[yooper]

I have a Mac Mini hooked up to my system/TV and currently have a OWC 500 GB ministack which is getting close to full.  Most of the externals drive is loaded with FLAC files as I have a Transporter accesing my music library.

I do not have a backup of my music and need to do so before a pottential problem rears its ugly head. 

So I'm thinking of using my current 500 GB as a backup and copy the music to a new 1 TB external which would be used for everyday purposes.

OWC charges $400.00 for a 1 TB drive, and I know they are a little pricey, but they make a well respected unit.

I don't know a whole lot about the various externals, but I do know I need a drive that will not be physically large (sits in the living room on a shelf with the Mini), needs to be as close to silent as possible and I wan't a drive that falls into the "more reliable" group.

Any suggestions? 

Mark

[rydenfan]

I use the Western Digital mybook with great success. There are different variations on it depending on what exactly you need. I have a 500 gig and a 1 tera, my next stop is a Thecus 5200 Pro NAS system for more storage and full raid backup.

[Crimson]

I'll answer the question in a slightly different manner: the only external drives (not including NAS) that I have NOT had issues with are the OWC firewire drives. I've used Maxtor, WD, Lacie, and iOmega. I've also never had issues with NAS drives, both Buffalo and Infrant, but they are a little noisy.

[jkelly]

One of my editors mentioned that there is a known issue with the MyBooks and Apple -
- somtimes it does not come back from sleep - so you might at least check that out.

 

[Watson]

I like the new MyBook Studio series because it includes both Firewire and eSATA (as well as USB).  At some point Apple is going to move to eSATA, so this helps ensure the enclosure won't be obsolete next year.  Also the color scheme matches the Mac Mini pretty well.  I run a ZFS pool on a pair of these.

[jermmd]

I've bought 2 external 1TB drives and an external 2TB drive in the past week for under $.20/GB. Keep an eye on Slickdeals,fatwallet, anandtech or whatever. You should easily be able to find a good deal within the next week. I'm just removing the drives from the cases for my new Unraid media server. It's crazy that external drives are cheaper than internal ones.

Here and here
are some present deals. Here's a 5% off coupon for Buy.com.

Twenty cents a gigabyte is the max you should pay for a massive hard drive. Small drives should be cheaper.

Joe M.

[Len_Dreyer]

Here's a Maxtor One Touch for $249.00 with free shipping.

http://shop3.outpost.com/product/5496119

[drphoto]

My old Mac clone Daystar Genesis had all Seagate Cheetah drives (boot, internal and external arrays) That machine is over ten years old and still works fine, though I rarely use it now. But that's a pretty good track record for 10K rpm drives.

Since I got the G5 tower, I'm running a Western Digital Raptor internally for pshop scratch disk, and a Mybook 500GB firewire for storage. No issues w/ either in around 2 years use. Other than the Mybook, I've always gotten my parts from MacGurus. They don't recommend the Raptor to be installed internally (heat load), but I've had no problems.

dunno if this helps

[The Computer Audiophile]

Check out newegg.com, they have awesome prices.

I've heard the MyBook drives are very noisy for listening rooms. If you have an Airport Extreme you can always connect it to that and you have a make-shift NAS.