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Philips USB 2.0 250GB Hard Drive £69.99 (Staples 4 days only, in store)

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  • ianonline
    ianonline Posts: 1,204 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    Thanks for clarifying.

    In that case you might as well buy the bare internal drive and save £8 - http://ebuyer.co.uk/customer/products/index.html?rb=18496646237&action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=87668
    Or if you don't specifically want a Hitachi, you can take your pick from the other manufacturers for similar sort of money. (I know a lot of people have different opinions over who make the best hard drives, but Seagate appear to be very popular) ;)
  • pjala
    pjala Posts: 420 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 100 Posts Combo Breaker
    talkshop wrote:
    NTFS= Windows NT Filing System (Used by NT, WIN 2000, & XP)

    It is a secure filing system, which means you can restrict other people from viewing files on it.

    If your current internal Drives are FAT32 then there is no need to reformat to NTFS.

    My Computer > Right click on C: Drive > Properties > File system is displayed

    Also it's a more robust file system, and more efficient for larger disks than FAT
  • svkhtn
    svkhtn Posts: 157 Forumite
    pjala wrote:
    Also it's a more robust file system, and more efficient for larger disks than FAT

    However, if NTFS crashes, it is much more difficult to rescue documents/files than FAT32. Although, NTFS is more stable and secure, sometimes if the security of folders/files (ownership/read-write permission) messes up, it is also terrible and annoying. Finally, FAT32 is compatible with more operating systems.

    In short, it really depends on whether you have good experience/knowledge on PC and what your need is.
  • so can anyone confirm if this is a better buy than the £109 320gb Toshiba drive, or if there is a better option with a budget of around £80-£100? Could do with one of these. Those movies take up too much space!!
  • ianonline
    ianonline Posts: 1,204 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    so can anyone confirm if this is a better buy than the £109 320gb
    Depends how big a drive you need.
    In general, the bigger the drive you buy, the Gb per £ works out cheaper (eg you won't pay twice the price for a 200 Gb drive than you would for an equivalent 100 Gb drive).

    If 250 Gb is sufficient for your needs, then the Philips deal from Staples looks very good on paper at £69.99 (if the offer is still running and you can manage to get hold of one). It actually works out CHEAPER per Gb than the larger Toshiba drive.

    If you can't get hold of the Philips one, or you simply prefer the idea of a Seagate then the Maplins deal looks very good at £89.99 (just so long as you're aware that it isn't fan-cooled). ;)
    http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=48607&TabID=1&source=1&doy=23m4

    So you pays your money and you takes your choice. :D
  • buggu
    buggu Posts: 456 Forumite
    It should be plenty for most uses but if your considering saving alot of movies & music then 250gb wont be enough.
  • pjala
    pjala Posts: 420 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 100 Posts Combo Breaker
    To summarise the differences:
    http://faq.arstechnica.com/link.php?i=1227
    easy to read comparison

    http://www.ntfs.com/ntfs_vs_fat.htm
    tabular format

    To answer the above as to corrupt file recovery - never seen it. You get some problems, as with FAT32, when you crash a computer as it writes to a disk, chkdsk sorts it out for both File Systems.

    An extra bit you get with NTFS, that you dont get with FAT32 on XP is file compression, very useful to squash even more onto a disk.

    On disk size, I use a 160G disk for my PVR, and it seems to hold a huge amount of recorded tv material on it. I keep meaning to write stuff to DVD's but my DVD recorder is a little unreliable (cheap!).
  • westie666
    westie666 Posts: 327 Forumite
    you can get software on the net
    https://www.getdataback.com
    https://www.runtime.org

    You can download FAT32 and NTFS recovery software, that can even bring back deleted files.
    Small price to pay, but I have found it very useful...

    If you don't ask, you don't find out!
  • Thanks Ian. I looked at the Seagate one and it suits my purposes, but I'm not sure if I would prefer it without a cooling fan. It also appears quite chunky! I will try Staples tomorrow even though it may be totally out as it's a 4 day deal. I think the main thing I want is that it's 7200 rpm, a good size, etc. Wonder if there are any USB powered external HDDs?
    ianonline wrote:
    Depends how big a drive you need.
    In general, the bigger the drive you buy, the Gb per £ works out cheaper (eg you won't pay twice the price for a 200 Gb drive than you would for an equivalent 100 Gb drive).

    If 250 Gb is sufficient for your needs, then the Philips deal from Staples looks very good on paper at £69.99 (if the offer is still running and you can manage to get hold of one). It actually works out CHEAPER per Gb than the larger Toshiba drive.

    If you can't get hold of the Philips one, or you simply prefer the idea of a Seagate then the Maplins deal looks very good at £89.99 (just so long as you're aware that it isn't fan-cooled). ;)
    http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=48607&TabID=1&source=1&doy=23m4

    So you pays your money and you takes your choice. :D
  • ianonline
    ianonline Posts: 1,204 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    Wonder if there are any USB powered external HDDs?
    As sablade has said, the laptop drives tend to be USB powered.
    You could always buy an internal 2.5" laptop drive plus a separate hard drive enclosure (caddy) and make a custom-built external drive if you could find some cheap deals (eg eBay / eBuyer) - just a thought. ;)
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