external portable hard drive - which one???

naz101

hi guys,

once again I am looking for some advice.

I need to buy a portable external hard drive and have narrowed it down to 2 models.

Does anyone have any experience with them? I have checked out loads of reviews and just cant decide

the 2 are

1) seagate freeagent go 640gb
2) western digital my passport elite 640gb

any ideas?

thanks loads

Vuze

There doesn't seem to be much price difference between the two, £102/£108 approx, with the Seagate slightly cheaper. However, if I remember correctly, wasn't it Western Digital that introduced some type of software on their external drives that would check your files for copyrighted files and wouldn't let you save certain files on your own drive? If anyone remembers that, is it still being shipped or did they scrap that shoddy idea?

naz101

thanks vuse, does anyone know of this?

Vuze

I managed to find a couple of articles and news stories about it:

'Digital locks' future questioned
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7136069.stm

Western Digital DRM’d Hard Drive Won’t Let You Share MP3, DivX … Or Impulse Tracker
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2007/12/western-digital/

Apparently it will let you save the 'banned' file types like MP3's and movies but if you try to access the files over a network then it will be blocked regardless of whether you have that content legitimately. I don't know if that is still in effect today but it's a pretty insulting move towards your own customers.

naz101

once again thanks vuse. I have just ordered the segate freeagent go 640gb.
i also like the 5 year warranty