Advice on external storage device

satimis · #1 17th February 2011, 06:25 AM

Hi folks,

I need a device for external storage only - which USB connection, USB-3 preferable, and capacity about 1.5T

The computers are on LAN but they won't use the device simultaneously. I have old HDs, 160G/500G/600G/ and even 1T. The external enclosure which I'm now using can only read 500G max. I did consider mounting the old HD as slave on a computer. Howerer it is NOT convenient. When I use them I must turn on the computer on which they are mounted.

Please give me some recommendation. Which brand and device will be suitable for me. TIA

B.R.
satimis

giulix · #2 17th February 2011, 10:20 AM

I'd opt for Western Digital WDBACW0015HBK

satimis · #3 17th February 2011, 03:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by giulix

I'd opt for Western Digital WDBACW0015HBK

Hi,

Thanks for your advice.

I suppose;
http://www.h-online.com/priceinsight/a590418.html

is what you recommended.

B.R.
satimis

giulix · #4 17th February 2011, 04:06 PM

Yep, that's the one... I have the older USB 2.0 1TB variant and I'm so far happy with it...

***DBelton*** · #5 17th February 2011, 04:34 PM

Up until about a year ago, I would have agreed that the WD external drives were great. But a little over a year ago, WD in their infinite wisdom decided to start putting a backup program call SmartWare on their drives in a "virtual CD" partition, and designed it where you could not delete it. You can "hide" it, but not delete it.

WD set a bad precedent in my opinion, by forcing users to use over 700mb of the drive they paid good money for, just to keep their crappy software on it.

kurtdriver · #6 17th February 2011, 06:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DBelton

Up until about a year ago, I would have agreed that the WD external drives were great. But a little over a year ago, WD in their infinite wisdom decided to start putting a backup program call SmartWare on their drives in a "virtual CD" partition, and designed it where you could not delete it. You can "hide" it, but not delete it.

WD set a bad precedent in my opinion, by forcing users to use over 700mb of the drive they paid good money for, just to keep their crappy software on it.

This has Linux instructions. It uses palimpsest.

***DBelton*** · #7 18th February 2011, 02:51 AM

that only hides the virtual cd drive. You still have over 700mb of data sitting out there on the drive that is totally useless if you run linux.

I had 3 of these drives with the smartware virtual CD partitions on them. One I pulled the drive out of the enclosure and hooked up to my internal SATA port. completely wiped the drive using DBAN, the partitioned it and rformatted it. NO virtual CD on the drive. Then replaced the drive in the enclosure, it came up with an "unknown partition" error, so, I repartitioned the drive in the enclosure, then formatted it again. Guess what. the virtual CD drive was back on the drive, taking up over 700mb of the drive space.

In my opinion, WD overstepped the boundary on their smartware crap. I don't mind getting useless crap on a hard drive when I purchase it, IF I can get rid of it if I wish to.

kurtdriver · #8 18th February 2011, 03:07 AM

I haven't had to do it myself, but the guy in that post says he formatted it.

***DBelton*** · #9 18th February 2011, 03:13 AM

It all depends on when the drive was manufactured as well. From what I have been able to tell, starting sometime around the end of 2009 is when they started making the virtual cd partition where you can't delete it. You can hide it, but not delete it.

The drive I got were manufactured in Feb 2010, and you can't delete it if you want to use the drive in the external enclosure that it comes in. You can delete it if you want to use it internal or in a different enclosure, but if you ever return it to the original enclosure, then it has to be repartitioned and the smartware virtual cd will get put back on the drive.

I fixed my problem with them by returning my 3 drives to the store for a refund