HD for backing up music/pics

tmccool

I'm looking to get an external hard drive to back up the stuff on my laptop. I have about 5000+ songs and about 4000+ picture files, plus a handful of movies/videos that I want to back up. Can anyone give me advice on the amount of space I'll need and the price range such an amount would cost?

Ruckus

Just buy one equal to or greater than your laptop's harddrive.

vonPoonBurGer

There are essentially two kinds out there: portable and not so portable. The portable units (usually with "slim" in the product name, or 2.5" somewhere on the box) tend to cost more, because the small laptop hard drives they use are more expensive. Those small hard drives are also not as fast as the larger 3.5" ones. So if you don't need to travel much with this external hard drive, get a regular-sized unit containing a 3.5" drive. You'll get more capacity and performance for your money.

In terms of how much space you'd need, I'd guess that the amount of stuff you're talking about would require roughly 40GB of space to back up. I'd recommend having at least double that amount though, if not more. I don't know where you're located, but here in Canada you can find 80GB and 120GB external USB hard drives for ~$100. I've even seen some 250GB units on sale for the same price.

Ruckus wrote:

Just buy one equal to or greater than your laptop's harddrive.

Also, this. I'd be surprised if your laptop had a hard drive greater than 120GB, but you can always double check the Total Size of your laptop's HD in My Computer.

Everywhereasign

Seriously, like vonPoon says. HD are dirt cheap these days. Get one twice as big as you might need and you'll be golden. If you go for something that will fit your stuff now, in a year you'll wish you'd gone bigger. Personally I'd go with the standard 3.5", they're cheaper, and if you plan right, you can leave it at home and only carry what you need on your laptop.

I've honestly never heard anyone complain that they had "too much storage space."

EggyToast

Stop by Staples or something and check out their external drives. I suggest Staples because you could go before Xmas, without shooting yourself in the head dealing with xmas shopping at Best Buy (and Best Buy is likely to be sold out or understocked on anything that's a good price).

They're all pretty cheap nowadays; you can get like 120gb on a teeny drive for $100, or 500gb on a big drive for $100. Those are rough estimates depending on the brand and the style, and whether you want just storage (physical size doesn't matter much) or portable storage. Check out their website, cross compare to Newegg.com for models. I mostly suggest Staples because you could buy it there this weekend.