External Hard Drive Options

[Graeme Nattress]

Blu-Ray discs cannot hold 200GB data - more like 25GB for single layer, up to 50GB for dual layer.

As for hard drives - I've been used the G-Tech drives here over FW800 and they've been great. The tiny buss-powered one is great for use with your laptop in the field.

Graeme

[Ray]

Blu-Ray discs cannot hold 200GB data - more like 25GB for single layer, up to 50GB for dual layer.
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Notice I wrote up to 200GB. Maybe it will never happen. It depends on how many layers are eventually implemented. But i know I've seen some reference to a possible 200GB capacity. A Google search threw up the following, which was probably the source of that idea.

Sony will announce next month that it developed an 8-layer version of the Blu-ray Disc that is capable of storing 200GB of data, according to a company spokesperson. The announcement will be made at the International Symposium on Optical Memory 2004, which takes from October 11 to October 15, in Jeju Island, South Korea, according to Sony. The company further plans to commercialize a 4-layer 100GB version in 2007, says Sony spokesperson Taro Takamine.

"The advantage of Blu-ray over DVD is definitely capacity, and we are extending our multilayer performance. The 8-layer is a technology demonstration. We haven't decided when we are going to commercialize it yet," Takamine says.

The development is the fourth recent boost for the format as it competes with high-deifinition DVD to replace conventional DVDs in coming years. Both Sony and Matsu****a Electric Industrial, better known for its Panasonic brand, sell Blu-ray players.

But the players are expensive. A mass market will not develop for either of the new formats until major Hollywood studios are convinced that they can protect their content against piracy, according to analysts and industry watchers.

[Gordon Buck]

I bought a Maxtor 250 about three years ago and then a 300 about a year and a half ago.  They both worked fine separately and together with my (PC) laptop.  I added another Maxtor 300 about six months ago.  This third Maxtor is OK separately; however, when daisy chained together performance drops significantly.  All drives are connected by Firewire.

I bought the third Maxtor because the first one (250GB) began to be a bit noisy sometimes (however, it is still working OK).  On getting the new 300GB drive, I immediately copied the contents of the old 250GB to the new 300GB.  Copying required several hours.  Curious about the slow speed, I tried various arrangements of the daisy chain - including swapping cables.  I tried copying from the laptop to various drives as well.  My conclusion was that the daisy chaining was the major part of the problem but that the new drive was a contributor.  I contacted Maxtor but the various people I asked for help either did not understand, could not help or said that there was no problem.

I got a new laptop about two months ago and performance with the external drives seems better than with the old laptop but is still slow when using all three drives.   Of course, now I've discarded all the notes about file copy times, arrangements, etc.  The new laptop (HP/Compaq nw8240) has a built-in Firewire connection.  With the old laptop (Compaq EVO610c) I was using a plug-in Firewire card.

My method of working with these externals is that I (now) normally have the older drives turned off unless specifically needed.  It doesn't seem to matter whether I have all three drives turned on during startup or whether I simply turn on an additional drive later.  On the other hand, I've learned not to turn on a second drive and then immediately turn on the third drive - must allow some time to pass until Windows XP picks up the second drive.  Also, I think I had some problems when turning on a second drive while Photoshop was running.

Anyway, the external Maxtors have been OK for me but I'll probably get a different brand next time.

[JeffKohn]

Get one of the dual eSATA/USB enclosures and put your own HD in it. SATA is going to be faster than USB/Firewire. For HD's I like the Seagate Barracudas: fast, quiet, cool, and affordable. Western Digital also makes some good drives as long as you stay away from their budget line. I'm not a fan of Maxtor and after having several Desktars die on me severa years back I would never ever consider one of the Hitachi drives I don't care if they're supposedly better now or not.

[alainbriot]

Alain,
Well, that's encouraging. Last year, you say? So presumably those drives that blew up are a few years old. Any company worth its salt will fix problems like that as soon as they appear, whatever the cause; cheap components, sloppy QC etc.
I've just bought a LaCie 500GB Bigdisk. Is the fancy case a case with a groove on 2 sides? I see no manufacturing date on the case, but the model no. is 300964A and S/N 1021604230622E.
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Yes, that sounds like one that I got.  Quite slim, very heavy.  The 1TB model I now have has a very loud fan, at least when it gets hot, which it does here (110 + outside today...). But, it works fine.  And yes, the drives that died were a few years old.  They both died at the same time, so maybe there was a spike, or something weird.  Happened when I was away, and they were running.  Who knows.  A real pain for sure.  I could put new disks in the cases but I hesitate... !

[alainbriot]

Alain,
Well, that's encouraging. Last year, you say? So presumably those drives that blew up are a few years old. Any company worth its salt will fix problems like that as soon as they appear, whatever the cause; cheap components, sloppy QC etc.
I've just bought a LaCie 500GB Bigdisk. Is the fancy case a case with a groove on 2 sides? I see no manufacturing date on the case, but the model no. is 300964A and S/N 1021604230622E.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=71087\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Yes, that sounds like one that I got.  Quite slim, very heavy.  The 1TB model I now have has a very loud fan, at least when it gets hot, which it does here (110 + outside today...). But, it works fine.  And yes, the drives that died were a few years old.  They both died at the same time, so maybe there was a spike, or something weird.  Happened when I was away, and they were running.  Who knows.  A real pain for sure.  I could put new disks in the cases but I hesitate... !