Whats the best external harddrive to get?

I really dont care about the price .. probably $200 is the most that Id buy one for .. I just want quality .. The bigger the harddrive, the better, and of course quality counts..

EDIT: A mobile hardrive would be best .. and 80-100 GB would be great .. 150-200 GB is awesome as well.

Thank you

 

I'm just not sure what exactly I should be looking for ...

I know transfer rate is a great thing, but other than that I really don't know.

 

Are you looking for a 2.5 inch (doesn't require an external power supply) or a 3.5 inch (requires external power)?

I would look @ newegg.com for starters and I would also consider buying the hard drive and enclosure separately if it works out to be cheaper.

 

I was just looking at this one: ( click here)

I really dont mind if it requires external power, as long as it is a good external hardrive. I'm basically looking for quality, because I dont want to buy something that has bad support and doesnt work in 4 months.

 

i edited your post.

please try to avoid cursing in the future.

 

I'd recommend building your own, get an OEM HD, pop it in an Enclosure, and voila, its done!

 

I recommend a WD external HDD, their quality is second to none.

 

I have the Western Digital My Book Premium II edition and it has 500gb for around 230 dollars. Bought it at Costco.

 

Does the power supply increase performance compared to the external hard drives that don't need the power supply. Pros and cons

-Davkal

 

Generally, the need for external power is for 3.5" drives, 2.5" drives generally don't need external power (but need two USB sockets, one for data transfer, one for power).

I'd recommend as Coriolis stated, get a 2.5" drive that you really like (after research) and then get an enclosure, my current one is a Venus Ds2 which seems to work really well.

One thing to check, if your laptop allows booting from a USB Hard Disk, check when you get an external enclosure that it lets you do that, not all external enclosures are made equal.

 

Usually, in fact I think all 3.5" hard drives requires a power supply. The 3.5" are the hard drives that are usually in PCs. Whereas the 2.5" (like the ones in laptops and Ipods) do not require a power supply because they could be powered through USB 2.0.

The 2.5" are usually slower compared to the 3.5". 2.5 usually have the 5400 rpm and 3.5 are in the 7200. But I'm not sure about the 2.5 7200 that if it would work without a power supply.

 

so external hardrives require a powerpoint?

 

Powerpoint? You mean power supply? Only 3.5 in hard drives requires an external power supply. The 2.5 in does not because they can acquire power through USB.

 

Yes it does, as the USB port can not power a 3.5" fully.

 

unless your usb ports can't provide enough power... like my front usb ports in my pc (strange kuz i replaced the power supply wth higher specs) and my friend's laptop. in this case the external power supply is needed to run.

to the original poster: i'd recommend the buffalo external hd. 500 gigs will cost about 160 (when on sale at fry's) and 170 (at microcenter - been onsale for over a month). the 250 gig buffalos are about 70 at microcenter. they're all rebates. these buffalos are made in japan and most likely have a hitachi hd in it. hitachi's have been very good to me

if you don't like hitachi or buffalo or stuff assembled in japan then just check out this website for weekly sales [usa only]:

http://www.salescircular.com/ca/computer/hdiskp.shtml

these are sales for california folks and have both internals and externals. if you're not in cali then hit HOME on the upper right and locate your state and item of interest. i have other sales sites but i use this the most.

 

Just bought Freecom external HD (Samsung), 2.5", 5400rpm...only got one USB socket...so far it's ok...stupid question but here goes, is it ok to always attached the external HD to your pc/laptop?

 

I would recommend getting a 2.5 inch model and preferably a slower model. They cost less and there won't be much speed difference when moved outside. I simply bought a 7200rpm seagate to replace the 4200rpm hitachi that came with my notebook and put the 4200rpm in an enclosure for extra storage. The cool thing about the 4200rpm is it draws so little power that you can power it up and transfer data with only 1 usb port which is neccessary on my pc because the cable that comes with most enclosures is only like 3 inches long (for the power up portion) so you have to have two usb ports basically side by side, which mine aren't.

Leon

 

Do you have USB 1.0 or 2.0?