I'm looking into getting an external hard drive. Can you guys recommend something good to me. I'm looking for 500 GB or somewhere around there. As far as quality and brand name. I've read alot of names out there and they got hella problems. Thanks in adavance guys

What type of connection are you looking for? USB? FireWire? eSATA? Ethernet? Do you have a budget?

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I'm type new at it, so if I ask dumb questions pardon me................
I was thinking usb, but in your opinion which is better (if a better connection exists). That seems easier...
As far as budget, I'm not looking to spend krazy money, maybe around $200 or somewhere around there

I'm using an Iomega 1TB USB hard drive, but I'm going to take the drive out and replace it with a broken one to get a freebie. I highly reccomend the Iomega 500GB or 1TB, very reliable and not as noisy as some other ones out there.

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Try here m8 i have a 500gig ext hdd from iomega and its pretty cool as long as you treat it with respect and dont throw it about i think i paid 54.99 gbp for mine from staples

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SuPa-

I highly recommend the ICY*Dock external drive bays, which keep the drive cooler and adds to their longevity. The total cost for an ICY*Doc USB 2.0/FireWire-800 and a 1TB Seagate SATA II 3GBps hard drive with a five year warranty from NewEgg is $324.98+shipping and tax. There is also at least one mail in rebate available until th end of the month.

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There are a lot to choose from . I have a western dig 1TB .
Got it @ costco on sale under 200.00 a while back . It's quiet ,
can do USB , Firewire or Sata , just don't install the software .

I've just bought a Maxtor OneTouch 4 - 500gb usb as I've been using a Maxtor 300gb usb for years with no problem. Both now attached to a laptop. I've also got an Iomega 250gb external but that is very noisy.(But I think that is a problem caused when I brought it to Turkey in my hand luggage!)

stay away from western digital unless you enjoy data loss...

never lost a byte with mine and I use multiple, seed all my files from them and use them in the always on functionality, running and transferring back and forth 24 hours a day everyday.

Jerry,

You are just lucky I guess. I have been in the IT industry for 19 years and have terrible long term experiences with Western Digital hard drives. I would NEVER recommend that someone buy a WD hard drive, and would HIGHLY recommend Seagate hard drives instead. You pay a bit more, but the longevity and warranty make the higher price worth it, in my opinion.

If PRICE is an issue, then please feel free to choose the brand that best fits your budget. As always, your mileage may vary and this is ONLY my opinion based upon MY personal experiences.

I hear what you are saying, but my WD experiences are identical to my Seagate trials, except for the lack of Seagate support when the unit crashed. It was only a 320 and repeatedly nagged me with corrupt sectors resulting in "locked" data. And I didn't use it but for storage. My WD TB has a constant flow of traffic in and out and while it has it's shortcomings, I don't really think any external is monumentally better than the next. In electronics you don't always get what you pay for, you pay for peace of mind. My documentation is noted by my peer stats and time I spend seeding from the "lesser" beast. My WD warranties were only 5 years, so I hope they hold. Of course as you all say (and everyone always tells me for some reason,) I must just always get lucky and get the one good one. Just odd how frequently it happens....

well, before the river of responses flowed in. I was speaking with jerry and decided to go and get the WD 500 GB hard drive. I paid a hundred something, less than one ten for it. So far everything is cool.
I see people talk about warranties and such, I was asking one of the techs there about the warranties and from what he told me, not the manufacturer's warranty or even the store warranty covers data loss. So if ya shit gets corrupted or whatever, your stuck............

thing is if your that concerned about data loss then you have to part with that little bit xtra cash for SATA drives the guy who does all the tech support at where i work says SATA drives are the way to go so you have to trade off whats best for situation

how much do sata drives go for??
Are they easier to retrieve data from or something??

yeah my 4 converted external drives i have are all WD drives. the newest 2 are a year old the oldest is at least 3 i think. never had any problem with them. the external enclosures i have sadly aren't even the best and get quite hot actually, specially with the drives on 24/7. haven't had a failure or problem yet either. friend uses WD as well doesn't have problems w/ them. he gave up on seagate after a couple drive failures from them

i think its they're just more reliable and less likely to fail he didnt actually say weather or not the data was more easily recovered

i got 3 wd drives on my shelf that aint fubar but you wouldnt want to put them in a machine and have all ya eggs in one basket as they are likely to fail,but they ok for just storage and not to be left running as when i do leave them running thats when the issues start but

yea I hear people say they leave theirs running 24/7, that would mean leaving your pc running 24/7...... Thats one of the main reasons my first HD crashed........ I lost all my daughter's baby pics, tons of exclusive music, family photos I'll never get back. Really F'd my week up.....
But yea, this external joint I got is only for storage purposes, nothing more