External Hard drive recommendations

[StuartH]

Hi looking to get a decent external hard drive to back up my photos etc like the look of the small mobile ones..looking to spend £100 max..any ideas?

 

[trapper501]

I've seen good reviews of the WD my passport and the Buffalo one.

I have experience of products from both companies (WD Mybook and Buffalo NAS) and would be happy with either. The Buffalo has a groove to wrap the cable round.

 

[ingrid]

I have a Western Digital "MyBook" which is as noisy as a very noisy thing in noiseville. I cannot recommend it. I have a small Lacie 2.5 inch drive which I use for all docs because nothing is stored on my PC. The Lacie is silent. For photos, (and because I hate the WD with a passion) I bought a Freecom SATA which is also silent. The HD's on my PC (and on which are stored only programs, no data) are Samsung and as near silent as makes no difference. With £100 I would seriously consider a modest priced external enclosure and mount a Samsung Spinpoint. That is the route I am going to take for my daughter's growing collection of photos.

 

[StuartH]

Thanks both..this one caught my eye..
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/st...m=null&tm=null&sku=692073&category_oid=-32891

 

[trapper501]

Thanks both..this one caught my eye..
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/st...m=null&tm=null&sku=692073&category_oid=-32891

That is the WD passport I mentioned, here is the buffalo

http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Home/Product/39515?source=googleps

I haven't tried either but I was looking into this recently and both had good reviews I thought.

I ended up buying a second Epson P2000 on ebay but I will return to these drives later.

 

[gemini]

Thanks both..this one caught my eye..
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/st...m=null&tm=null&sku=692073&category_oid=-32891

Hi

I bought the 250gb version of this just last week as I had to do a complete reinstall of vista on my laptop.

It is really easy to setup and use - I was moving photos, videos & documents onto it within a couple of minutes of plugging it in. It was just as smooth to return everything back to the laptop afterwards.

I really like the fact that it just runs from usb and doesn't need it's own power supply.

Hope this helps.

Alison

 

[StuartH]

Thanks Trapper..I do like the WD one..
Alison why did you have to reinstall vista?

 

[hits98]

I carry around a Freecom Toughdrive 320gb, very good never gone wrong.

Got loads at work as well never had a problem with em

 

[scottishlens]

Wouldn't touch the WD passport as it crashed on me and would never get another usb powered device.My Maxtor 250 and 500gb drves have been rock solid

 

[gemini]

Ok, it's a bit of a long story........

I had to reinstall vista because my firewire port stopped working when I plugged my camcorder into it, even though it had worked fine before.

I phoned Dell who had me doing various things with the camcorder and the laptop all to no avail. I told Dell I had taken the camcorder down to PCWorld and asked them to try it on one of their vista laptops (where it worked 1st time), but they insisted on me doing a complete reinstall to rule out any software issues.

When this didn't solve the problem they sent an engineer out to replace my motherboard, we plugged the camcorder in and it was recognised straightaway.

Alison

 

[MisterE]

I have a Western Digital "MyBook" which is as noisy as a very noisy thing in noiseville. I cannot recommend it.

Had four of those - 350, 500 x2, and a 750. All silent. Probably a problem with yours.

 

[neil_g]

please dont by maxtor, they have some of the worst reliability records out.

ive got 3 external seagates at the moment and both appear to be reliable so far. thing is with hard disks is you get good and bad batches, and theyre not designed to take shock so its a bit of a lottery with getting good reliable drives.

 

[neil_g]

Had four of those - 350, 500 x2, and a 750. All silent. Probably a problem with yours.

i had a 320 and it was noisey with spinning up and down. i ended up ripping the disk out and putting it internal.

 

[jayeshpp]

A quick scan on HotUKDeals and I came across this for you:

£69.99
Toshiba 1TB External Hard Drive USB2.0 - Retail

Or

£45.99
Maxtor one touch 4 500GB External Hard Drive 3.5"

My girlfriend has the Maxtor one and it performs well. It looks good too

 

[MisterE]

please dont by maxtor, they have some of the worst reliability records out.

There is no bigger critic of Maxtor and their reliability than me.

 

[StuartH]

Thanks everyone for the ideas and advice..Are the portable ones pretty reliable?..Read some horror stories about a few and quite concerned as it will have a lot of important images going on it.

 

[trapper501]

Thanks everyone for the ideas and advice..Are the portable ones pretty reliable?..Read some horror stories about a few and quite concerned as it will have a lot of important images going on it.

The rule is that you should have anything important in at least three places.

All our pictures are stored on 3 duplicated drives in two houses plus DVD archives.

The two houses may be seen as overkill, but then that's how we live. I think it is quite important not to keep all the copies in the same place, so you could keep DVD archives at work for instance.

