No not that type..... :o
All you PC geek\'s.....
Recommend me a good External Hard Drive please....
Mainly to keep as a \'back up\' for my Laptop... I don\'t keep a lot on it, no big movies, just a few dirty video\'s and fair bit of PDF\'s files, so nothing too gi-normous needed.
What should I look for and where is best to get such...
And if there is some other new \'tech gizmo\' thats better to store stuff, then educate me gently..
Cheers
Oh, and no bad language in your replies please..... Thanks
My mate has got one of these Click Me (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Seagate-500GB-Expansion-Portable-Drive/dp/B001XM4P1O/ref=wl_it_dp_o?ie=UTF8&coliid=IUPLIRS9PWSCK&colid=1VMPBT1KG4S16) was thinking of getting one myself as it works really well and fast to.
Hope this helps.
Lacey knows a bit, might be worth PM\'ing her.
I had one of those hard drives that\'s been linked(until it got misPlaced) and it was awesome really tough and hard wearing and very fast aswell
Kris
Hard drives? Depends what kind of hard drive you\'re looking for and the amount of space you need, and the setup of what you want to attach it to.
Firstly before you buy anything you need to establish your speed capabilities.
This is for your laptop, so does your laptop have an eSata port?
If it does, it looks like this, and 50% of the time will be red.
(http://www.dvhardware.net/news/msi_esata_usb_port.jpg)
Looking at the middle two, that\'s USB on the left and eSata on the right.
Do you only have USB, or do you have eSata as well?
Either way, you\'ll want a hard drive, and a caddy.
If you want okay storage in a compact form look up laptop hard drives on eBay, they can get up to and including 500 odd GB, common cheap ones are 120 and 240gb, you can also get 320gb ones for not too much, about £40 odd, plus the cost of the caddy.
If you don\'t mind about size you can get a full sized hard drive anything up to about 2.5TB (1TB = 1024GB, 1GB = 1024MB, etc - not implying you\'re stupid and don\'t know this, but you said go slow, so not leaving anything out, so sorry if you already know that bit)
You can pick up normal sized hard-drives that are 1 - 1.5TB for about £60 odd now, the best ones to go for in full sized hard drives are Samsung ones (my opinion only, other brands have let me down, Samsung havn\'t)
If you want a smaller more compact one, you want a 2.5" hard drive from a laptop - capable brands are Seagate, Western Digital, Samsung - avoid any budget brands, IBM do okay drives too, but those are the only four I;d honestly buy.
Before somebody starts ramblinf on about solid-state drives, they\'re bloody expensive for sod all storage space and end up screwing themselves over faster than normal HDD\'s because they\'re just flash memory.
Any questions so far? :)
there was one on amazon for about £150
My be overkill for what you need but it was an NAS Box ( connects to your home network )
It has 2*1TB drive - each one mirrored onto the other one - so if one fails , you plug in another one in the housing and it rebuilds your data
Failing that - just a time external HDD ( £50 for 1TB from comet )
Not as safe in real terms - but prob does the job just aswell
If you dont store that much stuff just get one of those USB dongles - I have an 8gb one which is great. I know they go to 16gb last time I looked so probably even bigger now.
They take up no space, you need no leeds & you also dont need a power supply as it takes it from the computer :)
I bought a 1tb internal drive - E-sata case :thumbs: Job done :)
Quote from: Ricco_04;775150If you dont store that much stuff just get one of those USB dongles - I have an 8gb one which is great. I know they go to 16gb last time I looked so probably even bigger now.
They take up no space, you need no leeds & you also dont need a power supply as it takes it from the computer :)
We looked today at work .. you can get 256GB ones now ( just dont look at the price of them ! )
I used to swear by Western Digital passports, got about four like the WD3200ME. All still working fine and great for extra storage - just plug in and go. I never used the back up software that came with them though.
But then they brought out the new ones like this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Passport-Essential-Real-Portable-Drive/dp/B004445JHW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1310389255&sr=8-1 I brought a lovely shiney red 500gb one for under £100 with a docking station but I sent it back as I couldn\'t get the back up software to work properly and you can\'t delete it off and just use it as extra storage easily. So I got a very nice Samsung one instead and it was cheaper with a free move: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0034G60O2/ref=oss_product
If you are just after back up though I use Carbonite and it\'s fab - there\'s even an App so I can access all my files (including photos and music) via my iPhone. So it depends wheather you want back up or extra space.
