Best External Hard Drive???

[moose1619]

I'm thinking of going Seagate 320 over Western Digital 500, Seagate has 5 yr warranty. Any thoughts, or suggestions.

[23]

Re: Best External Hard Drive???

Both are top of the line HDD's

[Pappy Knuckles]

Re: Best External Hard Drive???

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4276749&CatId=4226

I love my passport, I take it with me all the time. It slides in your pocket no problem.

[KENYON06]

Re: Best External Hard Drive???

Depends what you are using it for. For general data storage, you may as well just pick the larger one. Seagate has come under fire recently because of they have a large HD failure rate. I've never had a problem with them though. Also, consider USB vs. eSata. eSata kicks the crap out of USB, but not every PC has eSata ports so consider that if you plan to travel with it.

If its for an Operating system, typically one with higher speed is better, for better load times. Or better yet, a Solid State Disk for <20 second boot times from the time you hit the power button.

[HiJumpr111]

Re: Best External Hard Drive???

I'm having a lot of luck with my Western Digital 500GB.
I personally would suggest avoiding Simpletech. Although some people have had success with them, I've had to return two of them in the past year.

[Herky]

Re: Best External Hard Drive???

What would you recommend for storing music on? I have nearly 1,500 CD's (no joke) that I want to store on a external.

[Pared]

Re: Best External Hard Drive???

The "My Passport" series by WD is pretty much a lock for reliability.

I'd suggest staying away from Seagate. They've been in the news for their repeated failures, especially the models used in Macbooks. The only one I've seen work reliably that I can attest to is the FreeAgent. One of the rare pieces of quality from that company.

[techhokies]

Re: Best External Hard Drive???

Two of my Western Digital's broke in the past. My Maxtor one is still going strong though. When I was buying them, people told me that WD was better than Seagate though, and that's why I went w/ them until two broke and so I switched over to Maxtor.

[23]

Re: Best External Hard Drive???

Yep the freeagent is the one I have. Seems to give me no issues at all

[RockinDaMike]

Re: Best External Hard Drive???

I have a 1.5 terabyte from seagate for just 120 bucks. Pretty good deal and I havne't had any issues but only had it for a couple months.

I never really bought an external harddrive, but should I always keep it plugged in? I disconnect the power if i have no need for it, not sure if that's a good thing or not.

[techhokies]

Re: Best External Hard Drive???

I never really bought an external harddrive, but should I always keep it plugged in? I disconnect the power if i have no need for it, not sure if that's a good thing or not.

The main thing I try to do is not burn anything off of it, like cd's or dvd's. I just transfer them over to the main hard drive then burn stuff, as I think my first couple externals were overloaded when I burned backup discs off them. Also, if it's a file I'll use for a while, normally movies, then I'll transfer it over to the main hard drive too for the same reason so that it's not constantly using the external.

[Jonesy]

Re: Best External Hard Drive???

I've got a Western Digital 500 and it's one of the best investments i've made. It's very reliable and makes life so much easier. I was visiting a friend recently and took my WD500, plugged it into his cpu and transferred about 1000 songs and over 100 movies to it. So easy to use and now i have more music and movies then i know what to do with.

[moose1619]

Re: Best External Hard Drive???

I had originally ordered the Seagate freeagent 320 for 89.99, but I cancelled the order and ordered the WD passport 320 for 79.99. The main reason I was going seagate was the 5 yr warranty.