no issues with the drive going to sleep.

I've had all kinds of WD drives and none of them has failed me. At the office (where the hard drives are working non-stop for years) 2 have failed BUT it took them years to do so.

Remember, no drive will last forever.

On another note... Firewire is faster than USB 2.0. The speed you see on the USB ratings is a peek speed not a constant one.

Anyway, I'm sure you knew that by now with all the other responses.

Yeah I had 5 WDs some failed, most I dropped once and it slowly deteriorated. But now with their new drives they go to sleep, have the software you can't remove off the hard drive, and for me when I tried to install the software it wouldn't work. So I couldn't remove sleep. So I got a Seagate, which has the same "feature" but their software was easy to install, switch the setting, then install and completely delete.

USB is maximum 480mbs .vs Firewire 400 IF everything were perfect. The more devices on the USB chain the slower it goes:

From this page: en.wikipedia.org

Although current high-speed USB 2.0 (introduced in 2001) is quoted as running at a higher signaling rate (480Mbps) than legacy FireWire 400 (400 Mbps, available since 1995), data transfers over S400 FireWire interfaces generally outperform similar transfers over USB 2.0 interfaces.

Few if any USB 2.0 device implementations are able to saturate the entire 480 Mbps, but this can be achieved with multiple devices on the same bus. Typical USB PC hosts rarely can sustain transfers exceeding 280 Mbit/s, with 240 Mbit/s being more typical.

This is likely due to USB's reliance on the host processor to manage low-level USB protocol, whereas FireWire delegates the same tasks to the interface hardware (requiring less or no CPU usage). For example, the FireWire host interface supports memory-mapped devices, allowing high-level protocols to run without loading the host CPU with interrupts and buffer-copy operations

So, is it a software issue? if so, why don't you just reformat it to FAT32? Wouldnt that fix the problem?

Well I got rid of it and got a Seagate, but the software and sleep settings stay on there even if you reformat. They say it's in the firmware, the software and sleep setting, so you just can't delete it.

+1
5 WD's & no issues

I had 5 WDs too, I'm warning yall it's a new issue they just put it on their drives this past year. I bought the drive thinking it would be fine like all the other ones from the past.

ok i think i found one, everyone seems to have good things to say about seagate... any hatters of this one-
www.bestbuy.com

That's what I got, but the 500GB one. Works great. Make sure to install the software to turn off the sleep function, or format the drive when you get it.

i looked at the 500 gig one but the 1tb is 7200 rpm and has almost double faster read rate, i guess it needs it for being that large, its also pretty big, but for near the same price i think it would be worth having the extra size... thats what she said...

I got a couple of those OTC triple interface cases with 500GB drives in them. I quit using them when I got into video because one was supposed to be a backup for the other. (500 wasn't big enough)

I see they've been making 1TB notebook drives, but I noticed they are 5200 RPM instead of the 5400 norm. Would those be OK for video?

yeah it's only usb 2.0

It's like buying a computer with only a cd burner and not a dvd burner

well im not looking to run the world with this thing, is the usb fast enough not to give me any problems with serato?

for audio it's ok, for backups, video, it's slow.

There's no firewire drives that are powered by 4-pins right? Since I don't do videos I was fine with trading speed for the ability to power without a power cord finally, though I do record and could use USB and processing power for pro tools. I'm happy and don't miss firewire. I still have a mybook with firewire if I need it anyway.

ahh, sounds good, thanks for the advice

YOu need the 6pin firewire cable to power the drive

Attention:

If you go to WD, they show you how to hide the software so it doesn't keep showing up as a disc when you connect it. Also, the software is tiny in amount of space it takes. So, no biggie.

WD is NICE!

Some even come with 3-5 year warranties!

Y'all need to stop messing with EXTERNALS, go INTERNAL at 7200 RPMS....

Stop playin.

Benefits of using externals that cannot be replaced by internals.

1. 2tb and higher.... I'm at 2tb right now. All videos and audio together means never wondering if you haver this or that file. Also makes it easier to organize and look for dupes, etc.

