500GB External hard drive for backing up files, £50 delivered

DWTB

Hmmm, I think I'm with simonsharks on this one. Just read the reviews on Amazon. Some of them are good but I've filtered them to show the reviews with one star and they're not pretty - http://www.amazon.co.uk/review/product/B000OS54TA/ref=cm_cr_dp_hist_1?_encoding=UTF8&filterBy=addOneStar

BritSwedeGuy

Or, if you have a lot of data to store:
Buy a hard drive dock for around £30, then buy hard drives for backing up when you need them (500GB around £40)
It actually works out cheaper - and is a lot less hassle, than backing up to DVD.
e.g.
http://usb.brando.com.hk/prod_detail.php?prod_id=00554
http://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials/Other+products/500GB+Samsung+Spinpoint+SATA2+16MB+?productId=25162

patrick0

I'd say the same about Ebuyer too. They are cheap if the product you order works.

If anything goes wrong then it's a total nightmare dealing with them. I ordered a TV off them once and the modulator unit was missing which meant it didn't work at all. Took over 4 months of me constantly hassling them to get it put right. I tried complaining to trading standards and so on in the hope that it'd get Ebuyer to listen, but they seemed about as interested as Ebuyer!

For large value items I think you're better off paying a few pounds more and getting them elsewhere. They are okay for small value items like cables where it's hard for things to go wrong.

nihcaj

BritSwedeGuy wrote: »

Or, if you have a lot of data to store:
Buy a hard drive dock for around £30, then buy hard drives for backing up when you need them (500GB around £40)
It actually works out cheaper - and is a lot less hassle, than backing up to DVD.

Who was talking about backing up to DVD? This IS backing up to HD, an external USB one!
I have used removable drive bays in the past, and while they are faster than USB, they suffer heat problems, (or more fans!) and are not as versatile for moving data around. Of course it means you need an available bay in your case too, and of course it is no solution for a laptop used as a desktop replacement (Not an uncommon thing)

Open docks are not very pretty in such a situation either, and don't offer much protection to the drive when it gets moved about.

My last purchased USB drive (a couple of months ago) was an ATMT bargain (via Amazon), 500Gb for 35 quid delivered, and it has a Seagate drive inside! My other ATMT Drive (not sure what was inside) has survived daily use for about 2 years so far.

Ebuyer is every bit as bad as described, although many of the problems with retailers are through the appalling delivery services they use! Dabs used Home Delivery Services recently, and they did the alleged "card left" trick to me. Dabs were totally USELESS when it came to resolving the problem, and have gone well down in my expectation.
Another recent delivery by Amtrak got itself sent back when only half a consignment arrived - they expect you to sit around waiting another day when you have paid good money for 24 hour deleivery!

PrinceGaz

External hard-drives are best used for what they are best at doing, acting as back-up of your main files. The capacity of hard-drives has increased exponentially such that it isn't really viable for most home-users to back stuff up onto DVD or any other writeable media as a hard-drive is now almost as cheap per GB.

Hard-drives don't last forever but then again, CDs and DVDs you burn don't either, especially if you use cheap discs (some of which might seem fine at first but will be unusable within five years). Whilst high-quality DVDs or other media is always preferable to a hard-drive for important data storage (as hard-drives have lots of mechanical bits which can fail), writing even critical data to two individual external HDs would probably be enough to keep it safe. And with the price of hard-drives these days, saving it to two discs is viable.

puthsardarade

Hi,

This is a great deal!

If Amazon & eBuyer run out of stock and anyone still needs one then feel free to contact me as I could provide these for £48.99 inc postage.

I won't include any links etc in-case thats not allowed.

Cheers,
G

Wiggynut

simonsharks wrote: »

Be very careful when buying cheap hard drives.

A hard drive WILL fail! It's just a matter of time and when it does you will lose all your data unless you have a second copy on another drive.

The Western Digital Elements drive has a 1 year warranty. The warranty indicates how long the drive is built to last, so in this case it is likely that the drive will only last 1 year. The technical term is Mean Time Before Failure (MTBF).

But there are no guaranties. A hard drive is a mechanical device so it could fail at ANY time. That could be after 3 days or 3 years, it's lust pot luck.

You can get 1 year, 2 year, 3 year or 5 year warranties. I would recommend that you only buy drives with 3 or 5 year warranties. 2 years is OK but definitely don't buy 1 year warranty drives.

When buying that new drive ask your self the question: What is my data worth?

This is one purchase where you might not want to save too much money.

PS. Always have a backup

what do you recommened?
I'll be going to uni soon as a mature student so it would be better to have something that will last me for the duration rather than having to buy something after a year.
There are so many options it ends up rather confusing!

I was wondering if it would be better to get two (cheapish) HD's then I could use one to keep all my images (photography and photoshop work) on one and use the other to back up.. or switch them around (if they have the same info on then it wouldn't matter so much which I use) if that makes sense(?)

I'll be getting an IMac soon (the top one out of the IMac range) so do you think I should just get one decent HD?
I have got use to having two HD with my PC... but I guess I could just get out of the habit

LondonDiva

same terrible experiences (only twice & never again) with Ebuyer - avoid at all costs

harryharp

Does anyone have any recommendations for a 750GB hard drive?
Many thanks.

oliveoil54

Have you read the negative comments on this item on Amazon?