External Hard Drives

[thekirbyfake]

iTunes library is about to kill my laptop so I'm going to get an external hard drive.

Seen a few on t'internet and the best GB/£ seem to be Western Digital. Amazon offering [url]250GB for £100|http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00076WEQA/qid=1130169504/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl/202-2707756-3147050[/url], [url]160GB for £70|http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0009F0T0C/qid=1130170473/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i2_xgl/202-2707756-3147050[/url] and [url]80GB for £55|http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00076WEHO/qid=1130170473/sr=8-3/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i3_xgl/202-2707756-3147050[/url]. Compared to other drives I've seen they seem very cheap which worries me slightly although all the Amazon user reviews seem very positive.

I'm thinking the 160GB will be easily enough for my music and photos.

Any views on these or other external hard drives?

[Plotloss]

WD

Cheap for a reason IME

Hitachi or Seagate for my money.

www.pcindex.co.uk for prices

250Gb seems to be about the best pricing point but pcindex break it down by cost per gig.

Oh and to turn an internal disk into an external one takes an enclosure, a clever lead, 10 mins and a screwdriver...

>> Edited by Plotloss on Monday 24th October 17:26

[robbieduncan]

Build your own. Get and Icy Dock from Scan and stick any hard drive you like in it (making sure you buy the correct Icy Dock for the internal and external interfaces you want).

Total cost: ~£25 more than an internal drive.

[scorp]

I'd recommend you buy a IDE->USB2 header and enclosure, that way you can buy whatever IDE drive you like.

[Fer]

I have a WD 250 Media Centre (or something like that, it has the slots for memory cards on it).

Not had any problems with it, but I use it mainly for backup, and my music collection.

[thekirbyfake]

All sounds great but when it comes to the internals for computers I'm afarid that I'm that 70 year numpty in a garage trying to find where to put his washer fluid.

I'm sure it's all very simple but try telling that to my mate's mum who put 5w40 in the power steering reservoir...

What I'm looking for is a simple out-of-the-box, plug-and-play, wysiwyg, Robert's your mother's brother type affair.

[annodomini2]

There usually just plug a go, it's not difficult.

[thekirbyfake]

annodomini2 said:

There usually just plug a go, it's not difficult.

I meant buying a plug-and-go rather than the building my own options suggested.

So one vote for WD and one against so far...

[Scooby_snax]

I have a Lacie 250Gb 7200rpm that I bought 2 weeks ago for £125....and their marketing blurb says 'designed by porsche!!!!! don't know what they did as it is a just a rectangular box with a little led on the front and have also got an Iomega 150Gb which i have had for a year.
So far (touch wood) no problems with either
Stvev

[aranell]

I have a terabyte LaCie external HDD and would say *don't* buy one...

I've barely used it and it makes the most horrendous whirring noise (particularly when it's been on for more than about 15 minutes) - I'm not convinced that it's actually going to last much longer. Unfortunately, you can't RAID it either, so if it goes bang, all the data gets lost. The data transfer is actually pretty slow and it kicks out enough heat to warm my house in the middle of winter

I guess it depends what you want to use it for really...if you don't use it much, I guess it would be ok. Unfortunately, I have to transfer lots of data onto/off of it on a regular basis and the heat combined with the noise and slow transfer rates just put me off!

- A

[Scooby_snax]

My Lacie is completely quiet and I have it on all the time...the heat is no more than I would expect

[meeja]

Scooby_snax said:

I have a Lacie 250Gb 7200rpm that I bought 2 weeks ago for £125....and their marketing blurb says 'designed by porsche!!!!!

I have the same unit. Have had no problems with it at all..... only downside (if you can call it that) is that the supplied USB lead is onl;y about three inches long.

[Jinx]

If had a WD160gb for a few months now - no problems with it at all. I use it for my itunes Mp3 collection more than anything else as the 40 gig on my laptop isn't big enough.