2. Being able to use another computer if yours dies or if you don't want to switch computers at gigs.

3. Easy to back up entire drive so it can be used on two computers at the same time.

Benefits fo using internals that cannot be replaced by externals.

1. Faster response and boot up time if using a 7200RPM.

2. Lest chance of damage from dropping, rough movement, and mishandling. Lots of externals die that way, QUICKLY.

3. Less likely to FORGET to bring the drive and music.

4. Less likely to get STOLEN vs. an entire laptop.

Don't get me wrong, I think externals are a great BACKUP OPTION, but IMO, internals are the best way to go.

Reason 1 is not a benefit for SSL.

2. Computers die if you drop then too.

3. We are not that old johnny. lol
If I forgot my external, that only means I forgot my computer too. They travel in the danger bag.

4. Nope. I've seen more posts on here about stolen laptops
Than stolen externals.

Danger = same

WTF - how was those words that far off - LOL.

Another reason Johnny missed:

5. Non Bus powered drives need to be plugged in - extra plug and possible chance of corruption if power dies or turned off abruptly. .

Swype

iPhone FTW! - just kidding - that explains it - I thought U were on drugs again!

lol

And thsi is why you THAT DUDE! I forgot about that. And actually, I have an external that HAS GIVEN ME A FEW SCARES with the File Table needing to be restored.

And this one sits still and doesn't move.

Yes it is, SSL actually starts up AND SHUTS DOWN quicker with faster a drive with a faster RPM.



You're MORE LIKELY to mishandle a harddrive than an entire laptop. Not saying some of you don't have real greasy fingas, but you get my drift.



Just sayin!



I'll give you that, but I remember seeing a vid where some DJ had his harddrive stolen WHILE HE WAS SPINNING!

But I see MUCH MORE issues about BROKEN Externals, than I do Stolen Laptops....

If you unplug a drive while ssl is on, it will hang. You will notice that.

Also, a corrupt drive cause you unplugged it wrong is a fat 32 issue. Journaling a drive on a mac prevents that.

computer shutting down faster? Huh?

Must be a pc thing. Unless your os is running off the external this is, again, a non issue.

No, EXITING the application. Quicker Database saves.

ScratchLive quits in seconds for me. Windows thing?

Maybe! All I know is it's great for me.

The shutting down issues as far as being slower is while using iTunes. I use iTunes to organize my music but I only load iTunes in scratchlive then deselect it once everything is loaded. This way I don't experience delays.

^ Don't you have to do that every time you add songs in iTunes?

This is why I don't "eff" with iTunes.

Yes. And I actually prefer it. It's like performing a "clean up" every week.

iTunes is the best at organizing stuff. SSL falls so short.

I agree, the only reason I'm still with iTunes is organizing. Also Scratch Live can't seem to remember my year tags, or the bitrate/quality of the files, even though I have every single MP3 with only ID3 2.3 tags. Has something to do with moving the songs across hard drives or something.

Well I add songs to my iTunes very often. Sometimes I download a new song and just have to be able to DJ with it/play with it (no misquote lol), so I add it right away. Maybe I should only add all my songs weekly. The other problem is they pile up reaal quick.

I still don't see why you would want to wait for it to load the iTunes library every time because of checking/unchecking the button. I mean SSL already does that to me anyway, why would I want to add even more time.

You don't understand how I do it...

I add songs every week to iTunes.... every day actually. Videos and songs.

I organize as I go... I also organize other stuff if I have time. Then, when the weekend comes:

1. I trash the data file from SSL.
2. I trash the history files (I export any files after the gig if I think I need to)
3. I trash any log files.
4. I open SSL.
5. I check read iTunes Library.
6. I rescan ID tags
7. I uncheck iTunes Library.
8. I don't touch my library until Monday.

Any new songs/videos I get after Friday, I just add them to SSL on a temp crate.

No issues. No hiccups. No delays. No crashes.

