Rugged External Drive

[LeMarchand]

One of my schools needs to replace with their USB HDD (Freecom), which has failed after dropping a couple of feet . (It was a replacement for the same drive which "just failed", but I suspect that it was dropped as well).

 

Given the treatment that it has had, I was leaning towards a "rugged" drive (LaCie do one). Has anyone had any experience of these or got any other suggestions (beyond "don't drop the drive")? Are they worth the extra money?

[ilisle]

I recently bought 1he 160Gb LaCie for our HT (who, incidentally, managed to break a flash drive!) and so far, I've had no reported problems. The drive's small, light, sturdy, aluminium cased and surrounded in rubber. I think you'd have to go a fair way to damage it, but I suppose it all depends on the internal drive mount.

We paid £89.90 for 160Gb, but in the end I think the 160Gb was out of stock and we got a £200 for the same price.

So far, it seems worth it, but the saga is ongoing!

[LeMarchand]

Don't suppose you know if it's been dropped yet? (Or fancy dropping it and reporting back? )

[Dos_Box]

I'm always surprised about how many 'Just stopped working' are accompanied by signs of impact damage.

[Michael]

Depending how much space and how much money you have to spend, you could always look at Solid State

[ilisle]

I'll see what I can do

 

@ Dos_Box: I have one teacher who has now bought her own laptop because her previous 2 "Just stopped working". Sucffice to say, the last one was held together by masking tape after it "fell"

[LeMarchand]

Depending how much space and how much money you have to spend, you could always look at Solid State

 

Not being a member of the SMT means that I have to make do with "cheap". TBH, I don't think that SSDs are actually worth the money at the moment.

[Martin]

Freecom also do a Toughdrive - up to 500GB, USB/Firewire, bus powered and pretty rugged.

 

I have a couple for personal use, but won't be trying a drop-test

 

mb