External Hard Drive

Started by stevo-08, December 22, 2009, 09:13:38 AM

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stevo-08

Im looking for some recommendations for a good external hard drive. My wife's father has a mountain of photos, documents etc on his computer that he wants to take off and free up some space. So I've been given the job of doing that over the christmas.  :(

Anyway, normally for something like this I'd buy online, where there'd be a load of different options, but because I'm now stuck for time I'll have to make do with buying from the local PC world. So I checked there last night and the options are:

1. Western Digital Elements 500GB. €69.99
2. Seagate Freeagent 500GB. €89.99
3. Iomega Prestige 500GB. €64.99

Does anyone have any experience of the above units? Once I've saved all his files onto the drive, it'll probably be stored away and rarely used again. But the important thing is that the unit must be reliable - if I end up getting him a hard drive that loses all his files, I'd be better off leaving the country..

anyway, any help would be appreciated.

mylestheslasher

What size of stuff has be got. 500GB is a serious amount, I know companies wouldn't use a tenth of that space. I'm asking as you can not get simple USB keys at 16GB and probably for €30. Fits on your keyring and needs no power supply. 16GB can take some amount of photos and documents.

stevo-08

Myles, yea 500GB is definitely loads more than he needs. I was hoping for something around 160GB, but the only ones of that size in PC world were the portable options and they cost more that the ones listed above.

A 16GB memory stick costs approx. €45 in pc world, so it's actually not too far off the price for the hard drives I looked at. I dont know exactly how much storage he needs, but it wouldnt surprise me if he needs more than 16GB.

that said, maybe I am better off getting one of those 16GB memory sticks first, and see if all his stuff can fit on it before getting extra storage.

mylestheslasher

Have a look on ebay - you should get them cheaper than that.

stevo-08

Probably, but doubt I'd get it delivered before christmas.

Main Street

In general use, they say usb sticks are five to ten times more durable than hard disk drives (as well as dead handy).

I say, they are infinitely easier to lose  :)

Bensars


thebigfella

Quote from: mylestheslasher on December 22, 2009, 09:26:59 AM
What size of stuff has be got. 500GB is a serious amount, I know companies wouldn't use a tenth of that space. I'm asking as you can not get simple USB keys at 16GB and probably for €30. Fits on your keyring and needs no power supply. 16GB can take some amount of photos and documents.

500GB is nothing today. What happens if he stores his photos in RAW format, 16GB won't go too far? In my case, I easily have close to 300GB of music and 500GB of movies too; plus I lose loads of USB keys due to their size.
Does he run any sort of software to back up his computer? I run time machine on my mac (there are windows tools to do this as well) which backs up a complete image of my hard drive (300GB) to an external (in my case a network drive). So he may need space to do this or want to do this in the future.

I would say go for a USB powered 2.5inch external rather than a powered one for handyness and go for around 300GB for the time being.

screenexile

I had an external Hard Drive/Media Player for Christmas last year and had 40g of music. At least 5 Full Series of US Dramas and maybe 30 odd films and had just touched 100gb.

It was an amazing piece of kit and I would highly recomment getting the media player that you can plug into the TV rather than just the Hard Drive.

Norf Tyrone

Quote from: screenexile on December 22, 2009, 11:03:12 AM
I had an external Hard Drive/Media Player for Christmas last year and had 40g of music. At least 5 Full Series of US Dramas and maybe 30 odd films and had just touched 100gb.

It was an amazing piece of kit and I would highly recomment getting the media player that you can plug into the TV rather than just the Hard Drive.

I bought a wee small media player for £23- very discreet. It's got a USB on the front, so you can use pen drives etc. I filled it up with 8-10 children's Christmas films this week, and that's them happy. Will revert back to Cars, Toy Story etc next week.
Owen Roe O'Neills GAC, Leckpatrick, Tyrone

RMDrive

Do those media players play HD movies?

Homer

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=735

Plays MKV's (Blu-Ray format) and supports DTS audio (Generation 2 only) or

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=735

As above but also allows you stream from your local computer network without connecting hard drives etc.

Makes for a serious setup.

Homer

Quote from: stevo-08 on December 22, 2009, 09:40:12 AM
Myles, yea 500GB is definitely loads more than he needs. I was hoping for something around 160GB, but the only ones of that size in PC world were the portable options and they cost more that the ones listed above.

A 16GB memory stick costs approx. €45 in pc world, so it's actually not too far off the price for the hard drives I looked at. I dont know exactly how much storage he needs, but it wouldnt surprise me if he needs more than 16GB.

that said, maybe I am better off getting one of those 16GB memory sticks first, and see if all his stuff can fit on it before getting extra storage.

You should take into account that a portable 160GB can be a lot handier than a huge 500GB HD, as most of them do not require their own power input.

stevo-08

guys,
thanks for all the replies - some great info there. I have a 500GB media player myself, which plugs directly into the tv. It's bursting with movies & tv shows, so I'll need to get myself some extra capacity in the new year - and I'll refer back to this thread for the advice.

Regarding my initial question about the storage/archiving of his stuff on the PC, I think I'll definitely rule out the memory stick cos he'll definitely lose that (had forgotten about that little problem). I might go for Homer's advice and get a portable hard drive - it's very handy that they dont need a power input. Are they generally fairly reliable/robust though??

thanks again for the advice.

Celt_Man

Unless you need one with a 500 GB size, portable Hard Drives around the 160 GB mark are the way forward.  Very handy and will hold a lot of your everyday files comfortably
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