Oh yeah, forgot one step. I also back up the hard drive to another 2TB drive. I takes less than an hour depending on how many songs I added, replaced, renamed, etc.

Oh I see so it's just a process to keep serato running better, less crashes, etc. That's a good idea. I back up and use iTunes for that too. Using a tag editing program saved me so much time doing that.

Yeah. Since I started doing this, I don't have any issues whatsoever. It's like a safety net.

Plus, I used to use iTunes with SSL (iTunes checked) but I forgot after what version it started to load real slow. I'm talking 20 minutes to start up and 20 minutes to shut down or something like that. Ridiculous.

lol

^ I think he just has a lot of files and videos, especially if you need a TB with video.


That's a good idea, my library load time did get slower and slower, especially with newer versions.

iTunes, yeah, I stopped updating after one where you can read ipod touch/iphones. After that I dont need any features, and every new version just introduces something annoying, like forcing to scan Gapless Playback every time. feature is great especially for listening or making mixtapes, but its annoying it has to scan every file instead of only the ones you want

hahahaha

Nah. That's a SSL problem THAT HAS NEVER BEEN FIXED

Negative. It has to do with the way SSL handles externals. It started with one of the versions of SSL (1.7 I think?) and it has never been fixed.

BTW Sixxx, this guy needs your help -->>>www.scratchlive.net

With 2 tb plugged in? I'm doin 1 tb right now and it takes a while to open or close SSL (not using iTunes)

I have akll WD drives (maybe 6 total..from 4gb thumbsticks to a 1td studio)

all work flawlessly.

matter o fact, I came here just now to sing its praises.
my case was unzipped, so when i picked it up the HD literally flew out of the case
and fell about 6 feet onto its corner.
you can imagine my heart sinking (my back up was only updated to about a month back)

plugged it in.... worked.
went to apple store, bought the same exact drive and im syncing it up right now!

I have a WD drive that i use for backup. I tried plugging it in to my laptop recently and my laptop is not recognizing it all of a sudden. I did notice that i wasn't using my original USB cable it came with though. I have like 20 random USB cables layin around. It fits it perfectly but I don't see it show up under "My Computer" anymore. I can't find the original one anywhere. Would using a different USB keep my laptop from not recognizing my external hardrive.

Yeah I saw your other thread, yeah it's possible, try another usb cable

USB only? if it has firewire give that a try... That sisituation really sucks.. sorry to hear.

i love wd. i will never buy any other manufacturer. i've been using WD since the the early 90s and i have never had a hard drive failure.

i finally had enough talk and grabbed the 500 gig seagate, its on sale for 79 at best buy, also i learned that the 1tb's need an external power source...

there is a WD passport 1hd that does NOT need power.

(though)
the new lock system that holds the ultra-mini usb in-place is very touchy.
if u move the drive, the wire wont pull out, but is will momentarily disconnect, and reconnect.

so, if u dont move ur HD your golden

i have 1 tb western digital in an oyen digital FW800 case. it does not need power.

oyendigital.com

Nyce, where were you a week ago???????? i will go that route next time...

I personally have had great luck with Western Digital's actual drives (the bare drives meant for installation in a computer or empty external drive enclosure).

The external WD drives seem to be in cheap plastic cases, and often use lower-spec drive mechanisms than the bare drives of the same size.

Any plastic-enclosed hard drive with no/poor ventilation is just asking for trouble...under heavy use, the drive will heat up and there'll be no place for the heat to go.

Western Digital divers have always worked for me. If not Western Digital, what brand are you recommending?

Well I got Seagate, but I'm sure almost any other brand would work. The Seagate software actually installed and I was able to remove the sleep feature. It was also easy to uninstall and remove when I was done too. Also you can simply reformat them when you get them, and it will remove all software and sleep.

WD you have to install their software to remove the sleep feature, and personally for me the software wasn't installing because it wouldn't recognize the drive. I just don't like the idea that they have part of their drive that has their software on it and you can never delete it, even if you format it. Obviously I would never let my hard drive get so full where I need to delete 700MB, but it's just annoying that they do this.

