Suggestions for External Hard Drive

Hi all, this is my first time ever considered buying an external hard drive for my laptop, thank you in advance for all your suggestions

I have a few questions regarding the specs I see when shopping for external HD.

1. What is the difference between a 3.5 inch drive and 2.5 inch drive? is there any performance/ reliability differences?

2. What should I look at when I want a fast transfer rate?

3. What is the significance of the "data buffer" ?

4. Which manufacturer would you guys recommend for a reliable (long lasting) and fast external hard drive? (price isn't a big issue)

 

1. Size, and the 3.5 will generally outperform the 2.5.

2. The lower the better, but they're usually about the same per class.

3. The bigger the better.

4. Seagate, Western Digital.

 

I hear bad reviews for WD's 3.5 line, but nothing but rave from their 2.5's.

I have a 2.5 passport for the last 2 months with no problems whatsoever. I use it to store my Naruto Anime and songs mostly.

 

If portability is an issue, get a 2.5" drive.
In addition of the obvious size difference, You won't need to carry additional power supply since most 2.5" drive can be powered by USB power alone.

 

For 2.5" drive, I strongly suggest the WD Passport.

 

I've got a WD Passport 160GB; it's sleek, stylish, speedy, and oh-so-sexy. What's not to like?

 

I have just bought 160GB seagate IDE 5400rpm hdd from another NBR member I am gona put it in an enclosure, might be a cheaper way of doing it.

 

I'm about to try this baby -- three interfaces: firewire 800/400, USB, and especially eSATA for blazing speeds. The drive inside is great (Hitachi always works for me), and all cables plus backup software. It seems a tad pricey -- that's subjective -- but you implied money wasn't too big a deal.

I'll also be getting the ExpressCard adapter for the eSATA here, or elsewhere.

I'm tired of slow, sometimes unreliable USB external backup. Hoping this works.

 

The low the transfer speed, the better the it is? I don't get it


Thank you guys all for your replies

 

Lower (i.e., quicker) transfer speed = faster.

 

thats...abit expensive?

 

You'd pay that much for 200 gigs? Man, even if it could fit in my pocket it wouldn't be worth that much to me...

If portability is an issue, I'm in love with the tiny WD Passports. It's really cool to skip the external power supply and power it solely over USB. 320GB for $200 is comfortable, too.

If you're just going purely for storage size, WD's My Book line offers up to 2TB.

 

That depends on what you mean by "transfer rate". If you mean how much data per second, then higher is better. I may have misunderstood your question.

 

True enough -- I admitted it wasn't cheap, and again the OP said money wasn't a big deal. It's new technology, too, so more $ for all those connectivity options. I'm really liking the eSATA, for ex. (On the other hand, nice to hear someone having good luck w/ WD. )

 

I beg to differ; I have a 3.5" WD MyBook Premium (500GB [Caviar]) and I've dropped it from the top of a mid-ATX desktop tower and it's still running perfectly fine. I've had it for about a year now and it still runs like a dream

 

I think you quoted the wrong post!

 

are we discussing the same issue(portability) ?

 

Like I said, I think he accidentally quoted the wrong post. I think he's defending Wester Digital because of a negative comment another poster made.

I've been using Wester Digital hard drives for some time now, and have found them to be excellent, I've had no problems at all.

 

Since I believe you were meaning to quote me, I have not had one personally, but there was enough negative feedback for me to look elsewhere. Thats not to say its a defective product. On the other hand, reviews for the passports have been much more favorable.

 

I actually posed a similar quesiton on the Dell forums last week. I got the SSD in my m1330 and wanted a fast external option for data storage and running certain, less used, programs on. I ended up buying a Seagate 500gb SATAII drive for 100 bucks and an IcyDock brushed aluminium enclosure for around 30 bucks along with a 2 port eSATA expresscard for another 26 bucks. All in all, the external hard drive came to a cost of 130. For me eSATA was really important, and the next closest device (in terms of cost) that I could find was the WD 500gb home edition drive for 109 at Costco. However since I didnt have a membership at Costco, I passed on that deal.

In any case, sometimes you are able to find great deals on prefab drives, but I preferred going to the enclosure route because my hard drive has a 5yr warranty which is hard to match on some of the less expensive factory external HDs.

 

Sorry for the confusion guys. I just wanted to say that my MyBook is pretty crazy (good kind); WD seems to make pretty solid stuff.

 

I have a Western Digital My Book 500GB - never let me down.
I recommend them to everyone.

 

How long have you had yours? The negative reviews I was getting were never about how well they worked, just how long. It seems that a % would die after 1 year, a high enough % for me to avoid them.