western-digital hard-drive are shite

[beats me]

'mybook'... garbage..

That might be the problem right there. Their "book" line of drives are kind of low end consumer garbage...with an attractive price.

I use WD drives all the time and haven't had any issues to date.

meh. Other 'low end' devices work just fine without the shit track record of the MyBook. Several Maxtor lines are a good example.

Two words: User reviews. They're there to help.

And as a general FFS, why buy the cheapest drives available for working on music? Kick down the extra $20 or so for a little more peace of mind. All drives fail. Some more than others and price can usually be a good indicator.

Lastly, instead of getting external drives that are hard molded to the case maybe consider getting some external cases and buy drives you can put in those. Might help you sort out/fix some future issues that aren't directly related to the drive itself.

[H20nly]

fwiw... I'm surrounded by hundreds of Western Digital hard drives that I've installed myself and/or my co-workers at various times... most of the few failures we've had... have been on really old drives. Just to give a hint of how old... they're 40 gig drives.

My brother owns a company in the area that provides numerous IT solutions mostly to medical outfits but they also have a branch that does house calls. Its about 6 employees so not huge but busy none the less. Before I moved to California I had come to the conclusion myself that WD seemed to be the most reliable that I had used (fuck Maxtor). When I first got here I worked for my brother and he and his employees all swore/swear by Western Digital. I've have literally seen 1000s of those drives and have seen/heard very few horror stories comparatively, although as stated all hard drives are subject to failure. The most common of these is the black caviar that someone mentioned earlier. Solid drive - IDE or SATA.

Aside from WD I've seen a fair bit of success with Seagate, but found that they have a tendency to be loud. I have stepped up to fix a lot of computers where I could, literally, hear that a Seagate was installed. In our music driven computing needs this is obviously something to be leery of.

I am talking PC though, not Macs RMV

[H20nly]

Sometimes it is the enclosure & not the drive that is the problem. Is your drive making the 'click of death'?

+100

I've seen tons of enclosures fail. 40 or 50 easily.

[wildcon]

Yep,

Problems with LaCie here.

Wouldn't buy another one.

I bought a Carrilon (Built for music) and has been rock solid for years (tempting fate!)

[cotdagoo]

I'm thinking the usb/fw controller of this box is toast..
(which may be a good thing cause it means the hd may be alright)
gonna open it up..connect it through sata...(sometime during the weekend)

it's a 500gb drive and I've got everything backed up guys thanks for the worry..
still.. that's 500gb of real-estate..maybe salvageable

I had to do this with a Seagate FreeAgent Pro external probably a really good idea.

Definitely worth looking into cases and just tossing a drive you trust inside. I recently picked up a Vantec Nexstar 3 (http://www.vantecusa.com/front/product/view_detail/354) to upgrade the slow usb from my previous external case. E-SATA is awesome! Also has fw/usb but what's the point with E-SATA.

[LoopStationZebra]

Two words: User reviews. They're there to help.

And as a general FFS, why buy the cheapest drives available for working on music? Kick down the extra $20 or so for a little more peace of mind. All drives fail. Some more than others and price can usually be a good indicator.

Lastly, instead of getting external drives that are hard molded to the case maybe consider getting some external cases and buy drives you can put in those. Might help you sort out/fix some future issues that aren't directly related to the drive itself.

Bought mine not long after they came out. Not too many reviews. WD had made quite respectable drives prior to the MyBook series. There was no reason to think these would be shit.

As a specific FFS to your general FFS, I didn't buy it for working on music. For general storage with low access.

[longjohns]

literally

every wd drive i've ever bought is now dead (one was my fault)

every seagate drive i've ever bought still is running

knock wood

anyway, my current strategy is 2@ seagate 1tb in a readynas duo (mirrored) and periodically backing up to a 1.5g external

probably should have another external off-site or etc.

[longjohns]

bah ..doesn't work for windows7.. thanks anyways..

is it physically possible for a person to only own a windows7 license, and no other version?????

[H20nly]

^ it is now... recent change of pace though.