Keep in mind this is a new problem. I just got a WD a little over a year ago, I have bought 5 WD drives total (all failed btw, though some of them I dropped, but they still slowly failed), and they were all before they put this software in the firmware of their drives.

i formatted my seagate drive as soon as i got it, it wasn't recognizing the drive at first, so instead of figuring out the software i wiped it, i am annoyed though on a 500 gig hard drive there is only 445 gigs of free space on an empty drive, whats up with that? i can understand a few gigs for there software but 45 gigs is a HUGE chunk missing...

Hmm yeah me too, I have 45GB missing on my 500GB. That's weird. I'm pretty sure I had the same problem with my western digital too.

i think its the man holding us down..

lol ^^^ "the 'man' holding us down"

are any of the people having the sleep issues using macs? i've never had that problem, and i've only bought WD externals

I'm on mac, and all my drives work just find. All I use is Western Digital; even my internal.

i've been loving my 1TB WD black's with 64mb cache.. i got the older one cuz i didnt want advanced format issues... and i didnt want seagate for the fireware problems.. and i dont like maxtor or other brands. so WD still my main drive.

i got a fw800 ext case but only have a port for fw800 in my desktop, so can only use at home not laptop for performances.. but my stupid case didnt work with fw800 and kept dropping.. maybe just windows thing, but ive sent it back to store so will see if i can get firewire working some year :(

Anyone use the Lacie 1tb Little big drives? I was also looking at the OWC 1tb drives but it uses Toshiba for the drive and I am not sure about their track record.

I was thinking about going 3.5" HD but since they aren't bus-powered it can cause some major damage if you lost power at your event when the drive is working.

Each brand goes through peaks and valleys. No one would touch Seagate drives when a firmware issue caused huge problems about 14 months ago. Now it's biz as normal.

I always check amazon, newegg, and a few others for drives with at least 100 reviews, check the 1 star and 5 star entries and see which pros and cons I can live with. Then I pull the trigger.

That's true I do remember that. And you're right we should ALWAYS check reviews. I had WD drives the past 3 years and they were cool, and I dropped a drive so I wanted to get a new one ASAP. Ended up wasting more time than if I had just checked reviews again.

i dont want advanced formatting for xp compatibility, so I would need to get an older seagate,, from that timespan. So WD for me atm black 64mb cache 1TB

Anyone have any opinions about 2 tb drives?

i love the wd caviar blacks 2 tb in my desktop. fast and quiet.

Yesterday I went out and purchased the My Passport Essential SE 1TB 2.5" Portable Hard Drive USB 2.0. I copied all of my music onto the drive and loaded up ITCH. I loaded a song into deck and started to play it. I then searched for a song and tried to load it into deck b. To my disappointment I got the beach ball for about 3 seconds. Come to find out the WD drive keeps putting itself to sleep after a few moments of no activity. I reproduced it over and over again.

So, I decided to return it and go for a Firewire solution due to the speed advantages. I ended up purchasing the LaCie 500GB Triple Interface Little Disk Portable Hard Drive. I connected the drive over FW800 and copied all of my files over (WOW this drive is fast over FW). Opened up ITCH and was completely satisfied.

Drive is also compatible with FW400 and USB2.0. Perfect!

^ Yup that's the exact problem I'm trying to warn people about.

That sounds like a great drive, I think I'll make that my next purchase. Pretty good price too. Can it be powered by FW400 or just hooks up to it? Either way I could plug it into USB to power it while still using Firewire.

while alot of people discourage the WD software.

I use it and love it.
(its where u can disable sleep mode)

you can also run chkdsk and other tool like that

you should have got the western digital stuidio edition...it has a firewire 400 800 and usb 2.0 connections

Try the western digital 2.5 Studio, I can run usb/firewire 400/ firewire 800 and all work fine (mac)

^ Did you get it in the past year?

i'm having a hard time finding many external drives with firewire other than the studio WD drives. a few others, but not many options...

