Filmme Fatale

davidmanque asked: If at all possible, try to hold off on buying hard drives for at least a few months - the flooding in Thailand has decimated many of the factories that make HDs, and the result is highly inflated prices right now (up to 3x!) and very few good deals. If you have to buy some externals right now - make sure they're 7200rpm, and try to get some with USB 3.0. Western Digital, Seagate, and Samsung are all held in high regard. Hitachi has had some past issues but appears to make good drives now too.

Yikes! I had no idea about the flooding in Thailand. Unfortunately, I do need to get at least one drive in the next month or so. It’s time.

I’ve been looking at LaCie - I used them exclusively for video editing in high school and I remember them being very reliable, even for communal use - and I think they’re made in China, so I wonder if those prices have been affected at all.

*I’ve also heard good things lately about Hitachi, so I’ll definitely check them out. Unfortunately, despite all the recs I’m getting for Western Digital, I’m worried about their high crash rate… we’ve already had a couple drive crashes from almost-new drives, so I’m hesitant. I guess it’s all about luck of the draw, though - I know some people who’ve had their LaCie drives for 6 years, and others who’ve had their WD drives for years with no problems. My portable WD drive seems to be working great, though I wonder if it’ll crash now that I’ve acknowledged that.

Thanks for the feedback!