External Hardrive

J

Jody1

n00b
Joined
Nov 30, 2006
Messages
2
External Hardive;)
Hi there I am a completely technologically challenged but I managed to register with this site so I can't be too bad

Could someone please advise me, I want to buy my boyfriend an external hardrive as a gift. Now from what I've heard you have to buy the case and the storage thingy seperately. I went into a store today and they showed me a Nexstar one with 250gigs (whatever that means) but every thing was all inclusive with usb cables, case, and storage stuff. I know I sound like a complete idiot, but is that possible? Is that brand any good? He is quite fussy with his gadgets so don't want to get him rubbish. As this whole gadget thing is really not my thing I would like to personalize it, now is it possible to engrage a discrete personal message on the case or is that not cool or worse will it damage the case?:confused:

How does this site work and who and how will someone respond to me? I really do appologize for wasting anyones time on questions that may seem obvious but I have good intentions and I need help.

Thanks to who ever respond! ;)
 
Welcome. Hang out here a while and you could learn a lot. Believe me, your question is FAAAR from the stupidest we've seen.

As for engraving, no retailer that I am aware of is into that, but you could take it to the mall where there are people who do that.

Tell us how much you plan on spending and we'll point you to our own perfect opinions on what you should get. External hard drives can be big or small, in size and capacity. Maybe a Network Attached Storage device would be nice. Will he be moving it around a lot or mostly at home. Is he into movies and such.


You'll see the link to newegg at the top of the page. They are a good reputable retailer with fast shipping.
 
You might look at IcyDock at IcyDock.com.

Unlike the plastic enclosures of other vendors like Nexstar, IcyDocks are aluminum, so you could easily get it engraved if you like.

The rub is that you have to buy a separate hard drive if you don't already have one. An "external hard drive" and a "hard drive enclosure" are two very different things.

An external hard drive is largely non-modular - which means that you can't swap out the storage part of the unit. You're stuck with the same drive for the entire ownership.

A hard drive enclosure is just what it sounds like - it's a shell that fits around a normal hard drive like what you would find in any computer system. What's VERY IMPORTANT is that the connections on the enclosure match the hard drive that you buy/already have. It's very simple - if the enclosure says "for IDE drives" make sure that your drive is IDE. The same is the case for SATA - and you should definitely get a SATA enclosure if you don't already have an IDE drive. The nice thing about an enclosure is that you can pull out the drive in it and insert another. It future-proofs the device and allows you to support a very large library of data, depending upon the number of drives you have.
 
She's a self proffessed noob with 17 shopping days left till Christmas. Lets keep it simple.
 
I recently bought the MyBook external hard drive and just love it. Couldn't be easier...just plug it in to USB or firewire. Looks really kewl on my shelf, too, just like a book. The pro edition has some nice backup software, and it's just a nice, simple thing to use that looks good, too. Here's a review: http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/12/05/storage-with-style/
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top