External Hard Drive

attackingmooseattackingmoose
edited July 2006 in Hardware
I got an 80 dollar gift certificate on amazon.com and I want to spend it all on an external hard drive. Since I've been helped here oh-so-many times before, I thought this would be the best place to find out how to blow my money.

First things first. I have USB1 and have no plans to go to 2 anytime soon. I NEED to get it from Amazon.com. Finally, it can exceed 80 dollars by a little bit. Nothing over 150 if possible. Oh, and use your best judgement. If you know something about the specific hard drive, even better. I have no luck getting information from the reviews on amazon because they tend to go from I LOVE IT to I HATE IT.

Thank you very, very much; I'm glad for all you guys do!

Comments

  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited July 2006
    Don't use Amazon reviews. Amazon is good for what it does - selling to the general public, but it is NOT a site for technical advice.

    For the best external hardware for your money, don't buy and external hard drive unit, rather buy the hard drive of your choice and a hard drive enclosure. The prebuilt "external hard drives" are nothing more than a fancy enclosure and a standard hard drive encased inside with usually a very high markup over what you could build yourself. It's very simple to make an external drive: simply buy a hard drive and enclosure and install the drive inside. Its' usually three or four screws and the hard drive connector inside the enclosure - that's it. A big advantage of doing it yourself is that you can upgrade the hard drive whenever you feel like or swap drives in and out.

    If your computer doesn't have USB 2.0, I sure hope it has Firewire. You data transfer speeds with USB 1 will be painfully slow. There are also SATA external drives that connect directly to an SATA port on the back of the computer. That would be the fastest external setup. But then, if your computer doesn't have USB 2.0, it certainly won't have SATA hard drives. Just get a combination USB2-Firewire enclosure and a P-ATA/IDE (old standard) type enclosure. USB2 connectors will be backwards compatible with your USB1 system.
  • WuGgaRoOWuGgaRoO Not in the shower Icrontian
    edited July 2006
    if u know a good amount about comps i would spend some extra money and buy a 320 gig western digital harddrive combines with an AMS venus external enclosure.. im using it right now and its sweet as hell and it only cost 120 total but it was from newegg... at any rate..thats my reccommendation.. but with the whole USB 1.0...u can probably buy a usb 2.0 PCI card for like 40 bucks or so...but check prices im with leo on this one..external HD's+usb 1.0=sllooowww not to rag on ur rig of course...we are just being honest
  • airbornflghtairbornflght Houston, TX Icrontian
    edited July 2006
    Speak of the Devil, I just got off of the phone with my grand dad about the exact same thing. We are undertaking a fairly large videography project, and I swear he is going to have a production studio pretty soon:D.

    Anyway, yeh, I pointed him in the direction of a 320gig Seagate Barracuda, as it is only a few dollars more than the 250 gig one, I also showed him the one with the new storage tech, it is fairly new, but I guess it is supposed to improve performance a little. I also pointed him to this enclosure, as it is pretty, and seems to get good reviews.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited July 2006
    There is a slight advantage to purchasing a prebuilt external drive. Some of them come with no-fuss backup software, some of which is very good. For someone who doesn't want to be bothered with purchasing backup software separately, the package deals aren't all that bad, but they are relatively expensive.
  • WuGgaRoOWuGgaRoO Not in the shower Icrontian
    edited July 2006
    However, if you do not intend using it for backup..isnt the software pointless
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited July 2006
    Yes, it would be pointless. If all the external drive will do is serve as a storage device, then absolutely don't buy a prebuilt "external drive."
  • WuGgaRoOWuGgaRoO Not in the shower Icrontian
    edited July 2006
    i use my external for a semi back up..nothing special..a few itunes here and there just incase anything goes awry with my primary..
    hmmm
    is the "back up" software primarily used to back up everything so you wouldnt have to reinstall windows right? or am i confused
  • airbornflghtairbornflght Houston, TX Icrontian
    edited July 2006
    Leonardo, I feel that I should mention that some enclosures do come with the backup software, as the backup is a function of the enclosure itself, and not the hdd. Sometimes the software wont be as polished if you get a prebuilt from say iomega, but it will work. Linky

    Really, I dont know if I would buy a prebuilt, because right now, Seagate is offering 5 year warranties on their barracuda drives. and that is definitely a selling point for me.:thumbsup:
  • attackingmooseattackingmoose
    edited July 2006
    Thanks for the replies guys, some stuff I already knew but it's all useful. I knew that buying the drive and the enclosure seperate was a good idea already and I guess I need some links thrown at me now. If getting USB2 is a good idea, then I'd like a link to a USB2 card. Please and thanks!

    Keep up the good work!
  • WuGgaRoOWuGgaRoO Not in the shower Icrontian
    edited July 2006
    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000BZ2WA/sr=8-1/qid=1154204695/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-1842093-0914455?ie=UTF8

    there it seems like a decent usb 2.0 pci card, and everyone who bought it on newegg likes it... so it seems like a good buy... if anyone objects then please say so.. I have not used this before, but i don't wanna reccommend anything that costs more than this due to the 80 buck constraint
    Also: you should either buy the hd or the enclosure on newegg to save money. Like try to utizilie the 80 bucks you have.. I suggest buying the hd off newegg and buying the enclosure off amazon
    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000G7WZFK/sr=8-1/qid=1154205179/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-1842093-0914455?ie=UTF8

    i use that one and i have had NO problems with it at all..cept the installation (but thats because i never mounted an external hd in XP..but once i figured it out..it was easy)
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