External hard drive question

[ElizK]

I know nothing about hard drives. What features do I need to look for? Is any one brand better than another, or any brand I should avoid?

I'm looking for something preferably in the $100.00 range, and I want it to get my thousands of pictures off my PC's hard drive.

Thanks for your help!

 

[dioxide45]

I know nothing about hard drives. What features do I need to look for? Is any one brand better than another, or any brand I should avoid?

I'm looking for something preferably in the $100.00 range, and I want it to get my thousands of pictures off my PC's hard drive.

Thanks for your help!

We recently picked up a 1TB drive WD MyBook for about $140. You should be able to get a 500GB to 750GB in your price range. If you only have one PC then a USB interface should be sufficient. If you have a network you may want a network drive, but you can still make the USB work you just need to always have the PC that it is connected to powered up. We have two drives, one just for our backups and the 1TB for photos and videos, it works well for our uses.

 

[annnewjerz]

I had asked this question recently and received a lot of responses back that said Seagate was a great reliable brand for an external hard drive. I was also advised, however, to back-up my photos in more than one place (i.e. a hard drive, an external drive, discs and a hosting site) because no matter how great the drive...nothing lasts forever. It has been time-consuming so far, but it's working out well.

If you aren't looking for something portable, I have had good luck so far with this one.

http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-FreeA...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1230480217&sr=8-1

It's $80 on Amazon (although I think newegg.com might have it cheaper) for a 500GB drive that stays on your computer desk.

Good luck and happy shopping!!

 

[JR6ooo4]

I had asked this question recently and received a lot of responses back that said Seagate was a great reliable brand for an external hard drive. I was also advised, however, to back-up my photos in more than one place (i.e. a hard drive, an external drive, discs and a hosting site) because no matter how great the drive...nothing lasts forever. It has been time-consuming so far, but it's working out well.

If you aren't looking for something portable, I have had good luck so far with this one.

http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-FreeA...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1230480217&sr=8-1

It's $80 on Amazon (although I think newegg.com might have it cheaper) for a 500GB drive that stays on your computer desk.

Good luck and happy shopping!!

Ditto on that. Back up to the new hard drive then burn DVDs before deleting anything.

you may want to start using an auto backup program. Most external HD kits come with one. I use one at work twice a day.

Any file on your computer that has changed will be saved to the backup drive. Great for photos but also bookmarks, emails etc...

Mikeeee

 

[KCmike]

Seagate and Western Digital are both good.

I would stay away from Maxtor (I get these returned every so often).

 

[ElizK]

Thank you so much for the info! I will be checking out the amazon link. I always know where to come for good information, and I appreciate that!

 

[MICKEY88]

another option is to buy an internal drive and an enclosure, or a dock, which is what I recently did, by buying an internal drive I was able to get a seagate baracuda 1 tb drive for under 100 dollars, the dock was 35, but now I can buy more internal drives and just swap them out when I want, less clutter than a bunch of external drives, and I'm buying a fire safe to keep the drives in..

 

[Groucho]

I would also stick to the physically larger external drives that use 3.5" desktop hard drives. The really small ones use 2.5" laptop hard drives which are slower and less reliable.

I would generally go with Seagate for the 5-year warranty (Maxtor has this too, as they are the same company now), I would not consider anything with less than a 3-year warranty.

I also would suggest buying an enclosure and putting the hard drive in yourself. This makes it much easier for troubleshooting in the future (it's very difficult to do a proper scan for errors on an external hard drive using the manufacturer's diagnostic software.)