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General discussion

External Hard Drives

Nov 6, 2006 6:18AM PST

With so many brands, and models as well as prices, what recommendations would there be for external hard drives? I need a reliable, tried and true external hard drive with at least 80 Gigs of storage on the relative cheap. It'd be nice for the drive to be affordable, and not extravagantly expensive for unnecessary features. I just need a good drive that can back up photos, music, and files. I would require USB support, but firewire would be a plus.

Discussion is locked

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A link and note.
Nov 6, 2006 6:25AM PST
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_enclosure

Such are never "backup" since the hard disks are prone to the same failures as our internal drives. A fine second copy but never trusted. Proof is on these forums.

As to price that will vary by location and what's on sale. I saw the usual 250GB drive and case for sale at 99USD but unless you have an Apple, why firewire?

Bob
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External Hard Disk
Nov 6, 2006 8:25AM PST

I do plan on purchasing a Macbook Pro, but is firewire not speedier? Are there any brands or models that hold higher regard than others? Would this 99 dollar drive be available at any one of the big boxes?

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A simple lesson.
Nov 6, 2006 8:40AM PST

PC and Windows? USB 2.0 please.

Apple? Firewire.

You may find it to work from time to time (firewire on PC) but given the number of times I've seen the drive contents vanish I'll leave that for others to discover the thrills and spills.

As to if you can find 99 buck drives and cases, check the usual newegg.com, geeks.com, officedepot.com, officemax.com, etc.

As to speeds. USB 2.0/Firewire 400 is the main bottleneck. If you can get a 7200 RPM drive that would be a bonus.

Bob