External HDD?

[Syribo]

I just built my first build a few months ago (Specs in signature for reference ), and I've unfortunately had to reformat and lose a ton of stuff I wish I hadn't lost. I have plenty of blank CDs and DVDs but I hate using them for storing stuff... I was thinking about getting an external HDD to store things like my photo albums from 2002-present, and some other things. Sure I could just backup everything.. but I also want to be able to use the drive on another computer easily..

So.. External HDDs.. I've never had one before... Is it worth it to get one for my needs, or buy an internal drive and an enclosure for it instead? I want to spend around ~$100, could be a little more and really just want about 500GB of space.

Can you recommend an external HDD that fits my needs and is a good piece of hardware? Also, since external drives use USB, that makes them quite slower than SATA... yes? I'm not sure, I'm still noobish when it comes to certain things

 

[Phimp]

External drives are extremely handy though, for both portability and backup.

You can use eSATA if your computer has existing ports for it, or you can pop in a PCI card/bracket that gives you an eSATA port for an external drive on the back of the case.
That is just like connecting the drive inside your computer in terms of speed.
And most also have USB 2.0 so you can use them with other computers that don't have an eSATA port.


you could purchase an external drive

or a decent external case w/ eSATA and put a 500GB SATA drive in it

 

[Syribo]

External drives are extremely handy though, for both portability and backup.

You can use eSATA if your computer has existing ports for it, or you can pop in a PCI card/bracket that gives you an eSATA port for an external drive on the back of the case.
That is just like connecting the drive inside your computer in terms of speed.
And most also have USB 2.0 so you can use them with other computers that don't have an eSATA port.


you could purchase an external drive

or a decent external case w/ eSATA and put a 500GB SATA drive in it

I have eSATA ports so I think I'll definitely be getting an external drive If I go for the internal HDD + enclosure, I'd probably get another of the Seagate drives I have... But if I get an external drive, which would you recommend? Is the Seagate Freeagent any good??

 

[Old Hippie]

But if I get an external drive, which would you recommend? Is the Seagate Freeagent any good??

Don't buy those premade external drives.

Get the Antec MX-1 external case and what ever drive you want.

Put the drive in the case and you've rolled-yur-own quality external drive!

 

[Syribo]

Don't buy those premade external drives.

Get the Antec MX-1 external case and what ever drive you want.

Put the drive in the case and you've rolled-yur-own quality external drive!

I went ahead and bought another Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500GB drive last night I'm going to buy that case today. I wish they had it for the same price at NewEgg.. it's actually a lot more than CC is. Thanks for the suggestions

I'm so happy that these drives are only $89.99 now.. I may buy a bunch more (As long as my court hearing goes well) and finally setup RAID like I originally wanted to.

 

[vipinc65]

and I've unfortunately had to reformat and lose a ton of stuff I wish I hadn't lost.

Why are you saving data to your boot drive? Put in a small boot drive and use the 500 for data only.

 

[Syribo]

Why are you saving data to your boot drive? Put in a small boot drive and use the 500 for data only.

I originally bought two of the 500GB drives and was going to put them in a RAID together, but one was DOA and I didn't want to wait to get the replacement to build my system.. so I have been using the one drive as the boot drive plus programs and games, and the other for music, pictures, movies, anime, etc.. and they're both filling up fast which is why I got a third.. although I also bought it to store copies of some of my documents and such, just in case.

Eventually I hope to have a few more drives and then I will finally go ahead and setup a RAID for them all.

If I had the money I would just buy a faster smaller drive to boot from... but I can afford ~$100 on a new HDD.. not ~$300 heh.

And some of the things I lost I forgot to move to my second hard drive, and instead they were lost when I reformatted.. Now I make sure to keep everything I really want off of the boot drive (Although yeah, I guess 500GB is pretty big for a boot drive )