Looking For an External HD but I don't Know Shit

Hey all

I haven't really posted on this forum much, maybe not at all even, but a few of you might remember me from back in the days of LWS. Hopefully some of you who are more technologically inclined can help me find a good hard drive...

I don't know as much as I'd like to about computers and/or hard drives, but wanted an external HD somewhere between 500 GB - 1 TB. I'd like to be able to plug it into my desktop and my laptop via USB, and just want to use it to store music/movies/pictures.

I've read that you can just buy an internal hard drive and then buy a case for it to make it external... is this a cheaper option? I also want it to be as physically compact as possible, so would buying an internal+case be more pragmatic in that sense? If not, is there a specific kind of external hard drive I should be looking for (things like '32 mb cache' don't mean much to me, so if somebody could explain what that means as well...) I was browsing around amazon and similar websites, and found that some are listed as "desktop hard drives." Does this mean that they are only compatible with desktop computers?

Ideally, I don't want to spend more than 100 dollars total. I'm not in that big of a rush so I am willing to wait a few weeks if it means that I can find a better deal.

Along with the aforementioned questions, I'd also like to know what some good websites are to browse around. Would it be unwise for me to buy this from sites like ebay/craigslist? I've heard amazon and newegg are pretty good... any other suggestions? Is buying online a good idea, or would I be able to find similar prices at stores like best buy as well? I'm also hoping someone can point me in the right direction of specifically what kind of hard drive / casing I should get, since I have virtually no experience with this kind of thing. If it makes any difference, my laptop is a Windows Vista and my desktop is a Windows XP. Any help/suggestions are appreciated, thanks!

I wouldn't bother with trying to build a case for an internal drive, the cost difference isn't that much and since you admit you don't know squat about this that wouldn't be the route to go.
I would check the daily deals (usually posted only Mon-Fri on some of the non-vendor blogs) posted as Consumerist.com ("Morning Deals"), Lifehacker.com, techbargins.com, newegg.com, amazon etc. They aggregate the best deals going around each day (or in the case of amazon and newegg only show their own sites deals) and there are literally external hard drive deals pretty much every day. You can get 1TB for under $100 (I recently got an Iomega 1.5TB external for $119 shipped) if you keep an eye out for the deals.

I wouldn't worry too much about what brand to get, as long as you've heard of the brand name (HP, Seagate, Western Digital, Iomega, Hitachi, etc) you should be fine, especially the the 500-1000GB drive size you're looking for; all of the kinks in manufacturing have been worked out as far as I know.

Don't waste your time with ebay or craigslist, you're rolling the dice with those. I wouldn't go to best buy over my dead body, you definitely want to buy online because you'll get a better deal due to warehouses not having the same overhead costs as regular stores.

USB drives are compatible with anything that has a USB jack - the only reason they may call it a desktop drive would be if it was bulkier than maybe a drive made extra thin (at additional cost) to make it easier to carry in your laptop bag. I'm not 100% sure but "laptop" drives may not have to plug into the wall for power like most external drives do.

Cache size won't matter to you since you're just using it for storage. If you're planning on running games off there or high-def movies to export to your TV then maybe I'd look for a bigger cache size but 32MB should do fine for you.

edit: make sure you have USB2.0, if you run an external drive off 1.0 then I hope you are a very patient person because it will take eons to transfer stuff. If your laptop was built in the last couple years you should be good to go. Follow the directions here to see if you have USB 2.0 if you don't already know: http://ask-leo.com/how_can_i_tell_if_i_have_usb_20.html

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rick Scarf

I wouldn't bother with trying to build a case for an internal drive, the cost difference isn't that much and since you admit you don't know squat about this that wouldn't be the route to go.
I would check the daily deals (usually posted only Mon-Fri on some of the non-vendor blogs) posted as Consumerist.com ("Morning Deals"), Lifehacker.com, techbargins.com, newegg.com, amazon etc. They aggregate the best deals going around each day (or in the case of amazon and newegg only show their own sites deals) and there are literally external hard drive deals pretty much every day. You can get 1TB for under $100 (I recently got an Iomega 1.5TB external for $119 shipped) if you keep an eye out for the deals.

I wouldn't worry too much about what brand to get, as long as you've heard of the brand name (HP, Seagate, Western Digital, Iomega, Hitachi, etc) you should be fine, especially the the 500-1000GB drive size you're looking for; all of the kinks in manufacturing have been worked out as far as I know.

Don't waste your time with ebay or craigslist, you're rolling the dice with those. I wouldn't go to best buy over my dead body, you definitely want to buy online because you'll get a better deal due to warehouses not having the same overhead costs as regular stores.

USB drives are compatible with anything that has a USB jack - the only reason they may call it a desktop drive would be if it was bulkier than maybe a drive made extra thin (at additional cost) to make it easier to carry in your laptop bag. I'm not 100% sure but "laptop" drives may not have to plug into the wall for power like most external drives do.

Cache size won't matter to you since you're just using it for storage. If you're planning on running games off there or high-def movies to export to your TV then maybe I'd look for a bigger cache size but 32MB should do fine for you.

edit: make sure you have USB2.0, if you run an external drive off 1.0 then I hope you are a very patient person because it will take eons to transfer stuff. If your laptop was built in the last couple years you should be good to go. Follow the directions here to see if you have USB 2.0 if you don't already know: http://ask-leo.com/how_can_i_tell_if_i_have_usb_20.html

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I agree with Rick Scarf, but to put in my 2 cents I would recommend newegg.com and tigerdirect.com and maybe amazon.com as the best probable deals for an external harddrive. As he said, don't bother building it yourself, its not really worth it. Also, I just want to draw more attention to the part where he said make sure you pick one from a brand that you recognize. Sure, you can find a really cheap one from some bumfuck company that you never heard of, but the chances that it will die on you randomly are much greater than if you get a seagate or other well-respected brand. Make sure you read the customer reviews for whatever you get first. Also, I don't know what the cache and stuff means, but the rpm is the read and write speed of the harddrive, so the higher it is, the faster it will process stuff. In my experience, it really doesn't matter much, so I would just focus on the size of the HD and the company. Good luck!

Ironically, Seagate has been having lots of issues lately.

Still, get a pre-built external drive. At this point in time, the only benefits building your own enclosure has will be noticed by people more into computers than you are.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136448

This is the one I have and I love it, never had any problems with it and very easy to install, just plug it in.