Recommend me a reliable External Hard drive!

[emperor_black]

With the kid and all, I'm taking a LOT of pictures and need a nice external hard-drive. I'm guessing 150GB should be sufficient for all the pics, videos and mp3's. Basically looking at not spending more than $200. Reliability is the keyword. It will primarily be used on a windows XP Thanks!

EDIT: seeing a lot of these Western Digital Hard-drives. Anyone using these? how good are they? Also, any tips on how safe its to buy a recertified/refurbished hard-drive?

[VinceV]

I've been using a few Lacie external HDs for years and have never had any problems. I am also a Mac user if that makes a difference?

[levantin]

Western Digital. I've been using them for about 10 years. No problems ever.

[jackson1]

I recently bought one of these. Western Digital My Book. Very satisfied. I was looking for USB2.0 + FireWire400/800 support. This one has got it. It sometims makes a soft rumbling noise when placed on the table (vibrations) but no biggie.

http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=322&language=en

My Book Pro Edition

External Hard Drives
750 GB, Triple Interface

Triple Interface
Backup & Recovery Software
Capacity Gauge

WD’s My Book Pro Edition external hard drive with triple interface combines three leading external hard drive interfaces (FireWire 800, FireWire 400, and USB 2.0) on one drive for maximum performance and universal connectivity. Designed to work on both Macintosh® computers and PCs, this drive includes powerful EMC Retrospect Express backup and recovery software, a unique Capacity Gauge LED and capacities up to 750 GB

[jackson1]

A 250GB version cost me circa $135.

[emperor_black]

Anyone's tried the Maxtor One Touch III 160GB? Pcmag rates them very good. But not much info other than that.

[marcus]

I have a Seagate Freeagent 320. I haven't had it very long, but I got it on sale for $100. No problems so far.

I know what you're saying about reliability. Believe me, your life is very much in danger if you lose those baby pictures

[Bengal]

+1 on Western Digital. I'm looking at a 250GB version right now...

My MAC buddy swears by Lacie. Those are good too...

[skorb]

I recently bought one of these. Western Digital My Book. Very satisfied.

yup, that's what I have, albeit less gigs size.

great off board drive, no problems in the year or so I've had it.

[no-one]

I'm really into photography and lost a lot of pics when all (yes, all) of my external drives crashed due to a USB problem on my computer...
So my hint: have the pics on the external drive AND on DVD or something like that.

[Newc]

You can get a Western Digital 320 GB external for about $130 at WalMart.

A note about those off-brand drives: Years ago I was looking for a CDRW, and was really digging a particular Philips model, but it was listed at over $250 everywhere. I bought an off-brand (Lacie, LiteOn, etc) model for about $150 brand new. When I got it home, it turned out to be the very same Philips drive I was looking for, so most of those off-brands are made by the major brands.

[shobet]

I've been looking at sorting out some NAS (network attached storage) for myself. I've used Buffalo Terrastations before in work and they provided a good solution there. I'd be looking at configuring one with RAID5 so it would give me some redundancy in there. It's a lot more money than you are looking to spend though, but I suppose it all boils down to how much you value your data and care if it can be recovered.

I'd recommend that you back it up to several different mediums. Hard-drive, optical and networked (if you have it). You can never have enough backups!

[emperor_black]

I'm really into photography and lost a lot of pics when all (yes, all) of my external drives crashed due to a USB problem on my computer...
So my hint: have the pics on the external drive AND on DVD or something like that.

That's bad 'no-one'! Shobet, I hear you!

I work for a company that makes hard-drive controllers and there are TONS of hard-drives lying around that I can just pickup and no one will even notice. Think of the irony. However, all these hard-drives have been tested rigorously by the test-team and so they are at the verge of crashing or have crashed already.

The thing is, my ex-manager was showing me a presentation in which they have proved that data can be recovered from a HD even if its shot with a bullet. But yeah, its gonna cost you a lot. I'm surpised that 'no-one' couldnt get his data recovered.

[no-one]

I'm surpised that 'no-one' couldnt get his data recovered.

He tried, he tried really hard

well, my problem was that not the drive itself was the damaged part in the line. it was a controller on the mainboard, and so data on the drives was overwritten with crap.

as I've written earlier, I've lost a lot of pictures, not all; because about 30-40% could be rescued using some really good software-tools.

Having said that, there is - at least imho - nothing else as good as using a harddrive to backup your files. DVDs and CDs are tricky to deal with... in the case of a damage (eg on the surface) the files are gone, and you have zero chance to rescue the data; while on a good old harddrive you still have the chance to get your stuff back

[shobet]

You have to write over disks a lot of times to make the data truly unrecoverable.

Optical media is only usually buggered when you scratch the shiny side.

You'd be surprised what professional companies can get back.

We used to smash the living shit out of all the ones we retired from the last place I worked. It was fun getting your own back on them. Mind you they are usually full of nice high spec bearings and the like, good for home physics/electronic jiggery-pokery!