External hard drive recommendations?

thoras_herd · Apr 16, 2007

So, I have been looking at purchasing an external hard drive - not sure if I want a desk top one or a portable one. Anyway, I have seen some nice-looking ones made by Formac - are they any good? Or do you have any recommendations for me?

Size is not an issue at the moment as I hardly have any stuff to back-up, but I guess I would like atleast 80GB (to match my hard drive size). Budget is maximum £80. I assume Firewire connection is best?

Smell The Glove · Apr 16, 2007

If you can get it with firewire, that's nice to have, but it will probably cost slightly more than a USB 2.0 external drive. I'd probably get the biggest hard drive you can afford. You might not need the space now, but our space needs are always growing in the computer world. You can find some at OWC, but I've picked up my last couple of drives from newegg. LaCie is a pretty common drive that works well with Macs.

thoras_herd · Apr 16, 2007

thanks, i looked at LaCie, and liked this - LaCie 250GB Porsche Firewire P3 Hard Drive - just under £80

but then something lovely and tiny like a portable drive would be nice too

oh decisions decisions - that's the thing with bveing a switcher, there is a whole heap of further toy-buying to be done!

gilesjuk · Apr 16, 2007

NAS enclosures are handy. You don't need to keep unplugging the drive if it's attached to a laptop. Plus it doesn't use up a port.

Of course they're not as fast as firewire or USB.

fiveightandten · Apr 16, 2007

thoras_herd said:
thanks, i looked at LaCie, and liked this - LaCie 250GB Porsche Firewire P3 Hard Drive - just under £80

but then something lovely and tiny like a portable drive would be nice too

oh decisions decisions - that's the thing with bveing a switcher, there is a whole heap of further toy-buying to be done!

I have the 160GB USB version of that drive and it's been great. I've had it for a little over a year and it's functioned flawlessly with my Mac and PC (formatted in FAT32).

The only complaint I had about it was that folders with large amounts of files/data took a moment to load on my PC, but it doesn't seem to be a problem with the Mini as much. For instance, I had a folder with 10GB of music in it. I've since broken that down into subfolders, and the load time is a non-issue.

If I ever fill this one up, I plan on buying another one, as they're stackable.

-Nick

baggss · Apr 16, 2007

Don't buy a pre-built Hard Drive. Go to a computer store and buy a Hard drive and an enclosure. You will save money, get a better selection and more drive space for significantly less money. If you watch for sales on new IDE, ATA or SATA drives, you can save a TON of money.

IronMac · Apr 16, 2007

baggss said:
Don't buy a pre-built Hard Drive. Go to a computer store and buy a Hard drive and an enclosure. You will save money, get a better selection and more drive space for significantly less money. If you watch for sales on new IDE, ATA or SATA drives, you can save a TON of money.

Yep built myself a 300GB drive for about 115, last year. Definitely the way to go. Gonna do it again this summer only bigger. looking at that Quad interface enclosure from OWC.

fleurya · Apr 16, 2007

Ask around for anyone that has an old computer/drive they don't use any more. You can get one for next to nothing and just buy the enclosure.

I must have been shopping in the wrong places, because when I was looking to get an external drive, pricing an internal and an enclosure separately was always more expensive than buying an external alone. If it's cheaper though, that would be best.

baggss · Apr 16, 2007

fleurya said:
Ask around for anyone that has an old computer/drive they don't use any more. You can get one for next to nothing and just buy the enclosure.

I must have been shopping in the wrong places, because when I was looking to get an external drive, pricing an internal and an enclosure separately was always more expensive than buying an external alone. If it's cheaper though, that would be best.

It can be. I always look at the sales ads on Sundays or shop E-Bay. You can get 250Gb drives for less than $75 on e-bay right now.

ste6168 · Apr 16, 2007

baggss said:
It can be. I always look at the sales ads on Sundays or shop E-Bay. You can get 250Gb drives for less than $75 on e-bay right now.

BUTTT, I got my 160gb WD external for 69.99 on sale a while back, thats hard to pass up. My next drive (probably a 500gb will be WD just to match the one i already have). Base of the metter is, if you look around you can find good deals on either...

Rambaud · Apr 17, 2007

I have a 320Gb Seagate external drive - about £75 now.

A 500Gb Seagate hard drive is around £65 and then you have extra for an enclosure (I use IcyBox ones).

There may be cheaper options.

gilesjuk · Apr 17, 2007

baggss said:
Don't buy a pre-built Hard Drive. Go to a computer store and buy a Hard drive and an enclosure. You will save money, get a better selection and more drive space for significantly less money. If you watch for sales on new IDE, ATA or SATA drives, you can save a TON of money.

Only do this if you are buying a decent brand of drive, I would stick to Seagate or Samsung myself.

I've had issues with Maxtor and Hitachi drives on my computers, I would avoid these if you're building an external drive.

Also, read the specs of the enclosure carefully, some have 300 or 500GB limits.

metalsam · Apr 17, 2007

amazon.co.uk (I assume they ahve the same deals for the .com site) have a 500GB USB 2.0 external for £95 inc delivery. I have one - works fine

baggss · Apr 17, 2007

gilesjuk said:
Only do this if you are buying a decent brand of drive, I would stick to Seagate or Samsung myself.

I've had issues with Maxtor and Hitachi drives on my computers, I would avoid these if you're building an external drive.

Also, read the specs of the enclosure carefully, some have 300 or 500GB limits.

I've had good experiences with Seagate, Western Digital, Samsung and Maxtor in the past. I generally try to go with Seagate or Maxtor myself.

fleurya · Apr 17, 2007

I wonder how many of these major brand names have the components of their hard drives come out of common factories?

Darker Times · Apr 17, 2007

I bought a Toshiba 320 gig ext hard drive from PC World for about £100. It connects with USB2, which I was a little doubtfull about since I need it for video (I wondered if it would be sluggish) but it works superb. Since my purchase, the price has dropped to £80, and a 500 gig model is now available for the original money I spent.

Philip