Question for my smart computer friends

HotRodLadyCrusr · August 28, 2008, 08:43:42 PM

Is there anything to look for when purcahsing an external hard drive? or basicly is price just dermined by Gigs of storage? Anyone buy one lately and get a good price?

Fat Cat · August 28, 2008, 09:44:23 PM

Quote from: "HotRodLadyCrusr"Is there anything to look for when purcahsing an external hard drive? or basicly is price just dermined by Gigs of storage? Anyone buy one lately and get a good price?

I have 5 of them, all but one of them are Western Digital. The one that is not is a specialty device that can also be connected to a TV to play pictures, videos or MP3 files. I had a 500 GB drive that failed to run but it was not a drive issue it was a controller issue. Once I took the drive out of the case and plugged it into a computer internally I was able to get my data back. My most recent one was a 1 terabyte drive that I got around christmas time at Fry's for $269 dollars.

I have bought a ton of hardware from Newegg http://www.newegg.com and they currently have a 750GB western digital drive for $119 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136176

sirstude · August 28, 2008, 10:23:15 PM

I am using Buffalo usb drives. They have 7200 rpm SATA drives in them. The speed of the disk is important. 7200 seems to be the good ones right now. These also have turbo boost (whatever that is, some advertising gimmick mostly), but they seem dependable and are definately fast. We have been sending one back and forth between the Hospital here and some agencys that are doing some mail mining for us. 300 gigs at a time to send. Been going for for almost a year now, and the drive is fine with all the shipping.

Doug

wayne petty · August 29, 2008, 01:54:06 PM

what you are going to do with it also makes a difference

many are available with both USB 2.0 and firewire.....

having firewire allows it to be a bootable drive if you have a mac... which most people don't

firewire also works with other digital devices... like some digital video cameras...

HotRodLadyCrusr · August 29, 2008, 02:24:43 PM

Both my laptop and desk top are full of photos and at max capacity. I've even dialed down the size of the photos I'm taking this year and I've edit albums. So bacicly just used for photo storage.

Thanks for the input guys. I do believe the 750Gig that FatCat suggested is the one I'm going to go with.

papastoyss · August 29, 2008, 04:52:16 PM

Quote from: "HotRodLadyCrusr"Is there anything to look for when purcahsing an external hard drive? or basicly is price just dermined by Gigs of storage? Anyone buy one lately and get a good price?

Ha Ha, I thought you were my smart computer friend!

kb426 · August 29, 2008, 06:58:34 PM

A word of caution: We've had several WD "my book series and 1 out of 4 works. The ones I have are 320 gig. My thoughts are to get an external without anything extra. We have a 250 gig passport model that works as it should. It's basically a laptop drive, very small and neat. I can't say the same for the my book series.

HotRodLadyCrusr · August 30, 2008, 05:35:13 PM

Quote from: "papastoyss"Ha Ha, I thought you were my smart computer friend!

LOL, nope, I'm just your smart photo hosting and posting friend

I did order the one that Frank suggested. I went to Best Buy to see what they had to offer. They had the exact same thing but it was $30.00 more. I think I can wait the 3 days shipping to save $30.

Thanks again for everyones option. I should be able to get thru about 800 or so car events till this is filled up