cheapest 2TB external hard drive

anyone know where i can buy the cheapest 2TB hard drive??

 

sorry i have no idea..
what do u need 2tb's for????

 

i have 1.3ish TB of anime and movies and desperately need more....i can go far as to say that i will have every anime that is unkiddish (the ones that are only japan exclusive but are subbed)

 

Any contrainsts? (Price, size, etc...)

 

You are better off building a media server, imo. Piece together an old-ish computer for a few hundred dollars, and fill it with 500gb drives. More expandability.

Otherwise, you're going to be looking at an enclosure/NAS with 2 1TB drives in it... the drives alone would push the price over $500 more than likely, add in config, other hardware, etc...

check out newegg for stuff.

 

lol....

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-Western-Dig...eZWD1VQQtrksidZp1638.m118.l1247QQcmdZViewItem

$595.00 , free shipping

 

Probably newegg or tigerdirect, maybe amazon. In other words, the usual suspects.

 

lol..."the usual suspects" thanks for the advice. i am looking for dual drive config at max so either with two WD Caviars or two Seagate 1TBs. one more question. the actually capacity will be 2TB as in 2000MB or less? i've never been able to figure that out.

and @Charr...cheapest possible would be great...size does not matter (well...it does...but not for external hard drives)

 

I would piece together a cheap rig, put in a PCI ATA or SATA card and run a media server. Run 8 x 250GB or somewhere around that route.

 

my first recommendation is to actually buy the animation and movies you like, that way you will always have a hard copy, second, it is highly unlikely you are collecting this because you really enjoy it all, don't collect media just because you can collect it.

third, if you really think you need the space, which apparently you already have? it is probably cheapest to buy 4x500gb externals as nice ones can be had for around $100, like the Lacie Porsche design 500gb drives, etc. etc.

but I stand by 1 and 2.

 

Totally agree with Circa. You can also get 1000 x 2GB sticks for $950. More expensive, but then you would diversify your animated investments J/K

Seriously though, 4 x 500GB hard disks sounds very reasonable if you can spare the space.

 

wtf what's wrong with what i recommended? a 2TB 2-drive external enclosure with a triple connector option, independent power, not good enough?? all for only 595 thats a good deal

 

This is a forum, we all pitch in with our opinions. I would personally prefer having a few smaller hds than one huge one.

 

between my music, tv shows and hd movies; i realized its easier to just have a good storage box than to burn media onto discs, so 2 days ago i turned my old, dusty Dell Dimension 4700 into a top notch storage box. its a p4 2.8ghz, 2gb ram, 40gb main drive. i run windows xp corporate on it for the awesome networking features.

I removed the video and sound cards, and added:
4-port raid card from highpoint: $110
3x500gb seagates: $110 ea = $330

the tower is pretty small, so two of the internal ports were converted to esata, and two of my drives sit outside the main tower in enclosures i had around. the third 500gb'er is inside the tower with the 40gb main drive.

i have the 3x500gb drives in a raid 5 array to maximize space while remaining protected. if one of the drives dies, i pop in a new one and the array repairs itself. after formating i have approx 930gb of space in the array. there is still room for another raid card or two, so i can add more arrays when more space is needed.

so for right around the price of buying a new storage device with limited space, i have a fully expandable server that i am able to adapt to suit my needs.

edit: oh, and i picked up a gigabit switch to share media between the server and my laptop.

 

Although you should do what you decide is best, I think you should consider some of the advice on this thread; consider getting a media server with a collection of smaller drives for increased reliability and a lower price. Also consider actually buying hard copies of your media, or burning them to Blu-ray/HD-DVD (these discs come in 50GB+ capacities).