External Hard Drive?

[Utoo]

I'm thinking about getting an external hard drive, but I'm not sure which to buy. I've got thousands of songs & videos that I haven't had a chance to put on cd yet, so if my computer dies, I'm done for!

I've been looking at Maxtor, LaCie, & Seagate, around 200gb-250gb sized.....all have great reviews, but all have terrible reviews, too!

Any opinions?

 

[Liesje]

I'm not sure which brands are the best, but check newegg.com if you haven't already because they're generally much cheaper than a store and have cheap shipping.

 

[waynetravis]

I got an external 250GB hardrive lastyear and i put most of things on to free up my space on my PC.
I'm not sure what make is. But its good, when I connected it, it was already partitioned into 2 hard drives.

Only problem with it is that it heats up rather quick so I don't have it on continuos use. I only turn it on when I need it.

 

[Bonochick]

I was always horrible about backing stuff up. I'd slap some files on a CD every so often...but I knew that if my computer suddenly died, I would be devastated by all that had been lost. After my computer started acting a little sick, I got nervous and figured I better back all of my stuff up ASAP. I wanted an external hard drive, and I did a lot of reading up on different ones before purchasing. I didn't care about portability...I just wanted something to keep my stuff on. I also wanted one fairly cheap, yet I wanted a decent brand name. I ended up going with a Western Digital, and it's been fine. I'm very happy with it.

One tip about external hard drives...not that I've done this myself yet......but it's a good tip.

You shouldn't keep your external hard drive out on your desk by your computer. It should be tucked away elsewhere. That way, if somebody breaks into your house and steals your computer, you'll at least still have all of your files. If the hard drive is sitting there with your computer, it will surely be swiped. Even better...keep the hard drive in a safe to protect it from fire.

 

[the rockin edge]

i've had a 160 GB Western Digital external drive for almost a year now, no problems with it i've heard good things about Seagate too.

 

[Canadiens1131]

WD and Seagate are good drives. Hard drives are destined to die at some point, so don't invest in a huge ass drive. I'd purchase 2 160 GB drives vs 1 300 GB drive.

That said, if you're just looking for a one-touch backup for your PC hard drive, you can't go wrong with an external drive.

Many techy (smart, sensible) people also have important passwords to things like online banking, Paypal, and the like on a small USB flash drive kept in a safe place.

 

[Carek1230]

I have an external drive that was given to me for Christmas and it is chock full of U2 goodness going back to their beginning days and all tours up through Vertigo beginning of December 2005! I don't know the brand, I can look when I Get home. At work we deal with Seagate drives, and they are pretty hearty with good warranties.

 

[neutral]

Man I have not been happy with my Lacie drives for awhile now, can't recommend them. They look nice and match my Powerbook, too bad they keep dying.



Er yeah anyway, Western Digitals and Seagates are good. I got a pair of 320 gig WD externals recently, very happy with them so far.

 

[the rockin edge]

Man I have not been happy with my Lacie drives for awhile now, can't recommend them. They look nice and match my Powerbook, too bad they keep dying.

i got a case for my WD drive that matches my powerbook nicely

 

[Utoo]

So, when choosing a case for a hard drive, I'm assuming that if you get an ATA drive and want it to hook up via USB, you need to get a case that says something like ATA-USB on it?

Like, would this case:

http://www.buy.com/prod/CoolMax_Gem..._Hi_Speed_USB_15403/q/loc/58414/10385135.html

Work with this drive:

http://www.buy.com/prod/Western_Dig...che_Special_Edition/q/loc/57325/10344589.html

?

 

[melon]

LaCie is generally the best, in my book. I would get this drive:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/con...061&is=REG&addedTroughType=categoryNavigation

I think the Porsche-designed LaCie drives look like a piece of cheap crap, so I'd avoid those.

Melon

 

[neutral]

So, when choosing a case for a hard drive, I'm assuming that if you get an ATA drive and want it to hook up via USB, you need to get a case that says something like ATA-USB on it?

Like, would this case:

http://www.buy.com/prod/CoolMax_Gem..._Hi_Speed_USB_15403/q/loc/58414/10385135.html

Work with this drive:

http://www.buy.com/prod/Western_Dig...che_Special_Edition/q/loc/57325/10344589.html

?

Yes, those would work together and those WD Special Editions are good drives. I think I'm going to pick up one of these for our TIVO.
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Western Digital/WD3200SB/

For that case, just make sure the drive is ATA/PATA and not SATA.

