Hardware I want to buy an external hard drive...

[War]

EDIT: Sorry for typo's. I hate my mom's laptop with a passion.

Anyway... so recently, I've discovered that my computer has no storage space in it whatsoever. Brand new, it came with a whopping 60GBs. -_________- 77Gb's if you count the 17 in my backup drive. So I was talking to one of my brothers the other day, and he told me about these things called external hard drives? I never knew about them... but if I have the right idea, they seem wonderful! I found a couple under or around 100 bucks, which should be fine if I get enough Christmas money.

So basically, it's like a USB thumbdrive on steroids, right? From what I've seen, it's usually a compact box varying in sizes, and you jsut plug it in through a USB port, and the computer reads it as another hard drive? If so, that's awesome! I looked around in newegg just for the heck of the reviews, but saw that a lot of them had problems with "running out after a month" and such.

For me 100 bucks+ is a LOT of money. I really need an EHD that won't be very expensive, and will last me a LONG time.

What do you guys have in mind? Please, any help would be appreciated. Links, brands, advice, anything.

Some info that might help you... I live near a Best Buy, Frys, Target, and Wal Mart. If all goes well, I will probably have around 100 bucks + anywhere from 30-70 extra. I need a really good brand that will last me. Preferably from Frys, since it's closest. I have a Dell E310, I believe. Also, it would be nice if the drive was at least semi-compact, so I would be able to take it to friend's houses and such.

Thanks!

 

[Sinkhead]

Remember that external hard drives are usually too slow to run programs from (well, the drive itself isn't too slow, but the USB port is).

Anyway, it's usually (see kellyan95's post below) more economic to build your own, by buying a normal 3.5" or 2.5" HDD and installing it in an external enclosure. I'm from the UK, and I don't know your shops, so I'll use NewEgg for examples...

320GB 3.5" HDD ($74.99) + Black external enclosure ($24.99)

Or, a more compact but less economical option....

120GB 2.5" HDD ($64.99) + Silver external enclosure ($24.99)

Some things you need to know if you're buying a HDD + enclosure

• There are different types of HDD connection, SATA and ATA (sometimes called PATA). Make sure the enclosure and the drive use the same one (many enclosures support both)
• Some enclosures have fans, some don't. If you want a silent one (without a fan) make sure you choose a cool drive

That's all I can think of for now.

- Sam

 

[kellyan95]

Best Buy has Seagate drives pretty cheap, I got a 320GB for $60. Would recommend it. Check the weekly ad for a better deal.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?sk...d=1164157591271

 

[SkH]

It's better if you just buy a big HDD and build into your PC.

Anyways 3.5" needs an External Power Input (for example an 220/230V one), and 2.5" not. So that's better, but less space, indeed. But the External HDD's are for people who always travel. (For Laptop, or Have Laptop & Desktop PC, etc. conditions.)

 

[kellyan95]

It's better if you just buy a big HDD and build into your PC.

Anyways 3.5" needs an External Power Input (for example an 220/230V one), and 2.5" not. So that's better, but less space, indeed. But the External HDD's are for people who always travel. (For Laptop, or Have Laptop & Desktop PC, etc. conditions.)

Not seen the thread where she puts a DVD drive into her PC, eh?

I have an external to hold all of my stuff and keep it seperate from my PC, which is very often in dangerous territory. Also, there isn't enough power in my PC for another drive....

They are very useful, just don't download anything (like torrents) directly to them

 

[Harsky]

Best Buy has Seagate drives pretty cheap, I got a 320GB for $60. Would recommend it. Check the weekly ad for a better deal.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?sk...d=1164157591271

I have the 500gb version. Looks very strange but it's a godsend in holding my roms and ISO since the DVDs I burned them to is crap and starting to rot away

 

[War]

Umm...sorry guys, guess I sould have mentioned. I don't want to do ANYTHING with messing with the inside of my PC, installing things, etc. Not only am I useless at that, but this is a brand new computer, and it's the only one I'm gonna have probably until I graduate from high school. I take care of it way too much to be messing around with the cables and stuff inside.

kellyan mentioned I shouldn't put torrents directly into it...why? I was planning on using it mostly for that kind of stuff. I need somewhere to store my torrents, music, games, etc. Also, how come it's not possible to play games from it? I was looking forward to downloading a bunch of computer games...

 

[shootme]

the reason its not recomended to play games from it is the speed, it will take forever to load a game, but nothing else. as for the torrents, I have no idea what he is talking about, i have been downloading to it for a about a year now and I havent found any problems with it.

 

[kellyan95]

Umm...sorry guys, guess I sould have mentioned. I don't want to do ANYTHING with messing with the inside of my PC, installing things, etc. Not only am I useless at that, but this is a brand new computer, and it's the only one I'm gonna have probably until I graduate from high school. I take care of it way too much to be messing around with the cables and stuff inside.

kellyan mentioned I shouldn't put torrents directly into it...why? I was planning on using it mostly for that kind of stuff. I need somewhere to store my torrents, music, games, etc. Also, how come it's not possible to play games from it? I was looking forward to downloading a bunch of computer games...

