I'm looking to get a external hard drive but just wonder what brand to get? There was a 250GB comstar for $100 but some reviews were really bad. What about HP ?

Thanks.

 

The cheap way is to buy an enclosure and install the hard drive yourself, but if you don't know how/don't want to take the time finding a good case, I would reccommend Western Digital. They've practically been making hard drives since dinosaurs walked the earth.

 

im also curious.........
my new computer has tv recording on it and it fills up my hard drive FAST.LMFAO

i realy want/need one!

what gets me is SOME have the same brand and ones like 300 and the other is 500 and the price is the same.... its very odd to me WHY... i want a good one myself but dont want a bigger turd....LOL

 

I'm a big computer guru, I build computers, help maintaince them at school, take 'em apart, ect. So.. I'll be glad to give my advice.

If you're looking for a GOOD external, get a Western Digital, I would highly recommend them. They have never let me down, and have always been the best. I'd prefer get a Mybook, or a passport(They're like the smaller, thinner versions of mybook) from WD. I have a 300GB External WD, and its great. Also, if you get them, they'll be in the file system format of FAT32, so i'd recommend formatting it over to NTFS if you do choose to get one. http://www.ntfs.com/ntfs_vs_fat.htm This link will help you a little, as far as why NTFS is better than FAT32, and so forth. Also, I get all my computer parts/accessories from www.newegg.com, they are one of the best online stores I know, and they have great deals and shipping.

If you have anymore questions, feel free to ask .

 

Whatevers cheapest really, with externals it doesn't really matter much. Just make sure it has the connection you want (be it usb 2.0, firewire 400 or 800, etc.). I don't like Western digital myself, tho that seems to be what everyone leans towards.. you can find them pretty cheap tho.. cause they aren't that great. SimpleTech and LaCie make some of the best externals imo. Seagate and Apricorn are alright too. Western Digital and Maxtor are meh....

 

I have been asking around and alot of people do say Western Digital is the best, so I'll look into them as see what to get, I need one real soon to put my huge photo collection and music on.

Thanks..

 

heck for pictures you can always burn those onto a DVD
and MP3 formats as well.

thats what i do for old music or old pictures most the time......
cause if the hard drive FAILS you loose everything. ive had pleanty of seagate harddrives fail ill never buy them again myself..
so far only had one western go bad and that was after about 6years of use computer constantly ON.LOL

 

Seagate used to be terrible back in the day, but they've kind of turned themselves around. Dunno if I'd get any of thier internal drives but the Free Agent externals are pretty nice. Honestly you wont find much of a difference in the external market. I'd probably get an external Western Digital myselfto save a buck or two if I was looking for an external. Honestly for anything important burning files to a CD or DVD and keeping them safe from harm is probably your best bet for a permanent storage solution. Flash drives work pretty well too. I'd only use an external HD to hold videos or mp3's or something thats expendable or just to transport files here to there.

You can find 500GB Western Digital ones for less than $100.

 

Yea its pretty much going to be used for pictures and my music collection. I do put all my stuff to disks, but I have like 10 disks now because I cant get DVD disks because my computer doesn't support that.

 

How old is your computer that it doesn't support DVDs? You can get a Dual Layer DVD-RW drive for like $30 from New Egg. Thats what I did, except I got it from a different place. If you don't have a DVD-RW, you should definatly get one. Have you considered adding a slave hard drive? You could buy a 500GB internal drive and install it as slave. That is what I currently do. That way you can install programs on the internal and playing movies won't get bottlenecked because of the USB.