Welcome guest. Before posting on our computer help forum, you must register. Click here it's easy and free.

Author Topic: external hard drives  (Read 2024 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

hlemaster

  • Guest
external hard drives
« on: November 15, 2007, 01:47:01 PM »
I am buying my boyfriend an external hard drive but i am having trouble understanding which ones are a good buy and which ones are a waste of time.  i know i want a 1 tb and i want a name brand but that's all i know about them.  i was wondering if anyone knew about external hard drives and maybe help me find a good one with a reasonable price.

phoenix910



    Hopeful

    Thanked: 2
    Re: external hard drives
    « Reply #1 on: November 15, 2007, 07:07:24 PM »
    Hi there hlemaster, I'm willing to help you if you like. One particularly good brand for External Hard Drives is Western Digital, though Maxtor's are generally pretty good as well, and Seagate is good also. They are all pre-assembled ones. If you are confident enough to build one yourself (which is just plugging in about one cable and 6 screws), then they are much cheaper. Let me know if you are interested in the latter option, and I will tell you what you need to buy. I am assuming you are possibly American? If so, I do not know any local computer stores, but I can give you links to online examples, and then you can phone around to local stores to see if they stock them. For a 1TB, you can expect to pay a reasonably high price. Here's a few links:
    http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=353
    http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=267&language=en
    http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=361
    http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=374
    The first one is probably the most suited for what you want - it is the simplest and cheapest, and Western Digital offers free shipping for purchases over $200.

    Heres a Maxtor drive:
    http://www.maxtorsolutions.com/en/catalog/OTIII_Turbo/

    Seagate don't have 1TB External's Prebuilt. The main things to look for are:
    1. The larger the cache the better, i.e. 16MB Cache is better than 8MB
    2. You'll want probably a USB2 interface as opposed to Ethernet (unless you have gigabit ethernet) or firewire, because firewire is uncommon and you may be disappointed with ethernet.
    3. You'll also want probably at least 7,200 RPM hard drive

    They're the main points to look for, obviously then just look for a brand name, and a smaller physical dimensions size (i.e., the smaller it is, the easier to carry). 1TB Probably isn't needed though by the way, and if you go down to 750GB, you will have a much larger range to choose from.

    -Stephen