[Guest]

Hello there,

 

In a few years time three external HDD's broke down. I actually mean the hard drive itself is not the problem, but the enclosure is. The connection between the external harddrive and my computer fails and some other things happend. It is all so fragile. I always take good care of my equipment and I didn't plug and unplug it 5 times a day, just once a week. 

 

I don't want to put my images in the cloud, so I am curious what systems or brands you use?

 

 

Kind regards

Reinier

 

what brands? I found a few laCie's died - as you said, not always the hard drive, but the enclosure. in some instances the on-off button (those blue light buttons with electronics, not a normal switch)- these were the grey metal series. A few grey metal LaCie DVD-writer enclosures (from the some type/time period) also died (won't start up). Also a WD book (not the drive) - grey enclosure died - just the enclosure, not the HD.    Some seagates failed as well (didn't check what component). These were mostly 300GB to 1TB drives, so a bit older.  Also had two Sony stereo components fail (bought around 1997) - while much older stereo equipment is just fine.

I suspect it's price pressure, the use of cheap electronic components that will fail. Maybe related to the capacitor problems - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague  - So, it seems like a general problem, not brand specific.

 

A few more current black plastic-case LaCie's still work (switch is just normal flip switch).

So, I just hope for good luck nowadays... (and I have an IDE USB adapter kit  to transfer data from case-less drives....)

Maybe just try to read comments on amazon etc. if there are current issues with a drive you want to buy.

Just now I had to buy thunderbolt, with Apple ditching firewire. In a few years we'll know how it went...