Recommendations for External Hard Drives

[Chef_Boyardee]

I'm looking to get a 400gb ext HDD. Any recommendations? Does it matter? I currently have three smaller drives: LaCie 20gb mini, BUSLink 40gb, & Maxtor 80gb (and a bunch of backup DVDs.) I'm lookin' to get them all in one place, and some of the drives are getting old. I don't want to lose any data (my buslink is pushing 5 years.) I'm seeing great deals on pricewatch, but I don't want to buy a piece of crappola. A drive that doesn't require an external power source will be ideal. Firewire would be even more. Thanks.

 

[Doughbuy]

First off, if you get a 400 gb drive, you need an external power connectors. Only 2.5" drives can run off USB power...

I've heard tell of a 3.5" that can run off USB, but I don't know if there is anything from it or it was just talk...

Anyways, I'd recommend buying a 3.5" drive, then buying a 3.5" enclosure. That way you can pick out specifically what you want and save quite a few bucks from buying a package from most computer stores...

Here are some external drives:

http://www.directron.com/35sata.html

I specified SATA since its more mainstream now and shouldn't add much more of a price than regular IDE enclosures or drives. Also, if you ever want to put it in your comp, you don't have to worry about an IDE interface.

Firewire costs more than USB2.0... but you should really look at eSATA, since it offers much faster file transfers... this drive would fit that:

http://www.directron.com/enc311su31.html

This drive offers firewire...

http://www.directron.com/cd311sata.html

Lastly, I recommend buying from that site since I get everything from them and I think their prices are usually cheaper than most others while offering great service.

Hope this helps.

 

[Chef_Boyardee]

Thanks a lot for the info! I'll look into it.