Good external HD for around $100?
 

Well, I've got an ACER extensa 4630 series laptop, with a 70gig internal HD...

There are only two USB connectors on it, but oh well.

Anyways, I'm going overseas, and want alot of extra storage space for movies, games, and whatever crap that I decide I want.

Looking for something around $100, 500gigs or more, durable, and able to operate in high heat.

I was looking on newegg.com, and found THIS and was wondering if there was anything else I should be looking for.

Thanks for the advise
~Nate

I like the Western Digitals, they are larger than most, but that provides some extra cooling.

I always recommend the MyBooks.

Easy

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148433

1TB HDD and now an enclosure


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817121055


That's a good one, any enclosure that offers USB and/or firewire 400/800 connections are great. Make sure it is externally powered.

You'll get more bang for your buck if you get an enclosure with an internal HD. You can also guarantee the HD's specs befire buying too which is nice since I had a bad experience with getting lack luster performance from an pre-enclosed unit.

Just throwing this out there - I have never gone wrong on a highly rated product from Newegg. I've built several computers, ordered thousands of dollars of various electronics from there over the years and 100% never had any unexpected issues. Their customer ratings are spot-on. WD hard drives are excellent, but you can save a little money by getting an HD and separate enclosure as indicated above. I've got a WD 640GB in my PC right now, had it for a while with zero problems and good read/write speeds. Can't say much about high heat conditions though, my case is very well ventilated.

Never thought of that direction.

Looking at the review on that hardrive, seems that theres alot of DOA's being shipped... Dont want that...

~Nate

While not reassuring HDs do have long warranties, 3 to 5 years.

So far I have not lost a MyBook, I have 5.

Get the Essential or Basic version, DON'T get it with the BU software.

If you want good BU software, purchase Acronis, or there's a shareware eqivalent I've heard good reviews on but have not tried personally.
I don't have the name at hand

my unit was in Iraq from January to May of last year. We didnt get the hottest part of the summer, and had cooled tents/buildings/CHU's to hang out in (cake AF job =)
we never lost any HD's to heat - (we also kept them inside).

Other than buying a toughbook(?), I'm not sure that anyone makes an 'expanded operating temperature' hard drive- so just get a drive you like and try to take care of it.

-John

I currently has three WD MyBook Drives (firewire) sitting on my desk, I've never had a problem with them.

I bought one of these about 3 weeks ago. I have tons of pics on 2 different desktops and don't want to chance that I may lose some. I don't fancy the idea of burning everything to discs. I would end up having a ton of discs that I had to store somewhere.

This way it's quick and dirty backing it up couple times a year.

I bought mine at Walmart for only $95.00. While I was there I saw a 2TB Western Digital for only $109.00. I thought "what the heck for only an additional $15 I get twice the amount of hd space". Problem was when I went to the register, it scanned for $198.00. It was sitting in above a price label that stated $109.00. The label was for something completely different. After looking back at the display case, I couldn't even find a tag for the 2TB drive. Needless to say, they wouldnt sell me the 2TB drive for that price so I got the 1TB drive.

I'm thinking about picking up the 4TB WD drive to hold all my video media on one drive. I have a 1TB drive that is just about full, and I still have many DVDs to rip. I think the FW800 version is about $500.

If I were looking at anything bigger than 500G, I would look for something that would attach to the network and expose CIFS shares. With gig-E that's faster than USB-2, but the flexibility is what I would want.

I'm actually kinda sorry I posted that one drive in particular. I just picked some drive under his 100$ budget and worked it in.

Personally I've never had a problem with any hard drives of mine. I have a 2.5in 500gb sata drive in my macbook pro which I absolutely LOVE!

My other pata drive from my old desktop computer is in an enclosure which is sadly in Ithaca NY. I should have brought that home, it has all of my movies on it :P

But seriously, it's cheaper to buy the drive and get an enclosure. That way you know what type of drive you're buying.

Segate 1TB Free agent $114.
Cost Co.

For portability you might want to consider a portable drive based on a notebook hard drive rather than a desktop unit. Then it would be USB powered, no need for additional cables or stuff to carry around. The units themselves are much smaller too.

Whatever you do, DO NOT get the Maxtor Central Axis storage, new used or otherwise. It has known overheating problems and many have failed within a year. Mine was one of them.