it'll be primarily for photo storage, possibly some other tax and income related stuff but mostly just backup for photos so i don't have to keep so much crap on my 80gb of HD space on my lappy. i'm looking for around 160/320/500gb i guess and it's of course gotta be usb2.0 (aren't they all nowadays anyway?)

is one brand better than another?
what about speeds, the faster the better?
where to buy, newegg?

i'm not really looking for the end-all, top of the line 1tb HD but something in the $150-$200 range would be cool i think.

i won't buy from these guys, but how about something like this:

http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Weste...oductDetail.do

I know nothing about these things... I just buy whatever size matching what's in the ComPUter at the time so I can just mirror it. Then I'll replace both with matching drives again as needed. But I just get whatever I can in matching sizes that's not too expensive. I probably should pay more attention to brands/quality.

i think 7200rpm is a must, i'm trying to decide if i should sacrifice some space for it to be portable

I use Dell's MyBook 500GB and love it

A desktop based drive is going to be cheaper for the storage and have generally higher performance than a 2.5" drive based external storage device. Personally I DIY them (buy a drive, buy an enclosure, slap together and you're good to go) but any of the major brands seem to be pretty similar.

The Western Digital MyBook drives are popular and I know nobody who has had trouble with them.

hrm. 120gb will hold about 40k 7MP pictures. that's quite a few

whereas 500gb will hold about 160k 7MP pictures.

hrm.

I got my Seagate 500Gb at BB for 129.99

http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Weste...oductDetail.do

$80 for the WD 500gb

Originally Posted by emorphien

A desktop based drive is going to be cheaper for the storage and have generally higher performance than a 2.5" drive based external storage device. Personally I DIY them (buy a drive, buy an enclosure, slap together and you're good to go) but any of the major brands seem to be pretty similar.

The Western Digital MyBook drives are popular and I know nobody who has had trouble with them.

I haven't had a single problem... I've got about 200GB's of data stored on it and it runs and functions perfectly

Originally Posted by b84wm

hrm. 120gb will hold about 40k 7MP pictures. that's quite a few

whereas 500gb will hold about 160k 7MP pictures.

hrm.

smaller might actually be better. You'll fill it faster, then you can shelve it until needed. I only have mine turned on when transferring to reduce wear and tear. I also mirror everything on another drive, so when they're full, one gets stored, the other stays where I can access it, but not hooked up.

I just bought this drive: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822152052

It's an internal drive, but as others have mentioned, you can get an external enclosure for it.

Originally Posted by b84wm

http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Weste...oductDetail.do

$80 for the WD 500gb

thats the non-dell verison

this is the dell version

alright...

$87.08 shipped for the WD 500gb my book 7200rpm 3.2lb'er

or

$78.39 shipped for the WD 120gb passport 5400rpm 4oz'er

Originally Posted by beezwax

thats the non-dell verison

this is the dell version

I can see it still says "WD" on the side of it. Other than being sold by Dell I don't see how this is a "Dell" version.

it's silver, not black.

besides that it's the same...just $80 more.

yep, looks exactly like my 320GB WD My Book

I'd vote seagate for drives. They have a much better warranty.

I'd order one of these in an enclosure
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822148288

Its the new 32mb cache version. They're also speed demons.

my bad... it's the Premium edition

Originally Posted by Geekybiker

I'd vote seagate for drives. They have a much better warranty.

For these externals most brands have a 3 year. For buying standalone (internal) 3.5" drives I'd agree, them or the WD drives which carry a 5 year warranty.

Originally Posted by b84wm

http://www.buy.com/retail/product.as...=17653#cRevSec

BLAM!

$73 shipped!

i also found a 5% off coupon so i got it for $69.34 shipped free!

oh and it's got a 5yr warranty. :dance:

i got it yesterday, looks good so far...it's in a pretty box but have yet to set it up.

word, it's just going to be stored in the closet so i won't be messing with it too often but i'll be extra careful

Originally Posted by subimatt

I got my Seagate 500Gb at BB for 129.99

Seagate is the #1 HD maker in the world right now.
You bought the Same one I have actually. Nice buy.

Originally Posted by b84wm

alright...

$87.08 shipped for the WD 500gb my book 7200rpm 3.2lb'er

where!!?

i don't remember now, i think buy.com?

check out the slick deals forum, there's ALWAYS good HD (not to mention other) deals floating around there

Ended up with
http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=509

plus this x2
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136178

Setup as raid 1


Not nearly as cheap as just an external drive enclosure, but I'd been eyeing a NAS to serve music, etc on my home net for awhile.

Nice!
My next external will certainly be NAS. Nice setup, even if it was ~$400.

Heh. Great minds think alike I guess. The dlink NAS was the best reviewed 2bay for anything approaching a reasonable price.

Yeah, I'm an owner of a WD 250GB external HD. I currently have all my pictures and videos on there, freeing space on the laptop. I'm pretty satisfied.
Reed

Check out the Synology NAS systems. VERY robust OS/GUI and offers a Ton of enchancements (Torrent downloading, FTP, Web file station...) and the D108j is pretty cheap (150) and you can get the 2 bay ones for a little more. Supposed to be the fastest NAS on the block..
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/30657/75/

Well, I just bought the DNS-323 along with 2 WD Caviar Green 640GB (yes, I used the link ). After stuffing my head with reviews, I think it's a pretty good/cheap combo.

nice!

Originally Posted by Jerome

Well, I just bought the DNS-323 along with 2 WD Caviar Green 640GB (yes, I used the link ). After stuffing my head with reviews, I think it's a pretty good/cheap combo.

Will this be your primary storage or for backup? Will you use both drives for ~1.25TB or mirror them in case one fails?

I've been tossing around the idea of something like that for a while... It's hard to justify $150 for a HD enclosure when I could get a motherboard for that much and build another computer. Though I definitely don't have the space for another tower either.

I will mirror them and use it as primary storage. And set up FTP so my dad can upload his and download mine. 640 GB should hold enough for some time, then I'll upgrade the drives.

Can be nice to use as a streaming device too (music, video)... if/when I have time and money to waste.

Received, installed, up and running Had to buy a wifi adapter for my wife's computer to free up an ethernet port... didn't think of that one. Very simple to install and configure, I'm happy.