USB External Drive - recomendations?

[Provocative]

Hi, I'm in the market for a USB External Drive, say around 200-300Gb, not
the portable type.
Backup software not essential as most bundles are not so good.
Cool, reliable, quiet.
Haven't got multiple PCs at home but would there be any advantages to
network storage?

Thanks.

 

[T Shadow]

Hi, I'm in the market for a USB External Drive, say around 200-300Gb, not
the portable type.
Backup software not essential as most bundles are not so good.
Cool, reliable, quiet.
Haven't got multiple PCs at home but would there be any advantages to
network storage?

Thanks.

I have an ADS 5.25" enclosure that I put an old HDD into. Has a fan so isn't
totally quiet but can't hear it till the computer is turned off. Can also
put an optical drive in it instead.

Only benefits I can think of for NAS and 1 PC would be if you wanted to put
the drive farther away than a USB cable would allow or future use. IMHO NAS
is the way to go for 2 or more PCs if you can find one for around the same
price.

 

[John Weiss]

Hi, I'm in the market for a USB External Drive, say around 200-300Gb, not
the portable type.
Backup software not essential as most bundles are not so good.
Cool, reliable, quiet.
Haven't got multiple PCs at home but would there be any advantages to
network storage?

Shop around, pick your enclosure, and pick the drive(s) you want in it. For
a normal USB external, you can probably do this for less than a "prebuilt"
drive. Specifics on the enclosure depend on whether it will be running full
time or intermittently.

NAS may be a reasonable alternative. What are you going to use it for?

 

[Indigo-Silver]

To be used for backup so I thought NAS might be a neat way to provide on the
fly back-up rather than have to schedule or manually manage my back-up
routine - with appropriate NAS backup software of course, but I guess that's
another thread!

I wouldn't want to leave it on all the time, necessarily.

Yes I could buy a case and install a hard drive of my choosing - I hadn't
thought of that. Are there any disadvantages to doing this over a ready made
solution?

 

[RussellS]

I highly recommend this enclosure with a normal Seagate SATA internal drive
installed:
http://www.aziocorp.com/product_detail/ENC311SU41.php

Russell
http://tastycomputers.com

 

[henry]

I have an 3.25" enclosure and an old hd in it. The backup software is
uplus sync. The helpful program perfect support backing up to usb
drives.

 

[sdlomi2]

To be used for backup so I thought NAS might be a neat way to provide on
the fly back-up rather than have to schedule or manually manage my back-up
routine - with appropriate NAS backup software of course, but I guess
that's another thread!

I wouldn't want to leave it on all the time, necessarily.

Yes I could buy a case and install a hard drive of my choosing - I hadn't
thought of that. Are there any disadvantages to doing this over a ready
made solution?

(snip) Probably the main advantage is the price is cheaper. [[I know a
couple of self-employed comp-repairmen who use harddrives running outside
ANY case/enclosure for intermittent backup. I guess that would run cooler,
huh? And if used only, say bi-weekly, maybe not too dangerous? These 2
guys operate "outside the box", using 'defective' parts for
building/repairing their own personal computers!]] But again the reason to
build your own is to save a little $, buying a decent hd on special sales
much cheaper than you'd be charged by co's selling to unknowing or
non-technical buyers. s