External hard drives

[carlyfan]

So, I just got a small 1 TB external hard drive yesterday (a Seagate Go-Flex), but I'm wondering if I should return it and get a larger one. It is the kind that runs off the computer's power and does not have a fan. I got that one because I'm going off to college in about a week, and I thought the super portability of it would be very handy. But my sister has heard that they have a tendency to overheat and corrupt files.

I'll be storing all my photos on there and was planing on working off of it because I don't have my own computer. I also might be keeping my Lightroom catalogue on there sometime in the future if I get Lightroom.

Ultimately, the safety of my files is more important to me than the convenience of not having to lug a larger drive around campus with me.

Has anyone had experience (or problems) with these types of drives? Would you guys recommend a larger one with a fan?

Thanks so much!
Lisa

[kirbinster]

Probably not a problem if you only use it for short periods of time and have it unplugged when not in use. IF you keep it on then yes you should get a powered one that has its own fan.

[ceremus]

Heat generally isn't as much of a problem for these kinds of portable drives as is the shock and abuse they tend to get just by being portable and lugged around people's backpacks and such. These are the same types of drives that are used in laptops and they typically do not have any direct air cooling either and work just fine. Of course being more compact they tend to be more expensive per GB, so a 3.5" drive will give you more storage space for the money. With a 3.5" external drive you'll need to have both the data cable and a power AC adapter to run it, but that's only really an issue if needs to travel a lot.

It's also worth pointing out that one type of drive won't necessarily be more reliable than another in terms of long term file storage. Being mechanical devices, any hard drive can die a sudden death at any time (even being a new drive within the warranty period). If you have files you want permanently saved, save it to more than one place. Archive to a disk, get a second drive, upload it to a remote storage service, or whatever works for you. Hard drives need to be treated as volatile storage, so make sure you're covered in the event it dies. (Because it will.)

[Zeke Menuar]

We have two external drives. One is a Seagate 500gb USB drive. It's been on a beater PC I use for crunching video files. It gets warm but not hot. Had it for two years and it runs fine.

The second drive is a 400gb WD laptop drive stuffed into a $12 USB drive enclosure, It's plugged into my laptop/main computer 24/7 and runs flawless.

Frankly I've never heard of a USB external drive going bad. I have a 10 year old WD external drive I keep photos on that's as good now as it was when it was new. I have had a laptop drive die on me. But the data was backed up so no big deal.

Laptop hard drives/external hard drives are cheap. Buy two. Run one all the time and keep the other one in a drawer as a backup and update it once a month or so.

[OsmosisStudios]

I have 2 external ("mobile") HDs that I used during college: they're both dying, likely because they bounced around in my backpack as I ran for busses, up and down stairs, and whizzed around on office chairs (dont ask).

I now have a RAID1 array sitting on my desk that stays off unless im using it.

[carlyfan]

Cool, it sounds like the little guy should be fine then? I definitely won't have it running 24/7. Most of the time it will be just sitting in my dorm. I will probably only use it a few hours at a time. Is that "short" enough kirbinster?

We (the family) do have an external hard drive at home that I will be backing up to on weekends and breaks.

Thank you everyone for the replies! I knew I could count on DPS!

[Zeke Menuar]

I left one thing out

The 400gb USB drive is divided into two partitions. One big partition and one small partition.
One of the partitions has a full Windoze 7 install on it. The other partition is data.

The one time I had a catastrophic HD failure, I removed the backup drive from the enclosure, installed it in my laptop and was up and running in five minutes with little loss of data.

Murphy's Laws of computers applies here. Back it up or bad things will happen.

[carlyfan]

Thanks. I should probably back up more often than I do anyway. I'm terrible.

[John Hendry]

Stay with your external drive without the fan. Assuming it is a smaller 2 1/2inch drive and not the larger 3 1/2inch ones you would get inside a desktop, then it will do fine and not overheat at all. If it is a largr desktop drive, then I would suggest swapping it for either the laptop portable variety or a desktop with a fan.

Drives can work away fine at higher temperatures, but external drives tend not to get too hot as they are not always powered up all the time. The only thing to look for is that your laptop can power it. Some external drives have two connectors, one for data and one for power, as some laptop USB ports don't supply a full power load to them to cut down on costs and power usage on the laptop/notepad.

[carlyfan]

Well, it is 3 1/2 X 5 inches, but do you think it will be fine if it's only on for a few hours at a time?

I don't have a laptop, so most/all of the time I will be using it on the University's computers. So, hopefully I shouldn't have a problem with power.

Thanks for your help John!
Lisa