External Hard Drive - what to look for?

VortecJeep

VortecJeep

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Aug 24, 2005
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Concord, NC
I am thinking an external hard drive may be a good idea for me to backup our computer. The main thing I want to back up is all our pictures. I used to burn them to CDs, but that is time consuming.
What should I look for in an external hard drive? Which ones have worked well for you guys?
If it matters, I run Windows XP.
 
They are all about the same. Just look for price. The internal HD varies in quality, but hard to tell which one is really in there. I prefer Western Digital or Seagate.
 
just go over to newegg.com and pick the size you want.....externals are pretty much just plug in and go. quality hasn't really ever been an issue from what i've seen.
 
so you have around 22,000 songs?
Cool
 
If you are going to keep it in one place and not travel with it, then definately get one with an external power source because they are very much cheaper for the size you can get. IF you do a lot of traveling and moving the external around then get a small one that does not have a power source because it takes up less space and is much easier to deal with, plus they have them up to 1TB now... SWEET!
 
For what it's worth, I use a 3.5" external hard disc enclosure which will support an IDE drive up to 750 gb. They are also available for SATA drives. It connects via FireWire or USB, and has its own external power source. For backup purposes it works great. Got it at Horizon in Concord. I don't remember the price, but it wasn't bad or I probably wouldn't have bought it. :)
 
Buy a Seagate. They have 5yr warranties on the drives. Take a look at the individual model, too... some the chassis (case, power supply, etc) is warrantied for a year, others it's 3 or 5. I just warrantied a ~3yr old Seagate. It would spin up, but something went wrong in the firmware or chipset, bios didn't recognize it anymore. Called Seagate and got a new one in the mail.

Between me and my dad, we own about a half dozen of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148356 Cheap, 5yr warranty, built in automatic backup software (with archiving! 10 copies deep). That's really what this it about, too... you want two copies of everything -- one on the internal drive, one on the external.

I think the sweet spot on HDs is currently around 1.5TB, FWIW.

USB is fine for what it's going to do. Hell, I stream BluRay movies over USB. Firewire drives cost more than they're worth.

Also, optical media IS NOT a backup. Consider yourself lucky if your cd copies outlast your hard drive. I have some that still read... others, not so much.
 
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