External hard drive

**PBS_SRB** · 11-19-08, 09:11 AM

I am in desperate need for an external hard drive for my laptop, and so I have been looking around.

I am thinking of buying the following:
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...82E16822148332

I don't think I'd want to go any smaller than 1 TB.

Anybody have a brand they swear by, or a product they're particularly happy with?

**CivilWars** · 11-19-08, 09:17 AM

Not sure about brands, but often times I have found it is cheaper to buy an internal hard drive, and a separate enclosure, and put them together yourself. Just my 2 cents, but I am sure some of the techno-nerds

can provide better support.

**stealth1205** · 11-19-08, 09:51 AM

like civil says, you'd be far better off taking an internal and throwing it in an enclosure, especially if your laptop has an eSATA port, because then you can use a full speed sata drive. ive used a maxtor onetouch 200gig usb 2.0 drive for years (since 2004), and its been fantastic, but usb external drives have notoriously slow performance compared to sataII 3 gb/s. something to keep in mind with 1T drives, is that they have multiple platters, and get very hot. this means they have multiple additional moving parts and thus notoriously high rates of failure. if the data you want to store is critical your probably be better off setting up an array of 500 gb's or 640 gb's. also like civil says, if you want to buy an internal drive and an enclosure, the cost will be cheaper as well in most situations. you can probably put 2x 500's + enclosures together for half the cost and equal or better performance. kinda like with TV's, the bigger screen doesnt necessarily mean its a better TV. 1T drives still pretty much suck. look at all the fail rates on pretty much all of them on newegg.

**PBS_SRB** · 11-19-08, 10:15 AM

How would I find out if I am capable of connecting another internal hard drive to my laptop?

doh, actually did some research on enclosures and...well I'm dumb.

**ninja|oaklandr** · 11-19-08, 05:01 PM

In my experience the external 3.5" are not as reliable as the 2.5". I have seen 2 in the last month here stop working that were lightly used. One was WD and the other Samsung. We never have problems with the 2.5" and they get transported much more.

Another benefit is if you travel with the 2.5" you can use USB power.

No matter what you use always have a backup.

**PBS_SRB** · 11-19-08, 05:27 PM

Thanks for the advice, I will look into getting an internal with an enclosure, from the prices I've seen it does look cheaper.

**roadhog0** · 11-19-08, 06:22 PM

For a HD WD is good and so is Maxtor/Seagate, I have had a Samsung and didn't like it.

**Gonzo0100** · 11-19-08, 06:26 PM

I've been rocken a 2.5" "Firelite" (SMARTdisc is the company) external HD for.... 5 years now? its only 40gig, but it runs off of usb power... its like my digital briefcase. I use it every day and the only isu i had with it was... wel i dropped it... and the pata cable kinda unhooked... put it back together and BAM! another few years out of her.