Need some External HDD suggetions

Ok so I am tired of having several smaller >1TB externals connected to my system. I'm looking to get an external HDD for my M17x R2.

I've been considering the Western Digital My Book Essential 3TB. This will be used to store my image backups.

I saw that they have a 2TB My Book Live which if I understand correctly, will allow you to stream videos without having your system turned on.

Can this be setup with the 3TB Esentials My Book?


Right now I have a 750GB, 2x500GB and a 640GB attached to my system. I'd like to get these backed up, organized and consolidated.

Also are there better alternatives? I want something large. Perferably 3TB.

 

Toshiba makes 2 tb USB 3.0 external hard drives for pretty cheap compared to others around. You might look there first. I also wouldnt use a media box hdd because I just don't think spinning your hdd for 2 hours every time you want to watch a movie is nesecary or healthy for the drive.

 

Never had a problem with WD My Book's.

If you're looking to stream media as well as doing backups and the like you might want to consider a NAS solution, especially if you've got drives lying around.

 

I have extra drives, but they are all 2.5" drives with the exception of on of the 500gb drives. I may look in to NAS but to he honest streaming isn't that that important. I really want it for backups mainly. I have YouTube on my theatre system and Netflix if I ever sign up. I have a ton of DVDs and in the future rather then making copies, I may start ripping them and backing them up to the external. When that time comes I'll start streaming. Maybe I should just go NAS now. Are there any other benefits to it?

I'll need to do some research.

 

Western Digital does make 2TB portable drives now. Not 3TB but something to consider if you want to increase the size of your portable externals that don't use an AC adapter.

 

You'll find 2.0TB pocket-friendly drives in the Western Digital lineup now... They're rather dependable and reliable!

 

Many NAS solutions support 2.5' drives. Just one example (which is the one I use) is the Synology DS211J (probably updated to 212 now).

The advantage is network backups and network drives that can be access from any computer on your network. Can be your own little intranet. I use it as much for accessing files across multiple computers as I do for streaming.