One of the things people were saying after the Australian bush fires was how they had lost all of the family photos.

 

[neil_g]

There is no bigger critic of Maxtor and their reliability than me.

every maxtor i have come across has developed a tick of death.. wouldnt trust any of my data on one.

 

[MisterE]

every maxtor i have come across has developed a tick of death.. wouldnt trust any of my data on one.

During my first five or so years of building and upgrading my computers I bought nothing but Maxtor - cheapest GB per £. About 12 of them in all. Two were DOA. Every one died prematurely, two or three withing a year but most after two to four years. At some point Maxtor reduced their 5 year warranty down to one year, but I'd stopped buying them by then.

 

[minesamojito]

have recently bought 2 of these beauties, very small and so far all good
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Freecom-Mobile-Drive-320GB-Portable/dp/B001C9XJ42/ref=pd_cp_ce_1?pf_rd_p=136153791&pf_rd_s=center-41&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B001C83272&pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_r=0V0D5C9KZKMWJYA03Z3T
cheers
marcus

 

[bindex]

I work in IT, and believe me drives DO fail. Personally I'd rather have two 3½" drives at £50 each than one 2½" drive at £100. Keep your main data on the pc drive and have backups on BOTH external drives, and keep one of these off site!

It may sound like paranoia but it's no fun trying to get data back from a duff system. You can't have too many backups. You can replace the computer, you can re-install your software, but the real value is in the data. And without backups it can truly be irreplaceable.

Sorry if I sound like a doom and gloom merchant! I'm not really...

cheers
Bill

 

[StuartH]

I work in IT, and believe me drives DO fail. Personally I'd rather have two 3½" drives at £50 each than one 2½" drive at £100. Keep your main data on the pc drive and have backups on BOTH external drives, and keep one of these off site!

It may sound like paranoia but it's no fun trying to get data back from a duff system. You can't have too many backups. You can replace the computer, you can re-install your software, but the real value is in the data. And without backups it can truly be irreplaceable.

Sorry if I sound like a doom and gloom merchant! I'm not really...

cheers
Bill

Not doom and gloom mate but sensible!..

 

[digitalfailure]

Tesco have a maxtor basics 1TB drive in stock for less than 50 quid at the moment, I know it's not the smallest of drives but they are well built and quiet.

I paid more than that for a 500gb Maxtor drive last summer

 

[trapper501]

Tesco have a maxtor basics 1TB drive in stock for less than 50 quid at the moment, I know it's not the smallest of drives but they are well built and quiet.

I paid more than that for a 500gb Maxtor drive last summer

I was just thinking that perhaps I should get another drive here as a 2nd backup. Is that a USB drive? (presumably with a PS as well)

 

[trapper501]

They seem to be £97 in Tesco according to this?

http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.204-3017.aspx

Is yours an in store price?

 

[digitalfailure]

It's a USB2 drive which is ready to rock n roll and yes it was an in store price

I was tempted to get another one, but i'm going to go over to a network drive next so I can access it from both the imac and the lappy at the same time.

 

[neil_g]

you lot are brave..

 

[trapper501]

It's a USB2 drive which is ready to rock n roll and yes it was an in store price

I was tempted to get another one, but i'm going to go over to a network drive next so I can access it from both the imac and the lappy at the same time.

That really is an excellent price. I'll pop into the nearest Tesco in poole tomorrow and see if they have it too.

 

[trapper501]

you lot are brave..

it will be my 5th back up for pictures, 3rd back up for everything else. Not that brave.

 

[MisterE]

Tesco have a maxtor basics 1TB drive in stock for less than 50 quid at the moment, I know it's not the smallest of drives but they are well built and quiet.

I paid more than that for a 500gb Maxtor drive last summer

So it should keep going until maybe next summer then??

 

[trapper501]

I was tempted to get another one, but i'm going to go over to a network drive next so I can access it from both the imac and the lappy at the same time.

Can I recommend Buffalo?

I've used the Buffalo 500Gb live drive pro. I read in a review that it takes longer to open the packaging than it does to set it up and that is definitely the case.

It is backing up each morning to a WD my book that is plugged into the USB port in the back and then it sends me an email that I get on my blackberry to tell me that the job is done and all went well.

It is in the spare bedroom and has a function to turn the lights off at night so as not to disturb guests!

 

[StuartH]

Sounds good!!

 

[candlestick]

I just got me a Buffalo 250gb from that there Amazon - £48, free trial Amazon prime (free next day delivery), and it arrived this morning. Compact enough, no need to power up using the 2nd USB cable on my laptop, and fairly quick on the transfer (appx 1Gb/min)

Get on it!!