Most reliable external hard drive brands?

[LucharesuFan619 0]

Anyone know what they are? Someone told me Western Digital. Online, Maxtor and Seagate seem to get good reviews? And less important but when I buy one, is it worth buying the protection plan (for most, its 2-5 years) or is that usually a waste of money?

[Guest Vitamin X]

I have a Western Digital, but general consensus is you can't go wrong with Seagate much either. Just get something that's a good value and fits what you need, and you should be fine- I assume you're using it for mostly backup purposes. I was too, but then my hard drive on my PC ran out of room so I've been using my external as a media drive, which is a temporary solution (like 6 months or so temporary now apparently) and I'll get a bigger HD later on.

 

Protection plans are almost ALWAYS a waste of money, no matter what electronics you're buying, unless it's a cell phone. If a hard drive crashes, there's no amount of money that's going to get your data back most of the time, so it doesn't make a ton of sense.

[Mik 0]

I have a Maxtor. No complaints.

[Bruiser Chong 0]

I've had my Western Digital external HD for nine months and no problems thus far. I am a bit concerned, however, about the quantity of porn that has found its way on there now that storage availability is not an issue.

[Fökai 0]

I picked up a Seagate Free Agent Pro 750GB for about $125 on eBay and I have no complaints or issues after about six months of ownership.

 

And yes, the protection plan is worthless in this case. My first Seagate (a cheapo 80 GB) crashed soon after purchase, and the best they could do was send in it for repair. They'll still be forced to charge you hundreds to attempt to save the data on there.

[CanadianChris 0]

I have a Maxtor. Well, I have the insides of a Maxtor. Something failed inside the drive so that it couldn't be recognized by any computer, but the drive itself still had all the information on it. I had someone transfer the drive to a new case and it still works fine.