 

[stammer476]

Best Buy recently had a sale on Seagate 160 GB external HDs. They were $40 or $50 off. I don't know if you can still get that price, but it's worth checking out.

 

[Canadiens1131]

Keep an eye on http://slickdeals.net/ as well. Some great bargains pop up here regularly.

 

[Sevikins]

Best Buy recently had a sale on Seagate 160 GB external HDs. They were $40 or $50 off. I don't know if you can still get that price, but it's worth checking out.

I probably bought my external from that sale... it came up to like 80 something for my 160GB Seagate (had a 10$ off coupon). The thing is has anyone else had the problem where after a while, the light on the external would shut off (as if it was turned off?) and the window would freeze? I don't know if it's my system or whatnot but I've been having so many problems with my drive these days.

 

[Utoo]

Thanks for the help, everyone! I ended up buying the drive & the case that I'd posted before Cool MAx case: (http://www.buy.com/prod/CoolMax_Gem..._Hi_Speed_USB_15403/q/loc/58414/10385135.html , Western Digital Special Edition drive: http://www.buy.com/prod/Western_Dig...che_Special_Edition/q/loc/57325/10344589.html ). Buy.com seemed to have the lowest prices for these, plus free shipping. On top of that, I had a coupon----and got both the drive & case together for $121. Not too shabby.

Now onto a dvd burner.....


EDIT: Just noticed that the Cool Max case model # is CD-510B-U2

 

[City7]

Use Western Digital, Seagate, or Maxtor- all big names use them. In fact, I think Dell still uses Western Digital- always have, always will.

 

[Elvis]

In regards to external drives..... I'm an expert (unfortunately).

In my home I have over 6 Terabytes of storage, simply because it's been cheaper to buy more drives than take the time and effort to dump to DVD. Most of the 6TB is on external disks, and the majority of those drives now are Seagate External 300GB (in the well vented silver case).

I've used every major drive manufacturer... Maxtor is by far the WORST for external drives. I lost 5 drives within 2 months last year... oddly, right after their 1 year warranty expired! Western Digitals are reliable, Lacies tend to be pretty, but run VERY hot, and thus are prone to dying faster.... I've known more and more people that have experience this in the last 2 yrs.

While it may seem attractive to run externals on USB2, spend a little more and spring for Firewire. USB2 has a problem with I/O collisions, and thus can't sustain high speed/large file transfers nearly as well as Firewire.

One major suggestion, if you're going to use external drives... MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A BACKUP of everything you'd care to lose. Externals run hot, and usually dont have fans, tend to get bumped, and tend to have their power supply and/or controller go bad (in the last two situations you can put the drive in another case).

Hope that helps. Go for the Seagates.... of course use Froogle to find the best prices.

http://www.buy.com/retail/searchresults.asp?querytype=home&qu=seagate+firewire&qxt=home&dclksa=1

 

[Liesje]

Thanks for the info, Elvis! I have a 5 year old laptop with only 20GB that is almost full of my pictures and videos. My CD drive is becoming unreliable in its age and I don't feel like putting money into a piece of hardware that only fits a few computers, so I need a large form of media storage soon. For some reason, this crappy old laptop actually has a firewire port, so I'll look into a firewire Seagate.

 

[City7]

Thanks for the info, Elvis! I have a 5 year old laptop with only 20GB that is almost full of my pictures and videos. My CD drive is becoming unreliable in its age and I don't feel like putting money into a piece of hardware that only fits a few computers, so I need a large form of media storage soon. For some reason, this crappy old laptop actually has a firewire port, so I'll look into a firewire Seagate.

20 GB?! I could never live with 20 gigs... My U2 collection alone is something like 20 gigs.

 

[Elvis]

20 GB?! I could never live with 20 gigs... My U2 collection alone is something like 20 gigs.

My music collection is currently over 200gb.

 

[hiphop]

thanks Elvis, I will need a 200+ gb soon..

the question is if to get an internal one (i have enough place) or external.. the internal would possibly tend to be faster, but i could transport the external from studio to studio.. hmmmmh

 

[Elvis]

My advice (partially repeated)... always opt for internal drives, and use externals as a backup.

Now if you're going to use an external for a primary storage, get another external as a backup for that 1st external, or as I mentioned before... backup to DVD.

 

[neutral]

I'm about to order a dual-layer burner for my Mini just for backing up my external drives. 8.5 gig backup discs =