External Storage Solution

[athrowaway2242]

Hey guys,

So recently Ive had a run of bad luck with an external HDD. I have a 2TB WD Essential (its got the WD20EARS Caviar Green inside it) and my friend tripped over the cord and it took a nice 2 foot drop onto a hard wood floor. It was, of course, in the middle of writing large amounts of data on the drive and naturally doesnt work anymore.

I tried multiple computers, multiple cords, and OSX, Windows, and Ubuntu and none would recognize the disk. I took the drive out, put it in an external enclosure, and it still wont read it. It isnt really making any terrible sounds, it starts to spin up and then stops after a few minutes.

I even tried putting it in the freezer for a few hours.

Nothing worked. So Im assuming this drive is boned (unless I want to spend hundreds/thousands of dollars on professional data recovery or someone here has a different miracle trick)


I am now seeking an alternative solution. I dont want to be caught with my pants down again. Money is a bit of a factor but I can maybe work with some give or take depending on overall cost/benefit.


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I have a Macbook Pro, mid 2010, MC374LL/A model that I put a 320gb WD black drive into. It is running OSX Mountain Lion
I have a WD MyBook 500gb external HD that I use for time machine backup.
I have a boned 2tb external that I need to replace and find a way to make redundant.

Options I am looking into:

1- Getting 2 2tb external hard drives, and setting them up so that one is storage, the other is an exact clone of the storage drive and makes regular backups (unsure what software, if any would be needed to set this feature up)

2- Getting 2 2gb internal hard drives with external enclosures and doing the same thing. (reason I am considering this is cost/reliability. Are internal drives cheaper/more reliable because I can choose which one?)

3-buy a new internal hard drive that is larger (1tb) and get a 2tb external drive to use as time machine backup/extra space for things that dont need to be backed up. Then Id use my 500gb external as a test machine drive.

I look forward to hearing your advice! Thanks again!

-axforts

 

[gsaldivar]

Buy one new large internal drive for the laptop. Move the existing 320gb from the laptop into a cheap 2.5" external case and use that as your backup. In the future when your budget permits, you can add some large 3.5" external drives for backup/redundancy.

 

[athrowaway2242]

Any recommendations for a 1TB internal laptop drive? The only ones Ive seen have 5400rpm and 8mb cache vs the 7200rpm and 16mb cache in my current machine.

Will it make a difference>

 

[gsaldivar]

Newegg has the 1tb 2.5" Hitachi 0S03563, with 16mb cache, 7200rpm, and a 3 year warranty for $89 with free shipping. Double check the drive height to make sure this will fit inside your laptop.

Edit: I checked and it looks like this drive would fit. See the link below. Good luck!

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4467701?start=0&tstart=0

 

[athrowaway2242]

So what I think im going to do it buy the hitachi hard drive for my laptop

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822145875

And then get a 2tb hard drive to put in this enclosure.

http://www.amazon.com/Rosewill-RX-35.../dp/B004AA4E8K

any reccomendations for a cost-effective drive?

 

[gsaldivar]

Also on Newegg: Toshiba PH3300U-1I72 is 3TB, 7200rpm, 64mb cache, SATA 6.0Gb and a 3-year warranty with free shipping for $139

Other options include Seagate ST3000DM001, and Western Digital WD30EZRX all with similar specs and price, but the Seagate & WD only have a 2-year warranty.

Check the comments on the enclosures carefully, some will support 3TB some may cap out at a lower amount. Comments by previous purchasers will help guide you to a case that gives you the high capacity support.

 

[athrowaway2242]

Hey thanks for your help,

I went with these.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822145875

Seagate ST2000DM001 Barracuda 7200RPM 2 TB SATA 6 GB/s NCQ 64 MB Cache 3.5-Inch Internal Bare Drive

"Rosewill RX-358 V2 BLK 3.5-Inch SATA to USB & eSATA External Enclosure with Internal 80mm Fan, Black"

Hopefully they all work! Im gonna put the 1tb internal in my computer, use the 2tb as my backup drive, and i have an extra 500gb drive ill use for just storage of things i dont care about.

-axforts