I wouldn\'t recommend a USB dongle, when they break you have pretty much no chance of recovering your data at least with a good old fashioned HDD not solid state as Lacey mentioned a bit of corruption can cause you problems with the right \'free\' tools you can save most of it - obviously backing up is best.
I can also second Lacey\'s samsung recommendation, just decide how small you want it and either go cheap and get a full size drive and caddy or a laptop drive and caddy.
One thing on the USB vs eSATA if you are going to move it around and use on friends computers it might be worth considering sticking with USB just for compatibility
Lacey you lost me at \'Hello\'..... :confused::confused::confused:
Some of the replies were like reading a Korean novel..... \'I don\'t speak Korean!\'
Mine hasn\'t got one of those eSATA thingys, but think I\'ll look into what marcusd666 linked up.... Looks simple, it\'s recommended and already linked for me to hit \'add to basket button\'... :Thumbs-up
You guys feel free to carry on the discussion... my head hurts
Thanks
Guys/Gals, I had a look at that link and checked reviews, apparently it does not fare well.... :(
so now have a better idea of what to look for and came up with this... \'click clicl\' (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Digital-Elements-Portable-Drive/dp/B003CFAZZ0/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top)
Please advise.... (it seems to be more or less suited to my needs)
Never been a massive fan of WD if im honest - the Two WD HDD\'s ive had have failed very quickly.
I had an iomega 500gb external which saw me through uni, going everywhere got dropped etc - never broke!
have a peer here :)
http://www.scan.co.uk/shop/computer-hardware/all/hard-drives-ext/750gb-3tb
Dam it Fezcat!
Argghhh, anyone else... :p
I doesn\'t need to be portable, physcial size doesn\'t matter (so they say), not worried about looks or style.. just something easy to use and reliable to store the contents of my Laptop as a backup...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-S2-USB-Powered-Portable--Midnight/dp/B003UT2QTQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1310448214&sr=1-1
Try that?
It\'s small, pocket sized, and a Samsung, and a pretty decent size too, also some top notch reviews
Did you guys read my post - even put all the clicky click links in. :xconfused
The one Lacey is suggesting is the same as mine (without the MJ graphics ;) ) so works fine for me. :Thumbs-up
As I said though if it\'s just for back up then something like Carbonite (http://www.carbonite.co.uk/) is worth looking at as once you\'ve set it up (which is simple) you don\'t have to think about it again (unless you need to recover , which is also really easy). I was always good at backing up but when I got burgled they also took one of my external hard drives (with the most up to date back up on it) and even that would still have been a bit out of date. With Carbonite it\'s instant back up as long as I\'m connected to the internet and it keeps copies of deleted stuff for about a month as well. Worth every penny IMHO.
I read your post, but it depends what kind of backup he\'s looking for. I just looked for something that\'s as simple as plug in and drop on files, not something with some weird software to go with it :p
I know what you\'re saying though, it just depends what you want backing up, as TRex said it\'s just random files and bits and pieces, as far as I could tell he\'s not trying to back up anything that\'s geniunely vital like work documents or finance stuff, so I just looked for a quick plug & play, drag & drop file storage thing that had a fairly hefty storage capacity and was small, lightweight and portable (i.e. he can throw in his laptop carry case along with his laptop)
Besides isn\'t Carbonite you\'re talking about a monthly fee service?
Quote from: Lacey;775364I read your post, but it depends what kind of backup he\'s looking for. I just looked for something that\'s as simple as plug in and drop on files, not something with some weird software to go with it :p
Yeah I meant that that\'s the problem with the Western Digital ones and Samsung is better - so we\'re saying the same thing. And then he went for a WD one anyway! :Giggle
Quote from: Lacey;775364Besides isn\'t Carbonite you\'re talking about a monthly fee service?
Yeah it\'s about £40 a year - so less than £1 a week. But unlike an external drive it won\'t fail, it can\'t get stolen and you don\'t even have to do anything - simples. :chat
Quote from: AMH;775370And then he went for a WD one anyway! :Giggle
He did? From his posts I thought he didn\'t buy it because it had bad reviews so was still looking for something?
