Which external harddrive should i get?

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aim high

aim high

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400 gig portable. no power cord.
Newegg.com - Western Digital Elements Portable WDE1MSBK4000BN 400GB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive - External Hard Drives

or

640 gig corded power.
Newegg.com - Western Digital Elements Desktop WDE1UBK6400N 640GB USB 2.0 Black External Hard Drive - External Hard Drives



both are 69.99. same company. both have very good reviews.

i realize this is probably completely personal depending on if im going to bring it around a lot. any benefits to having a portable other then its portable?
 


Mine just died on me so I'm actually looking as well if anybody knows of a good deal.

I probably need at least 640gb if not a TB, and I looked at that Western Digital one you linked to, but it's only USB 2.0 and I'd really like to get one with Firewire 800 to speed up the backups
 
joshmv said:
Mine just died on me so I'm actually looking as well if anybody knows of a good deal.

I probably need at least 640gb if not a TB, and I looked at that Western Digital one you linked to, but it's only USB 2.0 and I'd really like to get one with Firewire 800 to speed up the backups
Click to expand...

heres a tb for 109.99. no fw though.
 
redmonkey said:
If both of them has only USB anyway, go with the cordless ones. The external with cord only big in size but it'll end up being useless since the speed is as slow as the cordless ones.

Spend $40 more for this one if you need it for backup.
Newegg.com - Fantom GD1000EU 1TB USB 2.0 / eSATA Silver GreenDrive External Hard Drive - External Hard Drives

USB 2.0 is painfully slow when transferring large files.
Click to expand...

i initially wanted to get a tb hd but then i thought it would be better to get 500 or so at first because of the chance of the hd failing and me having to buy another. i'm not too loaded right now so im trying to buy smart. i also do not have an esata port on my laptop. =\ . i've never bought an external hd before either. whats the expected life of one if someone is transferring data often on it?
 
rogerd said:
Every Western Digital drive I've had, internal or external, has failed. So I don't buy WD anymore.
Click to expand...

how long did they last? i have the Western Digital 500gb Passport:

i also use Mozy online backup.

i synch everything between 2 laptops and a desktop, so i think I'm pretty much covered if anything happens on any one system. then again bad shit happens in 3's.
 
Never had any problems with a WD drive. Not sure what your using it for, but I've really put never put much faith into anything I've spent $69.99 on. Anything I purchase at that price point I would consider a throwaway item anyhow.

I'd go with the 640 gig corded as well. I've got all my old music CD's ripped and backed up in FLAC format on a similar drive sitting in a safe deposit box.
 
I'll probably be going for something like this myself...

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I currently have six drives on my main box.

1 for OS and programs.

1 for scratch disk for Adobe, 3dsMax, etc.

1 for work, all my sites, designs, and whatever else I would classify as work.

1 for resources, fonts, stock photos, clip art, templates, references, etc.

1 external 500gb for work backup, a mirror of the internal work drive.

1 external 500gb for resources backup, and mirror of the internal resources drive.

Then there's the media box with music and movies with another 2 drives in it, and then the girl's box that has another 2 drives in it.

I'd like to consolidate all this into a fast network server to streamline the office better.
 
Fatbat said:
I'll probably be going for something like this myself...

Data Robotics, Inc.

Data Robotics, Inc. | DroboPro

NCIX.com - Buy Data Robotics Drobo 4 Bay SATA2 Hard Drive Storage Array USB2.0 W/ Mixed Drive Capacity Support - DRO4DU10 In Canada..

NCIX.com - Buy Acer Aspire Easystore H340 Home Server Intel Atom 2GB 1TB GBLAN 4 Bay Hotswap Windows Home Server - PG.T170W.007 In Canada.

I currently have six drives on my main box.

1 for OS and programs.

1 for scratch disk for Adobe, 3dsMax, etc.

1 for work, all my sites, designs, and whatever else I would classify as work.

1 for resources, fonts, stock photos, clip art, templates, references, etc.

1 external 500gb for work backup, a mirror of the internal work drive.

1 external 500gb for resources backup, and mirror of the internal resources drive.

Then there's the media box with music and movies with another 2 drives in it, and then the girl's box that has another 2 drives in it.

I'd like to consolidate all this into a fast network server to streamline the office better.
Click to expand...

damn. thats hardcore.
 
Using the 2TB WD My Book mirror edition. Was like 2 bills, most places like newegg or tigerdirect carry it. Plug and go.
 
Just remember, for all you suckers keeping all your shit on ONE hard drive... backup, backup, backup.

This is coming from someone that has had THREE hard drives die in the last year or two and knows this pain all too well. Hence the above setup and even then I burn work to DVDs to lock in my safe or take off site from time to time.
 
Go for the No Power cord portable option. Always nice to just plug in and go. They really are convenient.

If you need lots of storage for movies, TV and such, go for a 1TB drive.

Depending on what you want to store, you should think about RAID mirroring and backups. When HDDs fail.... ;(
 
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