Top/Reliable External HD Companies?

I was going to purchase one off of ebay but after reading horror stories about people storing important data (1-2 usages) and then their laptop breaks down, they're left with a malfunctioning external HD ...

I'd need a very reliable and affordable external HD to save my electronic music compositions and samples (I make Deep House / Nu-Jazz). My previous laptop died three times in one year and I almost quit music completely because I lost hundreds of hours of work, not to mention malfunctioning flash drives that were my back-up at the time.

What do you guys suggest?

My budget is around 100$ and I'd prefer 1TB, but will settle for 500GB-ish.

 

The first thing you may want to tell us is what kind of interface are you planning to use with your new external drive on your laptop? USB 2.0? USB 3.0? eSATA? FireWire? Let us know what your laptop supports so we can assist you better.

Also, are you looking at a mobile or stay-at-home storage solution?

In any event, I strongly recommend the Seagate ( HERE) or and Western Digital ( HERE), in that order. Or, you can build your own (which is what I would do) since you'll save money in the long run and you can select exactly the type and capacity hard drive you want to use in your enclosure.

Selecting an enclosure is easy. You just need to decide what interface you'll be using and if you're looking for a 2.5" or 3.5" hard drive enclosure.

 

I'd be using it for my MSI GX740 and school computers, which are all USB 2.0. (I'm unfamiliar with Firewire and eSATA)

As for creating my own, I'm not confident that I would be successful I'll take a look at your links and use those two companies as my main search parameter - Thanks!

 

been using western digital for past 9months, doing great so far. only brand of external hdd that i buy

 

In that case, it appears you'll be using a 2.5" external HDD. I have nothing but good things to say about Seagate's FreeAgent Go line. Very well done products.

Anyway, here's a Western Digital...
Newegg.com - Western Digital My Passport Essential SE 1TB USB 2.0 Black Portable External Hard Drive WDBABM0010BBK-NESN

...and a Seagate:
Newegg.com - Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex 1TB USB 2.0 Black Ultra-portable Hard Drive STAA1000100

 

Western Digital and Seagate are the two big ones.

But from the reviews on Amazon I wouldn't touch the newer Passport drives with a 100 foot pole - I have an older one, and got a Seagate now which is good


If you need reliability consider a home server.
(And no NOT a NAS)

 

That Home Server option is a good suggestion. Am also in the market for one at the moment!

 

2TB Western Digital Elements External USB 2.0 Hard Drive $110 or $107 - SlickDeals.net Forums

2Tb for around $100

 

http://www..com/western-digital-my-passport-essential-se-1-tb-ultra-portable-external-hard-drive
Western Digital and Seagate are the two big ones.

But from the reviews on Amazon I wouldn't touch the newer Passport drives with a 100 foot pole - I have an older one, and got a Seagate now which is good


If you need reliability consider a home server.
(And no NOT a NAS)

 

I've been using a 1TB Cavalry for about 2.5 years now, it runs pretty cool and silent, hasn't let me down once.

 

My western digital has been great over the last year I have had it. Im about to wipe it clean and reformat it to ext4 as soon as I get the motivation...

 

Western digital has been my personal choice.

I do have a Seagate freeagent thats been working 24/7 for the past year and still no problems

 

With a $100 budget, your best bet is a Western Digital as many others have suggested. However, this won't mean you'll be immune to drive failures. Since you mentioned reliability is key, I'd suggest increasing your budget a bit and use a RAID-1 HDD array with two 500GB drives since this will give you more fault tolerance.

 

I don't like seagate personally, the seagate drive in my laptop (sig) recently died on me, and I replaced it with a western digital Scorpio black, 500 gb 7200 rpm 2.5" drive.
This site has some nice enclosures you can buy, basically just insert the drive and you are good to go. if you look around you can find just about everything you need.

 

Another Western Digital recommendation here. I have a 1.5TB 3.5" external, and it's been great. I also have had good luck with all the 2.5" Toshiba drives I have around. Earlier this year, I watched 2+ 2.5" Seagates dies between a couple of my friends, so I'm not fond of Seagate.