Need a decently large external hard drive

I've amassed a movie collection that is just about to go over the 1tb limit that my current HDD supports.
I have another 1tb external on hand but its about 3 years old and not something I really want to rely on.
Looking for something ideally around 3-4tb, 2 if it's a good deal/really good drive overall.
Not sure whether to get an external drive or to get an internal + enclosure.
Any suggestions on which is preferable, factoring in cost and reliability?
Any suggestions for specific HDD's?
A quick browse around amazon and newegg seems to indicate I'll need to spend around $150.
Seagate drives seem to be the most popular, but have less than stellar recent reviews. There don't seem to be that many reviews for the large WD drives, and beyond those two brands, I'm not seeing much.
I've only searched externals, though. Not entirely sure how the internal + enclosure goes since I've never done that before.

 

Highly recommend you go with 2x 2TB drives (or larger if you can afford it...) of two different drive manufacturers (Hitachi and WD for example).

A backup of a backup when you have this much data is highly preferred; if a drive goes bad (suddenly/quickly) how would you get your data off in a hurry?

Answer: without an available drive with enough capacity, you wouldn't.

If you don't mind losing the data no problem - but a backup of a backup is in your future storage planning strategies - whether that is now or in the near/far future.

(BTW, Hitachi (1st choice) and WD drives highly recommended over Seagate).

Good luck.

 

You will have to go external for a laptop, the currently largest drive with a 9.5mm height is the Hitachi 5K1500 with a capacity of 1.5 TB. If you are only going to watch movies at home, you could invest in a NAS, more expensive, but it would allow you to access your movie collection from any compatible device through your network.

 

I'd recommend getting a desktop drive (enterprise class if you are really picky) and an enclosure. you'll be able to swap drives in and out of the enclosure, and you can buy whatever desktop/laptop drive you want to use. Also recommend what tiller said - make a backup of your backup.

 

Well, I'm a poor grad student, so at this point in time, I can't afford to be making backups of my backups : (
And tijo, I'm not looking to put this drive inside my laptop, it's a storage drive I'll be keeping on my desk.
Is there a price/reliability reason for looking at enterprise class drives?
And I don't know enough about enclosures, Do they require a power source/have usb 3.0/have adequate cooling and all that jazz that comes with externals?

I'm mainly looking for some links or names of specific models, as I can't tell if my search terms/knowledge are getting me the right results for what I need.
And even then, I can't tell which ones to choose, as there seems to be precious little info on large storage drives for the average consumer that is up to date.

 

Enclosures: most 2.5" enclosures only support up to 9.5 mm drives (some do 12.5 mm or more, but make sure they do if you get a thick drive), aluminium gives you better cooling so I'd go for that. 2.5" enclosures can be powered from USB, 3.5" enclosures require external power, same for externals. 3.5" enclosures take pretty much any drive you can throw at em.

 

an enclosure/dock like this
Nippon Labs NL-JT08U3 External Enclosure - Newegg.com

plus a nice sized HDD - 4tb is the largest you can get on a single drive, iirc
Newegg.com - Seagate Desktop HDD.15 ST4000DM000 4TB 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive

Feel free to substitute models you prefer/closer to your price range.

 

this is on sale for 69.99 with promo code if you are in the US
Newegg.com - SAMSUNG D3 Station 2TB USB 3.0 Black External Hard Drive STSHX-D201TDB