Get a 3-terabyte USB 3.0 hard drive for $79.99

Shooting a lot of photos and/or videos? Ripping a lot of Blu-ray movies? Recording a lot of TV shows? Activities like these require a lot of storage -- the more, the better.

Through tomorrow, or until they sell out, Newegg has the Western Digital My Book 3TB external USB 3.0 hard drive for $79.99 shipped. That's after applying coupon code 72HRSL066 at checkout. (Note that you must be a registered Newegg user in order to use the code.)

Update: Well, folks, the universe has conspired against me once again. I promise you I tested that code right before posting this deal, but readers are now reporting that it's not working. You can still get $10 off (for a final price of $109.99 shipped) with coupon code STRWK749, but obviously that's not nearly as good. Sorry about this -- I'm shaking my head in dismay over here.

Update No. 2: I can't leave you hanging without a deal today, so here's a solid alternate. Newegg also has the Toshiba Canvio Basics 1.5TB portable USB 3.0 hard drive for $84.99 shipped when you apply coupon code EMCXPVS23. (It works, I swear!) Obviously it's half the amount of storage, but it has the benefits of being a much smaller drive -- one that's easily transportable -- and a three-year warranty. Plus, the user reviews are much more positive overall. Truth be told, I greatly prefer portable drives to their desktop counterparts anyway.

I've seen 2TB drives this low before, but never, ever a 3TB model. That's an incredible amount of high-speed storage for backing up your stuff and/or expanding your available storage.

The My Book is, of course, backward-compatible with USB 2.0, though you'll definitely want to plug it into a USB 3.0 port (usually marked by a blue receptacle) if you can. That'll make your backups and other file transfers significantly faster.

Speaking of which, Western Digital's bundled software offers automated, continuous backup, a great set-it-and-forget-it option for those who are bad at remembering to make manual backups. It also offers password protection and data encryption for those who want them.

The drive comes with a two-year warranty -- better than some, not as good as others. I must note that the user reviews, at least at Newegg, are mixed: most are quite favorable, but fully one-fourth of the reviewers rated it just one star, with reliability seeming to be the major issue. Obviously that's a concern, but I find it gratifying to see that a Western Digital rep has actually responded to most of these negative reviews with apologies and offers of assistance. That's pretty rare.

I would also note that if you check the reviews for just about any external hard drive, you'll see similar reliability complaints ("The drive died after two months!"). It seems to be the nature of the beast -- which doesn't excuse it, but it's just something to be aware of. Your thoughts?

Bonus deal: While we're on the subject of storage, here's a fantastic companion: Starting at 8 a.m. (PT) today, you can get a Pogoplug Series 4 cloud-sync device and unlimited cloud storage for $49.95 per year. The hardware plugs into your router (along with an external hard drive or flash drive) to make your data cloud-accessible, while the service offers unlimited online space for backups and whatnot. This effectively keeps your data secure in two locations. This is a $170 value and a CNET exclusive!

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