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External Hard Drives Reviews
Updated November 2007
The high capacity external hard drives covered in this report are primarily intended for backup. They can also provide long-term external storage for multimedia files, such as digital video, high-resolution photos or music collections that occupy considerable hard drive space on a computer. External hard drives can provide a convenient way to increase your storage space with the added benefit that the drive may be unplugged and connected to another computer. External hard drives have nearly unlimited storage capacity and modest per-gigabyte (GB) costs. USB flash drives are faster and have the best portability, but capacity is currently capped at 16 GB, cost per gigabyte is much higher and security is lower. DVD-RW disks can only hold 4.7 GB of data, and they are the slowest and most inefficient method of data backup. See our companion report on USB flash drives if one or several flash drives will be enough for your storage needs. We found the most comprehensive and thorough review source to be ExtremeTech.com. Products are compared head-to-head, benchmark testing is exhaustive and ratings provide meaningful distinctions between hard drives. England's Register Hardware and Tom's Hardware Guide are also prolific reviewers of external hard drives, but each reviewer has different strengths. Register Hardware is extraordinarily objective while Tom's Hardware compares related products in roundup reviews and shows the most comparisons in benchmark tests. X-bit Labs is just as good at testing and reporting, but doesn't rate hard drives. In general, computer hardware enthusiast
websites have the best reviews of external hard drives. Computer and
consumer magazines are generally competent at testing hard drives, but write-ups
lack the depth of the best reviews. For example, PC World and Consumer Reports
mostly just chart data with very little descriptive information. A problem
with most of the reviews from these mainstream sources is that they ignore
several major buying considerations, including noise, heat and projected reliability
of tested external hard drives. The
Data Robotics Drobo
(*est. $500 plus hard drives)
is controversial. The
manufacturer calls it a robot. The Drobo is essentially an external enclosure/network-attached
storage box for up to four hard drives (not included), which can be exchanged
at any time. Reviewers agree that it is interesting and expensive. The mainstream
media love it. PC Magazine and CNet.com give the Drobo Editors' Choice awards,
and PC World editors also give it high ratings. All agree that the Drobo is
easy to use and looks cool. Storage capacity is massive (depending on what
hard drives you buy to install in the Drobo). While the glowing reviews mention some of the Drobo's weaknesses, other reviews
cite them as a bigger deal. Editors at Tom's Hardware, for example, mention
unimpressive data transfer rates. Register Hardware, CoolTechZone.com and I4U.com
note that USB is the only connection option. FireWire and eSATA are faster,
and the Drobo has no Ethernet connector, either. Several reviews inform that
no backup software is included, which makes it less intuitive for novices.
And since only NTFS and HFS+ (for Mac) drives are supported, those using FAT32
are out of luck, at least until the next generation of this drive.
... Continued
Our Consensus Report shows how many times products are top-ranked by reviewers included in our The Seagate FreeAgent Pro has massive capacity, and the 750 GB version is most reviewed. Two versions of each drive in this series are available -- one has two interfaces; the more expensive has three. The Western Digital My Book Pro and Iomega Triple Interface drives also fare very well with reviewers, but the "triple interface" marketing for both is deceptive, as the drives have FireWire 400 and FireWire 800 connectors, but no eSATA. The Seagate FreeAgent Pro drives have eSATA connectors. The 1 TB Maxtor One Touch III Turbo received the most attention in reviews in its youth, but the newest reviews are from the first half of 2006. A small percentage of families might need this much storage, but this is primarily a product for small businesses. User reviews report issues with drive failures. Among network-attached storage drives, the Maxtor Shared Storage II NAS and HP Media Vault each top a couple of reviews, but neither has been reviewed in the past year. User feedback is much more positive for the HP Media Vault. Among portable external drives, which don't need a separate power source, the Seagate FreeAgent Go stands out in reviews as the best. The Maxtor One Touch III Mini is top-rated in some older reviews, and is the obvious budget alternative. Advertisement
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External Hard Drives Reviews |
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© 2008. ConsumerSearch, Inc. A service from 
, a part of The New York Times Company. All Rights Reserved.
ConsumerSearch and ConsumerSearch.com are registered trademarks of ConsumerSearch, Inc. Other trademarks or service marks on this site are the property of their respective owners. ConsumerSearch is not sponsored by any source reviewed, and we accept no consideration or payment for including, excluding, or ranking any reviews, products or services in our reports.
* Pricing information is approximate as of the time this report was written and is based on observed market selling prices and/or list prices. Actual selling prices may differ.
