| woodyprint |
| (newbie) |
| 17/07/2008 15:37 |
External hard drive
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I'm thinking about getting an external hard drive to back up my photos etc. I like the sound of Western Digital My Book as I gather it plus into a usb port and runs on the pc's power. Anybody got suggestions that this is a good choice?
Thanks
| Panda_ |
| (enthusiast) |
| 17/07/2008 18:01 |
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Re: External hard drive
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I've always bought a freecom 500GB external drive. Only problem with is you need to plug it into a socket, so doesn't run off the PSU.
Reliable and fast enough anyway
| LargeFormat |
| (old hand) |
| 17/07/2008 18:10 |
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Re: External hard drive
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Any of the known makes are OK. Buy LaCie and you don't actually know who supplies the insides. You need to decide whether you need the portability of a 2.5" drive with its attendant higher cost or the better value in Gb/£ of a 3.5" drive. Only the former will run off the USB power and generally have a split plug to go into two sockets to get power from both. 3.5" drives require a power supply. Also you may want to consider the interface. It can be USB2, Firewire 400 or Firewire 800 the last being the fastest if that matters with price premiums across the range.
| Scphoto |
| (Little Fruitbat) |
| 17/07/2008 23:04 |
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Re: External hard drive
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Quote:
I'm thinking about getting an external hard drive to back up my photos etc. I like the sound of Western Digital My Book as I gather it plus into a usb port and runs on the pc's power. Anybody got suggestions that this is a good choice?
Thanks
Not too sure if new MyBooks run off USB only. The last few I've had experience with required a separate PSU.
I have my own MyBook and it's always been fine, only issue is it's capacity is too small for my needs (now used as a Time-Machine backup for my Mac).
| deddard |
| (journeyman) |
| 17/07/2008 23:14 |
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Re: External hard drive
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Western Digital, Seagate, Lacie are amongst the top.
Interface is a matter of preference and availability.
If you have a modern machine with SATA disks, you may want to find out if you have the ability to use ESATA external disks - faster than anything else as they plug directly into the SATA control system
Other than that, FIrewire 800 or USB2 is the way to go.
3.5inch for desktops, plus a 2.5inch portable with a good sized disk.
3.5" disks are cheap, even the ESATA versions when compared to the 2.5", but do go for as big a disk as you can afford to get - you will use it!
One of the beauties of External disks is that you can backup and then leave the disk with someone else - off-site backup is great for peace of mind.
| woodyprint |
| (newbie) |
| 18/07/2008 19:09 |
Re: External hard drive
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Thanks for the postings. You've given me food for thought. I really want an external drive and will try for a good size of memory as too small amount would be false economy.
Thanks again.