+1

Nah, I got it when they 1st released the 500GB model. It's not the newest one.

+2.

Never really had a prob with WD drives, I have a 320gb that I'm using right now for about 2 years.

I noticed a bunch of you are using 1tb drives. Any problems with search time etc? I'm getting into video soon and would like some space.

It's interesting a lot of the power saving features end up being the bane of DJs!

@ "a DJ". Yes. It comes with both the FW400 and FW800 cables. Both provide power. And the added convenience of having the USB is key if you need to use a machine that does not have FW..

Yes, I saw that drive as well. However the sales guy sold me on the Lacie.. And after reading this thread traveling I was convinced that WD was junk. So I went with the Lacie.. There was also a G-Drive there that looked promising.

I'm sold. When I got my seagate I didn't know there was Lacie drives that cheap. That's perfect, powered by the small firewire cable too.

Trash the data file? Which one?

Friend had a G-Drive died after one drop. I've dropped my WD 2.5 Studio a lot and it's still going strong. Never used Lacie, but I think they're some good looking drives.

2.5 also comes/works with mini usb to usb cable.

^ I've dropped a lot of my western digitals. After a while I stopped taking chances and replaced them after each drop. Remember A-Trak's post about problems with hard drives? djatrak.com

He was right, one of my first few WD drives, I kept it after it fell and appeared to still work. It did, but then it got slower and slower, started making more noise, and eventually just died out, this was all way after I dropped it. It just died a slow death lol.

Also some of my files are corrupt now, but they don't show as corrupt in Serato. They just have parts of another song in the middle of them. Like in my "Tipsy" Instrumental, I have part of "Garcia Vegas" (with words) for like 5 secs lol. Completely random, and I know it must be because of when I dropped it, because I have another song that has a much lesser known bay area track in the middle of it, that I have. I should have immediately replaced my files with the backup after I dropped it, but I probably didn't. Then I probably copied the bad versions to my backup drive, and have been stuck with those files ever since.

Gotta make sure the external case you want can handle the 2TB... my macpower & tytech SK3500 only does 1.5..



Firewire is the bomb, unfortunately I couldnt afford a great laptop so I have an Asus K52F, it only has USB, so no use for me, but I have fw 800 + 400 and esata connections on my external hdd and it rocks for when i'm connected to the desktop at home.. I usually don't use it however much because I like to get used to playing just off the laptop.. I WISH it had a fw800 port :(

I still think though you are ALWAYS better off buying a good internal HDD and a nice external hdd case/enclosure. If one breaks, you only need to buy/get serviced that one part.. also can end up being cheaper if you buy a cheaper enclosure (I have a $160 Macpower & Tytech external, bridge broke within a week or two of use, only just got repaired working good now, but also I have a $50 NexStar CX Vantec which is stable and just as good.. just not as good for heat disappation, stackable, fw800/400/esata etc... but it does the job. SO in the end you get a better drive buying seperate. THey are usually not so good in the 'external hdd' you buy all in one.

A pity there is no way to get SSD speeds into an external drive yet.. damn bottlenecking

I bought a MyPassport less than year ago and it has been broke already.
This was my second one because first one broke. I did not do anything about first one but I tried to fix second one because I had much information . Now, I called WD and they said it it wasn't fixable so told me to call recovery company in California. They said minimum recovery would cost $400. Max will be $1800. Crazy..... !!! WD is f***ing bad product. They only can do is shipping a replacement. Don't buy the product anymore. I recommend it.
Thanks

stop it. WD makes the best hard drives in the business. HD's from every manufacturer fail. WD has the lowest failure rate and best warranty.

I have a WD IDE hd from 2000 that still works. I have 2 WD mypassport se's and 1 WD mypassport studio and they all work flawless. I also have 2 WD sata internal dekstop's and 4 WD sata internal laptop's and they all perform with no issues.