A torrent would use hundreds of connections to and from the drive, very not good for it. I download to my regular drive them tranfser stuff over.

You can't INSTALL a game onto it, also bad for the drive to have that many connections and stuff - it would be slow

I speak from experience from torrents - 3 seasons of a certain show all downloading at once for a week corrupted it, had to reformat

 

[shinji257]

Umm...sorry guys, guess I sould have mentioned. I don't want to do ANYTHING with messing with the inside of my PC, installing things, etc. Not only am I useless at that, but this is a brand new computer, and it's the only one I'm gonna have probably until I graduate from high school. I take care of it way too much to be messing around with the cables and stuff inside.

kellyan mentioned I shouldn't put torrents directly into it...why? I was planning on using it mostly for that kind of stuff. I need somewhere to store my torrents, music, games, etc. Also, how come it's not possible to play games from it? I was looking forward to downloading a bunch of computer games...


A torrent would use hundreds of connections to and from the drive, very not good for it. I download to my regular drive them tranfser stuff over.

You can't INSTALL a game onto it, also bad for the drive to have that many connections and stuff - it would be slow

I'm sorry but that would be incorrect. There would be no more stress to the external drive than would be to the internal one. The large number of connections are going to be on the network adapter. Not the hard drive. The drive just writes the data. No worse off than copying over a large number of small files. The speed is going to be comparable to an internal hrd drive in some cases too. Just keep to USB 2.0 or Firewire and you will be fine. I have had no issues with my external drive and there has been no perceivable difference in speed between the internal and external drives.

Please note to keep the external drive away from heat sources. I had mine next to the vents on my laptop and found my external drive was overheating due to that and the drive was shutting down because of it. It was a mistake on my part being on a cramped table that time.

 

[chuckstudios]

Umm...sorry guys, guess I sould have mentioned. I don't want to do ANYTHING with messing with the inside of my PC, installing things, etc. Not only am I useless at that, but this is a brand new computer, and it's the only one I'm gonna have probably until I graduate from high school. I take care of it way too much to be messing around with the cables and stuff inside.

kellyan mentioned I shouldn't put torrents directly into it...why? I was planning on using it mostly for that kind of stuff. I need somewhere to store my torrents, music, games, etc. Also, how come it's not possible to play games from it? I was looking forward to downloading a bunch of computer games...


A torrent would use hundreds of connections to and from the drive, very not good for it. I download to my regular drive them tranfser stuff over.

You can't INSTALL a game onto it, also bad for the drive to have that many connections and stuff - it would be slow

I speak from experience from torrents - 3 seasons of a certain show all downloading at once for a week corrupted it, had to reformat

Random and repetitive writing to a magnetic storage drive does not damage it in any way. If it was corrupted after a week of downloading, it was either a coincidence or your own damn fault.

 

[kellyan95]

Hey, you shut it, that folder read as 412GB after that week was up, but the rest of my stuff was ok

 

[chuckstudios]

Hey, you shut it, that folder read as 412GB after that week was up, but the rest of my stuff was ok

Random and repetitive writing to a magnetic storage drive does not damage it in any way. If it was corrupted after a week of downloading, it was either a coincidence or your own damn fault.

 

[Urza]

Hey, you shut it, that folder read as 412GB after that week was up, but the rest of my stuff was ok

I torrent stuff to external drives all the time and have never had any issues.

 

[kellyan95]

Is "safely remove hardware" supposed to make your monitor turn off/on 50 times in less than 4 seconds?

Just a question...

 

[ZeWarrior]

Is "safely remove hardware" supposed to make your monitor turn off/on 50 times in less than 4 seconds?

Just a question...

Obviously not.

 

[shinji257]

Hey, you shut it, that folder read as 412GB after that week was up, but the rest of my stuff was ok

I torrent stuff to external drives all the time and have never had any issues.

Exactly. I do that all the time as well. The drive is even USB powered and is a small 2.5" 7200RPM drive that gets all the traffic. I have never had any issues with it. Actually the drive was recently transplanted to a new external case since the old one had a loose usb connector on it. This one has a much better one and I won't risk dropping the connection while using it.

 

[shinji257]

Is "safely remove hardware" supposed to make your monitor turn off/on 50 times in less than 4 seconds?

Just a question...

No. It should not be doing that.

 

[chuckstudios]

Is "safely remove hardware" supposed to make your monitor turn off/on 50 times in less than 4 seconds?

Just a question...

Yes.

 

[kellyan95]

Is "safely remove hardware" supposed to make your monitor turn off/on 50 times in less than 4 seconds?

Just a question...


Obviously not.

Hmm, probably need to figure out why safely removing hardware always corrupts it...