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Best external HDD for $175 or less
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I recently replaced my father's old Dell machine that perished in an electrical storm. This loss was costlier to him than it might have been because he had not made any sort of backups of anything, so I've recommended that this time he invest in an external HDD as soon as possible.
As part of a Christmas gift basket from his staff at work, he just received a total of $175 worth of giftcards from Best Buy, and he gave them to me and told me to go buy him the best external HDD I can get for that. It's been a while since I've been in the market for one of these, so I'd like to hear advice on what the best combination of size, performance, and above all reliability I can get on that $175 budget is.
As a point of reference, my dad's new system has a 1TB internal hard drive, and I really don't expect him to ever come close to filling it in the lifespan of the machine. However, I'm also planning on backing up some of my stuff on whatever external drive we end up getting (he's fine with this) as a precaution, as the pitiful little 100-something GB "Pininfarina"-styled SimpleTech I picked up before going off to school about five years ago seems to be on the verge of giving up the ghost if it hasn't actually expired already. I figure a 1TB drive would probably be sufficient, but more would be better if I can get it, although 2TB would probably be excessive (not to mention out of the price range, from what I can tell as the market still reels from the Thailand floods).
Edit: I should also say that form factor (desktop versus portable, etc) is not important.
As part of a Christmas gift basket from his staff at work, he just received a total of $175 worth of giftcards from Best Buy, and he gave them to me and told me to go buy him the best external HDD I can get for that. It's been a while since I've been in the market for one of these, so I'd like to hear advice on what the best combination of size, performance, and above all reliability I can get on that $175 budget is.
As a point of reference, my dad's new system has a 1TB internal hard drive, and I really don't expect him to ever come close to filling it in the lifespan of the machine. However, I'm also planning on backing up some of my stuff on whatever external drive we end up getting (he's fine with this) as a precaution, as the pitiful little 100-something GB "Pininfarina"-styled SimpleTech I picked up before going off to school about five years ago seems to be on the verge of giving up the ghost if it hasn't actually expired already. I figure a 1TB drive would probably be sufficient, but more would be better if I can get it, although 2TB would probably be excessive (not to mention out of the price range, from what I can tell as the market still reels from the Thailand floods).
Edit: I should also say that form factor (desktop versus portable, etc) is not important.
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Nikon recently released that they would have their manufactoring back up to full speed in March. Assuming hard drive manufacturers take just as long, that is when we could start seeing the price hike relax.
That said, an electrical storm might nuke his local external HDD backup as well as his machine, and if he's needs his documents/pictures/etc backed up I'd set him up with some kind of transparent online backup service (Mozy, Carbonite, or he might get some online backup service for a free period if he purchased his replacement machine from a big OEM).