Looking for a new external hard drive

russellb6666 · Post by **russellb6666** » 2008-06-17 01:55pm

I wonder if anybody can help, I am in need of an external hard drive to back up all my files and things so I can clean all of the assorted crap out of my computer.

But with so many to choose from I'm feeling somewhat lost, so if anybody has any recommendations for a price conscious reliable external drive in the range of 160 to 500 GB I would most appreciate it.

Ryushikaze · Post by **Ryushikaze** » 2008-06-17 02:39pm

If this is specifically for backup purposes, your best bet is to just get a second internal drive, drop the stuff you want safe onto it, reformat the original drive, and start fresh.

If you must go external, get a full sized drive inside an enclosure. Much more reliable and durable than the smaller sized ones.

But yeah, just check newegg.com, and see what the highest GB you can get in the $50 to $100 range is. It's usually 500.

russellb6666 · Post by **russellb6666** » 2008-06-17 02:47pm

Ryushikaze wrote:If this is specifically for backup purposes, your best bet is to just get a second internal drive, drop the stuff you want safe onto it, reformat the original drive, and start fresh.

If you must go external, get a full sized drive inside an enclosure. Much more reliable and durable than the smaller sized ones.

But yeah, just check newegg.com, and see what the highest GB you can get in the $50 to $100 range is. It's usually 500.

I would get another external drive but my comp is a 5 or 6 year old sony vaio and both hard drive spots are filled.

Are there any major differences between brand names I should know about or is it mostly just the same besides a few random features?

DarkSilver · Post by **DarkSilver** » 2008-06-17 04:25pm

I find Seagate and Western Digital to be the most most reliable drives, I have both in my desktop computer, and none of them give me any problems.

Definatly suggest just snagging a internal HDD, either desktop or laptop sized, and a enclosure for it. Cheaper doing it yourself than buying one already done in most cases.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2008-06-18 03:58am

You can get things like the WD Elements for only slightly more than an internal drive, and if you're going to periodically (say, weekly) connect it for backups it may be worth the extra $10.

Post by **weemadando** » 2008-06-18 04:16am

I'm totally going to get something like this:

Network Attached Storage w/Torrent Client

I've seen on for ~100AUD and then you can just drop a big HDD in yourself and get a nice versatile thing that can be an external drive, network drive and file server.