External 'portable' hard drives...

[YNOT]

Anyone here have any personal experience with a portable external hard drive? I'd really like to get something to use more as a backup to store my music and older job files. I've been glancing through the newspaper ads and I can buy a Toshiba 160GB for around $95.00 up to a Western Digital 250GB model for around $120.

Either of these brands good? Know of one that's better? Anyone know how 'reliable' these portable drives are?

I do keep two FINAL backup CD's of every job I do for my customers and when the job is done I file them away with the job folder but I'd like to have an external drive to keep all of my music as well as some of my jobs.

So, if you have one of these or can recommend a good brand, please let me know.

Thanks!
Tony

[Satchel]

I have a WD 250 and it's been great for me so far (about six months). My brother-in-law and sister both had one before I did, and they recommended it to me. Not sure of the other brands, but I have no complaints with the Western Digital...

There's also this thread I remembered from a while ago that might help:
http://www.graphicdesignforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=34731

[DesignVHL]

Seagates haven't let me down yet. You can also get an internal smaller drive, and get a case for it to make it external...they are sometimes a tad bit more portable. I think that www.newegg.com is a great place to shop for HDs. :)

[mojoprime]

i've got a lacie drive i just got that i like a lot, and have another that i made myself with an external enclosure. are you wanting to just copy files to it, or are you wanting a bootable backup for your machine?

[PanToshi]

If you are talking about portable drives, (ie: no external power source needed.) I have Lacie drives and have had had no issues. One of my portable drives is over 8 years old and still going. (Now a laughingly small capacity.)
:D

[Randomhero]

On the question of portable hard drives. If you just store info on them, are they interchangeable between OSs? I have a PC laptop and an iMac.

[DesignVHL]

that all depends on how you format the drive...FAT32 reads on both but isn't really the best option....however it has a file size read/write limit of 4GB...so unless your doing some MAJOR heavy work, you should be perfectly fine....never hurts to read the specs and requirements though and to double check that out....

[mojoprime]

don't forget the volume size limit of 32gb for FAT32 if formatted under XP:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314463

if you format the drive NTFS, you won't be able to write to it under Mac OS X. you will be able to read files from it.

[budafist]

I didn't want to spend more than $100NZ so I only got an Western Digital 80g. My computer's hard drive is only 40g so it was more than enough to back my computer up on.

I've had no problems with it so far.

When doing my research I was pointed to Western Digital or Maxtor or Seagate. Just those 3. I couldn't find Maxtor or Seagate for my price range so I went with WD.

[tuliptree]

I just purchased a WD 500GB. Mainly purchased for photo and music storage. I'm really happy with it so far.

[Riefnu]

I have a 500 gb external from Sames club. It's only portable if you have a power supply though. Sam's does sell 160 gb portables if memory serves.


However you could just use my FAVORITE computer store in the whole wide world and their website and get a REAL portable 500gb hard drive for 200 dollars.

http://shop2.frys.com/%7BdTrG38fvxCh-Ha9a4iI0oA**.node1%7D/product/5613241

http://www.frys.com

^--- MMMM electronic goodness.

[Idesyns]

I've had a Western Digital 250gb for nearly a year. No problems, so far.