External or bare drive?

Ok, so if any of you have been watching the top post in this forum, you will see that I have lost a 2TB hard drive that had LOTS of important data on it. There are a few steps that I have been given to try that I am going to do. After that I think I am going to have to send it off to try to have the data recovered. I am in Afghanistan and wont be able to do that until after I get back to the States. So I am looking to get another hard drive to replace it. The one that I lost is a WD My Book. It had a 2TB green HD in it. I have seen on here and other places that they really don't have that good of a reputation. I also have a Seagate 3TB external that I have had no issues with. I really like it. To try to recover the HD that crashed, I bought a HD dock. Didn't work, but I have it now.

To my main question, should I get an external HD, or should I just get a bare bones HD and use the dock? Keep in mind, I am in Afghanistan, so I have to worry about dust and all. But I only have my comp stuff in the office which isn't that bad.

Any suggestions? For what I am doing, I don't need a high speed transfer rate or anything. But give me your thoughts and concerns. And if you have a specific model that you think would be the best, let me know.

Thanks guys and gals!
 
I see this all the time... You have these huge drives with no sensible back up plans in mind. You must back up important data using DVD's as well as maybe flash drives at the same time. These can be stored safely. DVD's will last forever if cared for. Internal and external hard drives are mechanical devices, and they will fail. External, as well as internal hard drives are not themselves, affected by dust and sand. It is the power supplies and fans that are affected...
I have a 4 hard drive RAID array and a separate 500GB hard drive that I back up my important data to. Important data includes install programs other than the OS, email addresses, pictures and documents
 
Roget that, I understand that and have known that about hard drives and how they fail. The one that I have that failed, failed after 6 months of use. But as you can tell from the post, I am in Afghanistan. I don't have access to jack. I can order some things, but not a lot or places will ship out here. So I have to do what I can, right?

But any advice to what my post is about would be appreciated.
 
"To my main question, should I get an external HD, or should I just get a bare bones HD and use the dock?"... I would get the "bare bones" and use the doc. Does that satisfy you?
 
Go with Seagate, they have had their issues in the past but they seem to be better once more. Always better than WD though
 
Yep. Get a bare drive and use the dock. They have a lot of advantages over regular externals*. I don't think dust will be an issue, as long as you have the drive in the dock there is no way dust is going to get into the important connections because those connections are in use. Now it could if you remove the drive, so if its really bad, you may want to give it a good puff of air (like the old NES cartridges).

* Can be put in a regular PC if needed
* run cooler because they don't have an enclosure around them
* dock can be used to troubleshoot other drives
* bare drives are cheaper than externals
* ect
 
I am looking at a Seagate green hard drive. Now, I have heard that green hard drives tend not to last as long as non-green hard drives. Is this true? Is there anything that I should watch out for with these?
 
I've not heard that.

Green drives are slower, but unless you are using USB 3 it isn't going to matter because even the green drives are way faster than USB 2 can do.
 
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