I also have 4 samsung internal desktops and they show me nothing but love.

With hard drives it doesn't matter the make and the model. If it has important data on it, back it up in multiple places. With HD's being dirt cheap these days, there is no excuse.

Not so: I have a macbook 2.26ghz unibody model (6,1); earlier this year I put a 500 gig WD internal inside of it (a 250 gig WD worked fine in my old Macbook 2.16 core 2 duo that I sold to get the 2.26 model) and the thing spun down every chance it got; even scrolling down a web page produced the beach ball. I even disabled the macbook's sudden motion sensor with little to no effect. Took it out and replaced it with a Seagate 500 gig and everything's been perfect since.

I would take 100 WD's over 1 Seagate any day of the week.

Normally I would too, but the macbook 6,1 polycarbonate unibody models apparently don't play nice with 'em (at least internally)...

That may be a flaw in design coming from Apple then.

A design flaw from Apple? Impossible! </sarcasm>

If I'd done research beforehand I would have seen many blurbs about the WD drives' built-in shock sensors interfering with the macbook's sudden motion sensor. Lesson learned...

My Seagate actually failed inexplicably after a year, and I never dropped it. Luckily I found a college kid who does hard drive recovery for only $80 and I got all my files back. All my WD drives broke down after a year too, or earlier, but I had dropped all of them at least once on carpet. I'm still rockin with Seagate though cuz I can't have that sleep feature on the WD drives.

Man, you should be replacing drives due to SPACE issues, and new technology WAYYY before a drive fails...

Whoa... I had to go back on my browser for that one...

The guy that waits 4 years to buy Serato giving Tech advice....????

I'll give it a +1 for being correct but just had to look again at WHO said it.

: )

my macbook pro 5,3 didnt play nice with a WD. My WD crapped out after a few weeks. I tried all the fixes as well. currently rollin' with a seagate myself. even then, i still back up weekly. I keep a copy in my safe at home and offsite at work.
You hear too many stories of shoulda, woulda, coulda.

Well I just have bad luck with external hard drives I guess

lol

I've always had very few problems from WD drives.
My main problem though is that I outgrow it's capacity.
I wish WD would start making limitless capacity drives.
HaHaHa

microcenter has WD 3TB 3.5" SATA 3 drives for $119 if anybody needs some space.

Never had problems with any of mine WDs, but Seagate goflex are the new hotness! usb, firewire interchangeable... www.seagate.com

LOL!

Whuteva dude! Don't hate cuz I was trying to preserve the artform!

yep yep got that same email.

seems frys got the Hitachi 3tb drive also but for $109.99
www.frys-electronics-ads.com

I was looking at one of those yesterday at Frys. The salesperson told me they were crap. He said its one of their cheaper drives inside.

KNOCKING ON SERIOUS WOOD HERE.

Ive been doing well with both drives.
I have 3 WD mac editions all work so smooth, even dropped one, cracked in 1/2.
still works.

for playing out I tried the Seagate 1.5gb goflex with the fw800 adapter.
LOOOOOOOVE IT.
had to install the software to disable sleep mode
(this only burned me when I did a instore event and was playing audio off my internal hd for about an hour... loaded a track off the sleeping goflex.... crash)
but i chalk that up to user error...installed the hardware, disabled the function...viola'!

It's like everything, people just hate on what they don't know. The goflex is sick, I personally use whatever it is I'm recommending. Try it and see how you like it. WDs are really good drives but I'm slowly moving to goflex for all my needs.

im using the goflex right now, never had a problem... knocking on wood as i say this...

The thing I don't like is that proprietary FW800 cable they are using. I am looking into the 1.5tb version though. It's either this or something from OWC.

yeah, like I mentioned thats arguably the only downfall.

but it makes sense..any longer and it probably have power issues.

what I do like about the interface,...
NO MORE DEAD MINI-USB CONNECTIONS!.

I think power may be an issue but OWC has one which does have a longer cable and uses the same drive.

eshop.macsales.com

It is priced higher though.