[Recommend On!] External Hard Drives

Ampersand · November 2007

(obligatory "Hi! I'm new here. Long time lurker and such.")

Anyway, I'm looking to pick up two (2) external hard drives for use with my dell insp5100 laptop (about four years old now.) I've filled my 60gig internal drive with music and such, and with just under a gig left, I'd like a solid solution for backing up my countless hours of audio magic.

Ideally, and feel free to recommend a better set up, I'd want one drive to move all of my media to - to free up space and speed up my lappy, and another drive to back up the first drive and any other essential files from my laptop. That one would go into storage I guess, to be updated every few weeks or something like that. The first external drive would stay connected to my laptop and basically be used as a secondary media storage drive.

I guess what I'm really concerned about is reliability. I don't need these things to fail on me a few weeks down the road. Another concern is price. Around $70-80 dollars each would be ideal. They only really need to be about 60gb each. Finally, I need to know that they'll work with my laptop. Firsthand information here would be great, as I've heard stories of drives not being able to draw enough power via usb from some laptops. So there's the whole usb vs. plug into the wall issue.

I've looked into just building my own, but got discouraged because I've never actually done it. That said, I can follow directions, and if someone can recommend a good casing, hd combo - so much the better.

Thanks for the help.

tl;dr : Need advice on External Hard Drive back up solution for laptop filled with 30+ gigs of music.

Arrath · November 2007

Western Digital's "MyBook" line of external hd's is pretty solid. I've had two for a while now and they've held out through various stupid things I've done, knock them around, transfer 60gigs in and out while its siting nice and cozy down on the carpet, etc. They are USB and have a wall plug for power, as far as I know it doesn't have a usb power feature.

Not sure about the price range but they do offer a good range of sizes.

Edit: USB external hard drives are considered a mass storage device, they'll work with any recent iteration of windows unless something is horribly borked. If a If a USB (Thumb/Key/Flash drive, whatever you want to call it) works, the hd will too.

Jasconius · November 2007

You might find something to your liking here: http://www.lacie.com/us/index.htm

My friend has at least half a dozen of these damn things and he swears by them.

Also, they are dirt cheap in terms of price vs. storage, as far as I am aware.

blanknogo · November 2007

Well you should be able to get a fairly decent external for 80 bucks. If you want prebuilt Lacie and WD are good brands. You need to think about the USB vs wall plug issue though. USB plug in drives will be 2.5" drives, thus less storage but increased portability while the wall plug drives are 3.5" drives, thus more space, and less portability (though still quite portable).

I have this 2.5" drive that I quite like.

I also have this enclosure with a 500gb Seagate drive that I also quite like.

Daedalus · November 2007

Get an internal 3.5" drive and a cheap enclosure from Newegg. It's absurdly easy to put together and should come with instructions, and it means that if you end up getting a desktop sometime, you can just take the drives out of the enclosures and use them. Can't do that with a MyBook.

Ampersand · November 2007

Daedalus wrote: »

Get an internal 3.5" drive and a cheap enclosure from Newegg. It's absurdly easy to put together and should come with instructions, and it means that if you end up getting a desktop sometime, you can just take the drives out of the enclosures and use them. Can't do that with a MyBook.

Any suggestions as to brand? Also, do I have to worry about cooling at all with those?

ps. bonus points for taste in music.

Primesghost · November 2007

As far as brand goes, I always recommend Seagate. Every drive they sell comes with a five-year warranty, longer than any other drive maker on the planet and, in my book, that means they stand behind their product.

As for recommending a better setup, I would go with a backup hard drive for off machine "take it with you" storage and backing up to DVD-Rs for long-term storage. With DVD-Rs there's no chance of losing your data if you drop the box they're in (or some other such oopsie.)

Jasconius · November 2007

Being able to take a drive out of an enclosure and stick it in your computer is a little overrated these days with all the connection options.

There's Firewire, eSATA, and dual USB connections for plenty of external drives out there that give you all the speed you need for non-system data storage.

devoir · November 2007

Lacie and Seagate are what I recommend. Lacie do some very sweet stuff for the larger small business that wants a portable storage facility, and Seagate are probably more than appropriate for a home user in terms of warranty and quality.

lordswing · November 2007

I just bought a Lacie 500 gig external hard drive from Newegg on Black Friday. Should come in this week, I have high hopes from the excellent reviews I saw. One of the reviewers opened up his/her Lacie to find a Western Digital HD if that matters to you.

HarshLanguage · November 2007

Be cautious about buying an external enclosure. Many of them are kinda crappy, with bad cooling and other flaws. Read the reviews at Newegg, that should point out most of the big issues. I bought one enclosure that looked great on paper and in reviews, but it ends up having a power cord that pops out with slight movements. Not a deal-breaker, but it means I always have to be careful when using that drive.

Penny Arcade

Quick Links

[Recommend On!] External Hard Drives

Posts