External Hard Drives?
 

Can anybody recommend a good one? I'm looking for 250-500 GB of storage. My music and video collection has outgrown my laptop hard drive and I'd like to leave room to expand, plus be able to back up stuff like my photos and such. Edit to add: Conversely, are there any brands I should steer clear of? Thanks!

FWIW, I have a PC, and I'd prefer to buy it this weekend (i.e. tomorrow).
/tk

I've read good things about Maxtor. I've had good success with my Maxtor 320 GB External HD and it wasn't too expensive.

I have had a 250 GB Maxtor for about a year and a half now (at least). It has worked like a charm. I haven't had one problem with it.

I keep my base programs on my hard drive on the computer (Windows, key programs, etc.) and my games I usually run from the external.

Yup, I felt I got a good deal on the price, too. I don't recall how much I paid, but it was definitely under $200. It was an amount I didn't really feel I needed to sweat much.

I've heard the exact opposite about Maxtor hard drives. Hell, any time I've had a Maxtor HD in a computer, it's melted down.

Though granted those are internal, not external.

FWIW, I love Seagate's external HDs.

Sure they're slow, but they're durable.

Oddly, reading the reviews at bestbuy.com, it seems it's love/hate. It's fairly evenly split between 1 star reviews and 4 or 5 star reviews.... A lot of people say the backup feature sucks, but since I'm not doing that, I'm not sure I'm concerned there. But I am rather concerned about meltdowns and drives not working....

/tk

I have had internal Maxtors, too, and have had issues with them. My positive review is reserved solely for the exterior. Incidentally, I also don't use the backup feature.

Good point. I don't like the Maxtor's automated backup feature at all. I NEVER use it. However, with manual operation it works perfectly (or at least is has for me over the past year or so.)

I have 2 external Western Digitals and have had no problems at all. Have a 250 gig that is full and about 2 years old, another 500 gig was added about 3 months ago. I love that I can hook them up to the desktop, network them, and have all the music and video stream flawlessly on the laptop.

stay away from HP drives, then, tk..
















:D

My brother's friend left his external HD in his car last night, and today when he tried to use it, saw that only his numeric and letter A artists were still on there, everything else was somehow corrupted/erased.

He lost 28,000 songs.

DVD backups are your friend.

I picked up a 250G WD at Costco last week. Seems to be doing well so far.

Office Max to the rescue.....



20 cents per DVD ain't bad! :)

Maxtor is now owned by Seagate.

If you stick with a Brand name external, ie. Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor, you should be all set with which ever brand you choose.

All brands have failures, and then the ones who've had them fail swear not to use them again. I've used all three brands and have one had one HD fail in 15 years of use, and the manufacturer replaced it for free. It was a Western Digital.

Search online in places like Newegg, Zip Zoom Fly, Outpost, Chief Value(owned by Newegg), etc., and you'll get a better idea of prices compared to Best Buy and Circuit City.

I worked in a computers & hardware shop (my father's) for years and to tell you the true, there are not big differences between the different hardware brands, just different experiences by different people with them. If a WD breaks on you, you will say everywhere that WD is crap, as i will say about Maxtor etc etc and specially since internet, the consumers with bad experiences are the more vocal ones.

There are only a few hardware manufacturers and they work for several brands and use the same materials, personal and factories, the only difference is sometimes the design, and not always.

If we were talking about a TV or something with different functions and features, i wouldn't say this, but all the external HD do exactly the same and in the same way. Don't drive crazy yourself reading about this brand or another as you will find always somebody saying good or bad things about every brand.

With this i'm just saying that just buy whatever external HD you can find at a good price and specially in a shop where it's easy to return it if it breaks, as every brand HD can break anytime for different reasons.

If I were looking for it for backups, I'd agree 100% (and this is in fact how I backup my stuff). What I want this for, though, is to move my entire iTunes library to, and tehrefore be able to access the entire library if I have iTunes open. For that, DVD data burns (or even Blu-Ray burns, if I had a Blu-Ray burner) will not work.

/tk

I just bought a 500 GB Maxtor for $140 from New Egg and have always loved Maxtor drives.

I like my seagate drives...

(The next poster will say what he likes, then the next, then the next, then some lunatic will blow up, blood will be shed and people on both sides of the Coke vs. Pepsi divide will keep a fiendishly squinted eye on the other.)

My post was in reference to Shorty's post about losing 28,000 songs on an external HD. I didnt intend it as a solution to what you are looking for at all.

Like I said before, I have 2 WDs and love them. They are great for storing your audio and video files with easy access. I just recommend backing up whatever is important to you. This comes from someone who just had the HD in my old Dell desktop fail, losing 1,000s of pictures I have taken from different trips. Im working on getting them back, but have learned my lesson. Now Im working on backing up my music on DVDs, you just never know when a HD(no matter what brand) will go bad.