External Hard Drive, Which To Go For?

cpaaddict

cpaaddict

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hi all. am looking to buy a external hard drive. but i dont know jack about computers etc. but i want a decent one that does the job and will not delete my shit..

also bare in mind im in uk so cannot go buying just anything.

do any of you have any input on what to get? have been browsing amazon.co.uk and seen many but i just dont know which to choose...
 
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one of the best brand i was told by a guy working on a computer store is Western Digital
 
If I were you, I'd get over to a department store (walmart, meijer, kmart, target, circuit city, best buy) etc....

they have 500GB external hdd's for like $130...

I got a 300GB for $80 for my laptop, and moved EVERYTHING from my laptop to this tiny little hard drive, and it's EXTREMELY fast now...

It's only got 1gb ram, but with all the free space, it seems like 4 gb's...

:D
 
i have a toshiba, one of those little "portable" ones that don't require a power cord, just runs on USB. i bought a 300 gig one; holds all my music and lots of movies.. loads fast and everything. i don't remember how much i paid but prices have come down for them since then; it's a good choice. sleek little black thing.
 
i have a western digital 500gb external, ive dropped it a couple times an it still runs great!
 
well i prefer seagate

reasons:
well its a reputed company
it gives u 5 years warranty
u have good service
have more service centres world wide

:D
 
I got THIS the other day. I only got it for storing movies on but it seems alright :)
 
Hi Dan,
IMHO you should stay with the Seagate series of Drives, as they offer the best support WW.. I have been a MCSE & A+ Tech since 83', and have been through the myriad of drives over the last 25 years.

Code:
http://www.ebuyer.com/search?limit=50&store=2&cat=4&subcat=128&sort=pricelow&page=1
Code:

# Seagate FreeAgent 1TB External Hard Drive USB2.0 -
RetailQuickFind Code: 143877 |
Mfr part #: ST310005FDD1E1-RKstar rating 16 reviews Free Delivery 88.29

Just my opinion!
All the Best
TER
 
thanks guys. much appreciated. so its either western or seagate.. hmm tough choice haha
 
i find hard drives are pretty simple and theres not much difference among them. I have a toshiba 120 gig and it works brilliantly.
 
Western Digital is a great brand that I use almost exclusively.

Seagate is also good and they usually offer three to five year warranties on their drives. I know for a fact that swapping out a bad drive with them is a very, very easy process. They've never given me any shit.
 
You can't just take the advice of 'get a western digital'... every drive from every HD company is going to vary. Some fail a lot, some don't. I did quite a bit of research using Newegg's ratings-- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136218 -- This one came out on top for my desired capacity/price but my main concern was reliability-- but you'll need to buy an enclosure for it-- installation is easy.. slide it in, screw it down.

If you care more about reliability, get two HDs and set them up in a raid-1 array (where you have 2 500GB HDs that mirror eachother-- you only have 500 gigs but it's backed up).
 
flow said:
You can't just take the advice of 'get a western digital'... every drive from every HD company is going to vary. Some fail a lot, some don't. I did quite a bit of research using Newegg's ratings-- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136218 -- This one came out on top for my desired capacity/price but my main concern was reliability-- but you'll need to buy an enclosure for it-- installation is easy.. slide it in, screw it down.

If you care more about reliability, get two HDs and set them up in a raid-1 array (where you have 2 500GB HDs that mirror eachother-- you only have 500 gigs but it's backed up).
Click to expand...

That's excellent advice for fault tolerance, more people should do this on their home PC's. A RAID 1 will mirror in real time, and if one disk in the array crashes the array will continue to function so you can just replace the failed disk without missing a beat. There's a very slight hit on disk writes, but reads will be faster with split seek.

Disks are cheap, so if you can afford it get an internal drive for a RAID and a big external for file storage do it. I prefer Seagate slightly over WD now, but just stay away from Maxtor.
 
I have a 1TB Western Digital, never had any problems with it. Although next drive I get, which will be in a month or so, will be a 1TB Seagate. It has more than enough connections on it, something like 1 eSata, two firewire and one 2.0 USB, so I can have it connected to my PC, Xbox and can also plug it into my laptop without removing cables and switching around.

It also depends how much space you need, I have 1TB since I rip Blue Ray disks and have a ton of movies, TV episodes and music. If it is just regular files then I would suggest a Western Digital Passport, they go from 160GB to 500 I think.
 
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