Storage Solutions Which 4tb external hdd to buy?

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avanildutta

avanildutta

Forerunner
Guys looking to buy an external hdd.. preferably 4tb to backup my data like songs, movies, games, etc.. wanna know which one to get. Should be reliable.. btw how is WD 4tb my book..? Any other opinions or specific site from where to buy will be helpful.. thk u..
 
Hi avanildutta,

When we talk about backups, the most important features in an external desktop hard drive are, in order: reliability, speed, capacity, warranty, customer support, and build quality.
A drive should have at least a two-year warranty with solid customer service to back it up.
The WD My Book is the best desktop hard drive for backing up data because of its reliability, fast speeds, and two-year warranty.
For more details you may visit the link below:

http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=hEiyjZ

Hope it helps.
 
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Lincon_WD said:
Hi avanildutta,

When we talk about backups, the most important features in an external desktop hard drive are, in order: reliability, speed, capacity, warranty, customer support, and build quality.
A drive should have at least a two-year warranty with solid customer service to back it up.
The WD My Book is the best desktop hard drive for backing up data because of its reliability, fast speeds, and two-year warranty.
For more details you may visit the link below:

http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=hEiyjZ

Hope it helps.
Click to expand...
Thanks for your suggestion. Already ordered the same.. [emoji4]
 
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Now, I'm not saying anything bad about WD here, but....... any forum member who's name ends in "_WD" is generally a Western Digital representative and as such their opinions are a little biased toward their brand.

Personally I'd recommend you get an HGST drive, but looks like my advice is a little too late. At least you didn't make the mistake of getting a Seagate. Though the HGST's are actually now owned by WD, so they shouldn't get too mad if I recommend them over the WD branded ones.
 
Lincon_WD said:
Hi avanildutta,

When we talk about backups, the most important features in an external desktop hard drive are, in order: reliability, speed, capacity, warranty, customer support, and build quality.
A drive should have at least a two-year warranty with solid customer service to back it up.
The WD My Book is the best desktop hard drive for backing up data because of its reliability, fast speeds, and two-year warranty.
For more details you may visit the link below:

http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=hEiyjZ

Hope it helps.
Click to expand...

Why haven't you also explained about data encryption in wd my book drives
 
Hi chetansha,

The idea of having hardware encryption is to make your data more secure and less susceptible to breaches. Having said that though, the ones in My Book and My Passport are enabled via the WD Security app that you install.
 
I would go for wd essential drive, tho low on warranty, if any thing goes wrong with the usb connector , you can always remove the drive from the case and recover your data from pc. Its not the case with wd my book drives.
 
chetansha said:
I would go for wd essential drive, tho low on warranty, if any thing goes wrong with the usb connector , you can always remove the drive from the case and recover your data from pc. Its not the case with wd my book drives.
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Hi chetansha,
I'd say it depends on your requirements and budget . Technically you can do that but it will void any warranty on the drive.
 
Anyone with a PC-3000 can still decrypt the data for you on a My Book or My Passport, so long as you know the user password (if you set one). We do it all the time here. Though I doubt you'll find anyone willing to do it for free given the cost of the system.
 
Thx guys for notifying those details. Btw my wd book which i ordered from a fellow member here couldn't provide the same. Hence the deal went south.. so would love to get if anyone here can offer me or direct me where i can get at a bit lower price than ecom sites else have to buy one at market price.. thx anyways..
 
Generally Amazon is the best pricing you'll find for external hard drives, or perhaps check Newegg. Unfortunately you won't find much better pricing unless you buy used, or purchase by the pallet load.

Here's a pretty good deal: http://www.simplynas.com/4tb-hgst-t...e-black.aspx?gclid=CO367cnyxcsCFdcYgQodjtoJTg I've never heard of the website, but price is pretty good for a 4TB HGST.

Or you can save a few bucks and get this Toshiba: http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Canvi...&qid=1458155065&sr=8-11&keywords=4tb+external Which is also a very good brand of drive, only they are very new at making their own 3.5" models. Previously they purchased them from HGST and just rebranded them. Only time will tell if their 3.5" are as reliable as their 2.5" models are.
 
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JaredDM said:
Generally Amazon is the best pricing you'll find for external hard drives, or perhaps check Newegg. Unfortunately you won't find much better pricing unless you buy used, or purchase by the pallet load.
Click to expand...

You do realise these are us sites and will attract import duty and shipping costs. Not to mention devoid of local warranty?
 
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Sorry, I'm in the USA. So those are the stores that come up in my searches. Believe it or not, we speak a form of English here too. ;)
 
JaredDM said:
Sorry, I'm in the USA. So those are the stores that come up in my searches. Believe it or not, we speak a form of English here too. ;)
Click to expand...

:rolleyes:[DOUBLEPOST=1458277877][/DOUBLEPOST]@JaredDM and @Lincon_WD , i have a query wondering if you guys could help me out here. I have couple of PCB that come along with wd my book drives, ( see picture attached) , can i attach a regular desktop HDD to it and make it a USB drive ?
IMG_2148.JPG
IMG_2149.JPG
 
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Yes, and no. These My Book USB bridge boards employ hardware encryption, and store a randomly generated encryption key in a hidden sector near the end of the drive. So if you're talking about hooking up a drive that already has data on it, you'll be in trouble as it'd be trying to decrypt data that isn't encrypted, and is missing the key.

However it is possible to set up another drive to work with it. For example I've recovered cases where we imaged the data from a failing WD My Book drive onto an HGST shop drive, then used one of these bridges to decrypt the data. But, in such a case the data was encrypted by the bridge and the hidden key sector was there.

Are you just looking to use the shell as an enclosure, and put a different drive inside?
 
The way you can do it is like this:

Take the original drive or another My Book drive of the same model and direct SATA connect it to a computer. You can't do this over USB as it hides the last few thousand LBA of the drive over USB. Then open up a HEX editor and starting from the end of the drive do a backwards search for the letters "WD". You'll find a sector with some random looking data in it just a few thousand sectors from the end that starts with those two letters. Copy that entire sector and save it. Then set up the new drive. If it's the same LBA size, you can just paste the data back into the same sector and it should work. If the LBA size is different, then you'll need to move the key sector proportionately. The location of the key sector is actually an offset from the final LBA, so it just takes some basic math skills.

Also be sure to pay attention to the 2TB size cap. Any bridge built for a 2TB or smaller drive won't work for the 3TB and up varieties. But, you can generally use a 3TB bridge to run a 4TB drive. Maybe it'd even work for a 6 or 8TB too, but I've never tested it and it might not.
 
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