Can I ask what would be best for storage to transfer our info to a new laptop? We\'ve got some pics and music on our old laptop (I doubt it\'s more than 500MB,) and it would only be used to store the info then move it to a new laptop? Sorry for Hijack
I;d suggest the same as what I suggested for TRex
My post #16
http://www.mazdarotaryclub.com/forums/showpost.php?p=775348&postcount=16
Quote from: Lacey;775374He did? From his posts I thought he didn\'t buy it because it had bad reviews so was still looking for something?
Yeah you know what I mean - I\'d already said to give them a miss and go for the Samsung.
Shame about the WD ones - don\'t know why they changed and built their awful software into the firmware? It was good to have all the different colours to tell them appart and mine old 320gb ones are still going strong.
Quote from: grinder;775158We looked today at work .. you can get 256GB ones now ( just dont look at the price of them ! )
Jaysus!!! When did I last look!!! :cheers
In my experience - I used to build about 5 PC\'s a week until the EEC WEEE "Green Tax" rules killed my profit margin - all the major hard drive manufacturers produce drives with similar failure rate - low, but annoying.
I\'ve recently used USB drives with Samsung, WD and Seagate internals. I\'ve had at least one fail of each. I therefore tend to buy the cheapest I can find. At present, I\'m supplying these to customers of mine;
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Digital-Elements-Desktop-External/dp/B002E7HEVU/ref=sr_1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1310491975&sr=1-1
1Tb for £41.09.
As with all hard drives ALWAYS ensure you have at least two copies of everyhthing important. NEVER rely on storing important stuff on one drive only. You WILL lose it at some point (I see at least one failed drive a week in my repair shop - all brands).
Liek AMH, I also use "Carbonite" as a secondary "off-site" backup (fire, flood, theft protection). Have used it for about 2 years - great service. All you can store for about £40/year.
Quote from: Casey;775494I\'m supplying these to customers of mine;
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Digital-Elements-Desktop-External/dp/B002E7HEVU/ref=sr_1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1310491975&sr=1-1
1Tb for £41.09..
Does that come with the pants Smartware software or can you reformat?
Quote from: Casey;775494As with all hard drives ALWAYS ensure you have at least two copies of everyhthing important.
Yep I have three - am I sad??
You people..... :2Mad
Was leaning for the WD and then got swayed by what the gals are saying and decided to swing for the \'Samsung\' which I was just about to dive into..
Now Mal (casey) jumps in and \'bigs up\' the WD.... :Hammer
Maybe the solution is as Casey says and have 2... I\'ll get 1 of each type, then that way I can have proper feedback for this thread in maybe a few months.. :Thumbs-up
^^^ sounds a good solution to me Dom :)
Quote from: AMH;775558Does that come with the pants Smartware software or can you reformat?
No need. Thankfully, none of that rubbish "Smart" software is present on these drives, just a clean NTFS formatting.
Quote from: TRex;775585You people..... :2Mad
Was leaning for the WD and then got swayed by what the gals are saying and decided to swing for the \'Samsung\' which I was just about to dive into..
Now Mal (casey) jumps in and \'bigs up\' the WD.... :Hammer
Maybe the solution is as Casey says and have 2... I\'ll get 1 of each type, then that way I can have proper feedback for this thread in maybe a few months.. :Thumbs-up
Well you have mine and AMH\'s opinion! Samsung all the way? ;)
Another vote for the western digital
I have to agree with lacey - Never had a samsung drive, external or internal fail on me :)
My 3 Samsung internal drives have been going 24/7, one for nearly 2 years and the other two for over a year, and not even had a hiccup. The WD one I had in there before that, though, was the most unreliable piece of junk and went wrong more than once til it finally bricked itself. Or rather, it went wrong one too many times and got launched at the wall, thus becoming bricked. :p
Quote from: TRex;775585Maybe the solution is as Casey says and have 2... I\'ll get 1 of each type, then that way I can have proper feedback for this thread in maybe a few months.. :Thumbs-up
Yep sounds like a plan. If as Malcolm says that WD drive doesn\'t have their crap software then that\'s a lot of storage space for not a lot so can\'t really go wrong (well it can hense the two back ups! ;))
I\'ve just checked and my current workstation - on 16 hours a day, 7 days a week - has a WD 320Gb system (C) drive and a Samsung 1Tb data drive. This system has been in use for over 2 years and neither drive has given me any problems.