What Backup Drive Should I Get? Please Answer!!!

Hello everyone,

I am in college right now and am looking for a good backup solution. I currently have an 80GB plug in the wall Western Digital drive that my dad bought 4 years ago, then dumped on me. The problem is, I have a 160GB hard drive. Plus, I want to put extra stuff on it and not on my drive. I have to buy from best buy since I have their gift cards and would like to use those and not spend actual money. My questions are this:

1. What size drive should I get? 250? 320? 500? (I'm looking to keep it for a long time too, so ample storage is wanted).

2. What company/model should I get? I'm looking at Western Digital (maybe the passport series) again since my current drive has lasted over 4 years without a hiccup (knock on wood).

3. I want something light but can sacrifice this. Should I get one that plugs into the wall or one that just plugs into the USB port to power it. I like USB only, but if the 500mA limit isn't enough for some of the bigger drives, then I'd be fine with getting a plug in the wall one.

4. Is there any way to save with Best Buy like coupons on the internet or something (I found a few, but none were for hard drives)?

Thanks everyone!

 

Size depends on how much stuff you have...

 

This does not answer your main question, but I thought I should mention a couple of minor things that turned out to be more important than I thought at first.

I wished I had looked at the drive's on-off switch. Why? Because some have an old-style rocker switch while others have a single on/off button. The difference is that, when there is a power failure, the rocker switch stays in the on position and the drive restarts automatically when the power returns, while the drive with the single on-off button switches off and will not restart automatically when the power returns. It happened to me. There was a power failure and I never noticed that the drive's power light was off. I was surprised to see a few weeks later that my backups had failed silently. A rocker switch is better.

The second thing is that some drives have a ridiculously bright actvity light. Mine would produce a red and blue disco strobe light show at night while the backup was in progress. I had to cover the light with tape to be able to use it in my bedroom.

 

my 500g western digital my book pro has been working out great for me. i would recommend that.

 

I'd recommend the WD hard drives as well. I have a 120G Passport one and I'm very satisfied with it. I carry it everywhere and it just works.
The MyBook series are nice as well. All depends on the capacity and size you'd use.

 

I have a 250GB 7200rpm Seagate FreeAgent. No problems at all, good price, enough space to backup my laptop.

On gimmick is that is doesn't come with a complete backup software. All you can do is select which folders/file types to backup and frequency of backup. However, if you have other backup software to do a complete backup, then it doesn't matter.

 

I bought a LaCie 500 GB USB drive recently and it has been fantastic. Fast, ample space, and small footprint. Decent price and looks great too!

http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=10764

 

WD MyBook all the way...

 

I just purchased a 250 GB WD Passport at BestBuy for $130 two weeks ago. Next week they have it for $140. They also have the 320 GB version for $200. It's a nice drive. It's quiet and fairly quick. In the past I've had a lot of bad luck with WD but I decided to give them one more chance. So far so good but it's only been 2 weeks. One thing that worries me slightly is the case is plastic and not metal. Plastic doesn't dissipate heat as well. I'm only using it as a backup drive so it shouldn't be too much of a problem but if I was going to keep it running all the time I might worry about it overheating.

As for the size... It depends on what you are going to use it for. If you are going to be doing a lot of multimedia stuff go for the biggest drive you can afford. If you are just going to be doing some backup and storing a few MP3's and photos, 250 GB should be good. I just backed up my Vostro and put all my photos (38 gig) and my MP3's (40 gig) on my Passport and I still have over 100 gig left... Of course my laptop is still new and doesn't have a lot of stuff on it yet...

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You can download Seagates free DiskWizard if you have a Seagate drive. See this thread: Free back-up software!

Click here for direct links to the software available to owners of FreeAgent drives.

 

Thanks for the links

 

Thanks everyone....so basically it's between the Seagate and the Western Digital Passport. I've heard that the WD Digital Passport crashes though after a few months and fails to backup properly in some cases. Does anyone know if this is true?

 

God I hope not since I just got one...

I just read a few reviews over at Newegg and it seems like the people having the most problems are not getting enough power from their USB ports. If you are really worried about this you can look into a " Power Booster Cable". It will take up 2 USB ports on your computer but it will be able to provide twice the power to the drive... From what I read, the Seagate drives come with the 2 into 1 cable.