Hard Drive Brands

I got my laptop fixed up. My laptop was really messed up so they re-installed windows and now I have a laptop with only pcdj and internet explorer which everyone has said is a good route (to only use the laptop for dj'ing only). I installed pcdj and it works great. I was going to start ripping all my cd's to my laptop computer but realized that what if my laptop gets messed up again. I will lose everything I ripped onto my laptop. I think I need a External Hard drive to save all my music to. I checked the store and the guy said cheap ones are for $100 so I am checking the net to see if there are any deals. Can anyone tell me some good brands or give me a link to a reasonbly priced/good hard drive?

Thank You,
Brian

oh and i have a external sound card so i think i am getting closer and closer to becoming a cd/laptop dj..lol

My buddy got a western digital
i'd stay away from maxtors and lacie's, we have had several issues up at the office with these devices.

Remember, just like hiring a dj, the cheaper the product, the more unreliable or less quality the product can be. However in electronics there can be a few steals or awesome deals.

Thanks Travis,
I have asked a few other people and Maxor and Lacie is what everyone says to stay away from.

I am looking at Seagate products and western digital.
I searched the net and found these:

I was looking at these:
1) http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=7441832&type=product&productCategoryId=pcmcat33200050002&id=1124432398244
2) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822154406
3) http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Seagate-External-Hard-Drive-ST3250824U2RK-/sem/rpsm/oid/154538/catOid/-12976/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do
4) http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Seagate-External-Hard-Drive-ST3160203U2RK-/sem/rpsm/oid/144490/catOid/-12976/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do
What Would you pick?
I know I need atleast 40 gb Hard Drive so all those are 40+

Thanks,
Brian

Sorry wont get into this

I use a lacie 160gb drive that I got for xmas. I love it! I've used it for tons of DJing and its never failed. I'm curious to know which drive you had problems with Bounce, I use the desktop Proche 160gb model, and the only hassling thing I had to do was reformat it from FAT32 to the NTFS file system. Although I do back up what Bounce said about staying away from Maxtors, personally I have had a maxtor drive fail, and know people that have had similar issues. I have never used Western Digital, but have heard they are great. For ripping music, get at least 100gb, I've found that 160gb is the perfect size.


http://www.lacie.com/fi/products/product.htm?pid=10387

Recently I trashed an Adcom USB drive, just the data not the hardware. It had to be reformatted. Once again it works fine. The drive inside is a Western Digital. I've only heard good things about them and have only had good experience with them so far.

I'm reasonably sure the drive's data was trashed due to my own error. Be sure to unmount or reboot the computer rather than simply unplug the USB cable. Failure to do so may cause you grief.

in addition, on your system tray there is a little icon that allows you to safely remove hardware, if you do not see it click the little < arrow to view it

Found this as a resource :)

Bounce, my software displays that icon but comes back "can't unmount drive" or words to that effect.

Any ideas? Normally I have to shut down to unmount. Is that what Rosie said to the butcher?

You will typically encounter that error message if there is some activity being done through your hard drive & computer. It does that as a protective measure, typically make sure your out of any program that you used the external drive on, such as make sure virtual dj is off when you do it, a good rule is to make sure all your applications are closed.

Perfect example last night at the gig, on my friends external drive it uses a portable freeware application that resides in the tray, i wanted to remove the drive so i went to the manager, and it wouldn't let me, as soon as I closed down the app i ran the process again and it worked like a charm.

Thanks for the suggestions. I don't think anything [processes] were running. That's why I'm stumped. I'll check more thoroughly next time but that is the type of thing I'd normally look for.

Thanks Bounce.

I too have experienced this Anomally but followed up a second time with 100% completion then every time.

Do you know the definition of insanity Ed?

Doing the same thing and expecting a different result.

Do you know me to be sane????

Of course I tried it more than once.

It comes back "The device cannot be stopped right now. Try stopping the device later."

