What's a good Ext. Hard Drive?

[fanukles]

I'm looking into purchasing an external hard drive in the TB range for storing my music and movies.

I'm not sure what brands, models etc. are good.

Any suggestions?

I've been looking at the Western Digital My Book.

Any good?

Discuss.

 

[Trotter]

WD are good drives, no question about it.

As for me, I prefer to buy an external enclosure or dock and put my own drive(s) in. If you opt for a dock you can easily swap out additional hard drives with little fuss.

 

[fanukles]

That sounds a little beyond me at the moment.

Don't even know what an enclosure is, to be honest.

But hey, that's part of why I'm here is to learn.

So I suppose I'll go with the WD for now, until my technological prowesses are more advanced.

 

[Jorsoft]

Western Digital is always a good bet. Seagate is good too in my opinion.
By using an enclosure, Trotter means buying an internal sata hard drive and putting it in a case like this:
Newegg.com - SNT SNT-23102UB Enclosure 3.5"IDE -USB2.0 Cable less W/Turbo Cooling Fan - HDD Accessories

That way you can pop the drive in and out easily enough if needed. Installing it in an enclosure is a very simple thing, just a few screws.

 

[yzmxer608]

I agree that WD makes some good externals. I have a 160GB WD external and I haven't had any problems with it for over a year using it on two different computers.

 

[Trotter]

Here;s a dock:
Newegg.com - Thermaltake BlacX ST0005U External Hard Drive SATA Enclosure Docking Station 2.5” & 3.5” USB 2.0 & eSATA - External Enclosures

and several to check out:
Thermaltakeusa Â» Storage Â» Docking Station

I have a BlacX-SE and really like it.

 

[Lexluethar]

Enclosures are usually prefered over external drives because if a drive fails you can jus swap out the drive. If you want to upgrade, swap out the drive. If you want to do either of those with an external drive you have to purchase a new one.

WD and Seagate are my favs.

 

[fanukles]

So how an enclosure works is its basically just an internal hard drive in a dock, am i getting this right? :]

I think I'll end up just doing that instead. It does sound like its a better deal.

 

[Lexluethar]

Yup, you take an internal drive with the same interface (SATA or IDE) as the enclosure and enclose it. Then usually the interface between that and your computer is USB2.0 or eSata.

 

[fanukles]

It'd have to be usb 2.0.

My laptop doesn't have eSata, sadly.