Time to treat myself, external HDD

[kingnathski88]

Ok, its simple, as my relatives are of the generous kind i have about £120 of my XMAS money to set aside to bu an external hardrive, has to be around 200gb+ and was looking at 250-300. Was looking at pcworld website, here are a few i found:

Toshiba 320GB (will be around £120 inc deliv.)

Pikaone 200GB (nvr heard of, but looks like good features, £110)

I know you like spending money on here, so give me the advice, basically it will store my music collection, dvd's will b put on here, and most of pics, so like an entertainment hub, but not as functional , lol)

Anyway it has to be good, duh, and allow me to reformat it occasionaly, thanks people, enjoy the rest of xmas

 

[Pisces222]

I did this...

happens that I treated myself to exactly the same candy! and I needed it exactly for an external music station.. so I went the handy way. Got the thermaltake SilverRiver external 3.5" cooled aluminum case (for $73) and thrown in a Seagate (always the best, never failed me..) IDE 7200rpm and a 8mb buffer for $170.
(these are retail street store prices, and Im sure you can get better deals off the net).

Personally I would go for a personally assmebled enclosure because you can chose the harddisk instead of being stuck with the one the manufacturer dictates. For instance, LaCie's hard enclosures are great and very stylish and have the wonderful option of auto ON and auto Off, but they come with Maxtor drives which I dont recommend much. Again, among all the harddisks, seagate was the only brand that never failed.

Merry Christmas!

 

[kingnathski88]

No offence, but i considered it and thought, it would be more pratical for me, as i should get a good warranty and not mess it up putting it together, also i want it pronto

 

[CITech]

No offence, but i considered it and thought, it would be more pratical for me, as i should get a good warranty and not mess it up putting it together, also i want it pronto

If you're looking for something quick and easy I suggest you look at something like Maxtor. I've got a 300GB unit which is USB2 and FW400 compatible.

It comes with backup software (Retrospect) so you can also use it as an offline backup device. I think it is marketed as "one touch" or something like that, because there is one button on the front!

Not sure on current pricing but I figure about £125 - £150, depending on disc size.

EDIT: Found an old review if you are interested: http://reviews.designtechnica.com/review1084.html and I just found Amazon are quoting £141.00 with 24hour availability

 

[kingnathski88]

Not bad, any comments on the two i found?

 

[Me__2001]

the make is personal preference mine would be maxtor, the one touch feature is a great function as it will backup your system when pressed, obviously if you dont trust them then i cant force you to get one, whatever you get make sure it is high speed USB2.0 or firewire 400

 

[kingnathski88]

Ok, i'm not bothered about the back-up, as i use dvd-r's for that, thanks

 

[psd99]

go for a seagate

u wont go wrong trust me!

or even god forid go for a maxtor
dont go for a name not recognised, makes sure its firewire aswell!

 

[kingnathski88]

Well, after painful decision making i went with trusty ebuyer, who are bloody excellent, i love the delivery. i got a lacie 250gb, usb no firewire, although it would of been faster my pc and laptop dont support it, formatted space allocates to about 232gb


One question, with formatting whats the diff. betwen NTFS and FAT32, i read that with the FAT32 u cant store individual files larger than 4GB? can someone shed some light for me please?

 

[psd99]

give us a link of the hardrive u got please

 

[kingnathski88]

Ah, crap sorry, thought i missed something HERE

 

[muckshifter]

Well, after painful decision making i went with trusty ebuyer, who are bloody excellent, i love the delivery. i got a lacie 250gb, usb no firewire, although it would of been faster my pc and laptop dont support it, formatted space allocates to about 232gb


One question, with formatting whats the diff. betwen NTFS and FAT32, i read that with the FAT32 u cant store individual files larger than 4GB? can someone shed some light for me please?

Use NTFS on large HDs ... use FAT on 8gigers and under.

 

[ChristopherP]

Lacie... nice!

 

[Raje]

I dunno... I built my own a short time ago. I had a small BIOS error because I used a 320GB hard drive. I still saved a ton of cash and both the HDD and Enclosure have their own warranties.

 

[kingnathski88]

Lacie... nice!

sarcastic or genuine?, btw, the picture doesn't do it justice it is pretty damn small!