Something in the software is broken. There is nothing in task manager running.

Damn you to hell Bill Gates!

I have never had any problems with any of my USB Hard Drives. I have Maxtor, Western Digital, and a few clam shells with various brand internal drives.

I would buy at least a 250 gig they are very inexpensive.

Staples has 250 gig Western Digitals for $150 and 300 Gig Maxtors for $150

http://www.staples.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/StaplesProductDisplay?prodCatType=1&storeId=10001&catalogId=10051&langId=-1&productId=148944&cmArea=SC3:CG104:DP2167:CL142595:SS1030826

http://www.staples.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/StaplesProductDisplay?prodCatType=1&storeId=10001&catalogId=10051&langId=-1&productId=147052&cmArea=SC3:CG104:DP2167:CL142595:SS1030449

Lacie, Western Digital, Seagate; like DJs, they're all the same.

Seriously, I have used all of the above and a few off brands. Treat them well and they'll treat you well.

One good thing to do is get more than one and copy one drive to the other; that is, back it up. I use a program called Casper XP. It will do a 450 Gb USB drive that is almost maxed out in less than three hours. Considering USB transfer rate, really, not that bad.

Guys - I'm going to bring back this old thread just to make sure I understand this correctly. I want an external hard drive that I can store my music on. I'm looking at http://cgi.ebay.com/USB-2-0-EXTERNAL-WESTERN-DIGITAL-320GB-8MB-HARD-DRIVE_W0QQitemZ300076149610QQihZ020QQcategoryZ4191 1QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem which seems to be a very good deal and a brand that has been heavily suggested. Just to make things crystal clear with me, this unit will simply plug into my computer thru USB - laptop or desktop - and I can store and play my music library from it, correct?

Thanks in advance for any comments.

I have never been a big fan of clamshells. It seems they very nice as you can swap out the drive inside.

I recomend buying a drive from a store complete you can trust the warrenty and you don't have to worry about dealing with ebay.

A 250 gig My Book drive is on sale at Best Buy for $100 You can get a 320 gig for $150.

Randy, make sure your external hard drive has some type of fan built into it, the number one killer for those are inadequate cooling.

BTW www.newegg.com has some great enclosures, and all you do is buy the hard drive you want and pop it in :)

If you need help in picking the exact one that would suit you best and your needs feel free to PM me your number and I'll be glad to talk with you.

Brian,

I use Western Digital external drives. I currently have two, one for my digital rig, its the Western Digital Dual Option Media Center 250Gb. I got it about 6 months ago for around $100

For my music, and business office back up, I just picked up a Western Digital My Book Essentials 250Gb. They both work fine. One warning though... After about 10 minutes of inactivity the drive spins down and goes into a sleep mode. It takes a few seconds to spin back up. I haven't found a work around yet. It happens on both drives.

Keep your eye out, you can get some pretty good deals!

Good Luck,
Groovielou

I chose this one. I was delivered today. My IT guy here at work has been using them with great success. Thanks to Bounce for making sure I got one with a fan.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150086669582

For my music, and business office back up, I just picked up a Western Digital My Book Essentials 250Gb. They both work fine. One warning though... After about 10 minutes of inactivity the drive spins down and goes into a sleep mode. It takes a few seconds to spin back up. I haven't found a work around yet. It happens on both drives.

Lou, I have two as well, and the spin down is annoying. Other than that, great drives.

As far as I can tell after mucho searching, is that is implemented in the firmware of the drive, and no way as yet to change the spin down time.

All is not lost however, as continued access keeps them up and running. You could put a scheduled program in with XP to access the drive every few minutes for a workaround.

I'll probably write some sort of little program to do that, that runs in the background. I'll post a link to it here when I get a chance to put it together.

I started a new thread for the program. Not sure why, but it's Sunday :sqlaugh:

The program link is there.

http://www.ourdjtalk.com/showthread.php?p=37199#post37199