External Hard Drive

[msminniemouse]

Does anyone have any advice on what type of external hard drive to buy? Is there one that you have that you would recommend? I have never had or used one, and am worried about losing my data. Are they easy to use?

 

[jedijill]

They are super easy to use. Most just plug in using a USB plug and the drive will show up on your pc as just another drive (d:, e:, f:, g:, etc).

I find good prices at Newegg.com and Microcenter (both online and brick and morterstores).

Found a Toshiba 1Terabyte external HD at Newegg for $110.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...=external_hardrive_1tb-_-22-149-097-_-Product

HTH

Jill in CO

 

[CindyKansas]

I have My Book and I love it. Actually brought mine with me to Orlando while I am participating in the WDW College Program. I load all my pictures onto it so I don't lose space on my laptop. Plus I have a lot of music loaded onto it.

 

[deerhart]

do you know what kind your looking for? We have an external western digital portable harddrive. It is about 500gig. We also have a two terabyte external drive networked into our computer system (its one that has to be plugged in).

The 500gig was about $75 (bought 8 months ago), the two terabyte plugged in one (also a western digital) was about $125-$130 (bought 2 months ago).

The portable one is very easy to use, and like described above just plugs in via our usb port. The other I didn't see DH network it up so not sure how its done but could probably figure it out.

 

[Purseval]

I have 5 different external drives, all different brands. 3 1TB and 2 500 gig plus I just mailed a 250 gig external that I didn't need anymore to my sister. They all worke fine, I go by best price. The last 1TB I bought was a Westerd Digital Elements at Target on Black Friday for $60. $90 is a fair price nowadays for 1TB (Frys had them 2 days ago at that price, may still be on sale).

 

[dex08]

I have both Western Digital and iOmega brand external backup drives and find them easy to work with. The software on both is so very easy to configure, though I prefer the iOmega software over WD.

 

[lovesmurfs]

Do a little research before purchasing, and decide how you want to use it.

DH has a huge one (500 GB, I think), which requires an outlet plug in to operate -- he only uses it for backup of his laptop and our family desktop computer, so it works well.

Mine is only 120 GB and operates through the USB port, without additional plug in. It's much more portable and I'm able to bring it with me if I need the info for traveling -- works as a hard drive, but also like a huge flash drive.

 

[disneymarie]

Does anyone have any advice on what type of external hard drive to buy? Is there one that you have that you would recommend? I have never had or used one, and am worried about losing my data. Are they easy to use?

I recommend a Seagate. I found a 1 terabyte for $69.99 at Staples.

 

[Praying Colonel]

Does anyone have any advice on what type of external hard drive to buy? Is there one that you have that you would recommend? I have never had or used one, and am worried about losing my data. Are they easy to use?

I've had a Western Digital 160gb external drive for about 6 years now and love it. I'm thinking about upgrading to this WD drive, or a network attached storage like this.

 

[Chelley00]

I got a Western for Christmas. I love how easy it was to figure out.

 

[nd5056]

I recommend a Seagate.

I don't, see more HERE:

.

 

[scard192]

We have a Western Digital here in the office, which was what my IT department recommended for our small office.

 

[rie'smom]

Yesterday I bought the western digital portable 1 TB hard drive for $60 at wal Mart! The price was so good that I went to the cashier to do a price check.
To use, plug it in, attach the included USB cord from the computer to the hard drive, and you're done.

 

[Purseval]

DH has a huge one (500 GB, I think), which requires an outlet plug in to operate -- he only uses it for backup of his laptop and our family desktop computer, so it works well.

Mine is only 120 GB and operates through the USB port, without additional plug in. It's much more portable and I'm able to bring it with me if I need the info for traveling -- works as a hard drive, but also like a huge flash drive.

They had both of those on sale at Target, a 500GB WD and a 1TB, for $60 each. The savings in size results in the loss of storage space which is why you paid the same price for a drive that holds half as much. We bought 1 of each.

 

[disneymarie]

DS has had his Seagate forever from Newegg and no issues. I had mine since November, it is a heavy pack, durable.

I also keep my most important files on Porta flash drives I have several 8 gb and 4 gb.

For the best thing, I use external storage, Kim Camando has a code I think for Data deposit box. For less the $50 a year I know that everything , I do photography and Private investigative work, is safe.

The Western Drive at the time we bought the first were not well reveiwed.
I guess you get what you pay for though, and anything really irreplaceable, back up online storage.

 

[ZuZugal]

I have external & portable drives, mostly for backup and extra storage of pictures/film clips.

Frys online usually has some good deals. If you feel uncomfortable with that go in to staples, best buy, etc and talk w/someone about your needs and what they have to offer.

Above all, get one and set it up and use it!! So many people put off getting one and then lose pictures, etc.

 

[msminniemouse]

I was just wondering if you can back up all of your programs and settings as well as your files, music and pictures? Thanks for all suggestions. I'll look around and see what kind of deals I can get.

 

[crisi]

I recommend paying Mozy every month for cloud backup.

All hard drives fail. All hard drive manufacturers have occasional quality problems (Seagate's issues were fixed over 18 months ago, the one brewing is Toshibas....)

If you are going to use a hard drive for backup, backup that hard drive. Preferably offsite. If your house burns down, a backup in your house is not going to save your photos.

 

[crisi]

I was just wondering if you can back up all of your programs and settings as well as your files, music and pictures? Thanks for all suggestions. I'll look around and see what kind of deals I can get.

If you want to do this, you want to take a regular image of your drive using something like Ghost. That will allow you to simply restore your whole computer from the image. Way faster than rebuilding and reinstalling.

 

[chrismiss56]

Are any of these Apple compatible? thanks!