External Hard Drive - Best Value/Best Deal

tracylaw

I wanted to buy two large hard drives (Drive 1 and Drive 2) so that I could store and make a duplicate of all my important things (including photo’s and movies) – the idea being

* don’t store anything on the actual computer as if it dies, it looses everything (and this has happened twice now, arrrgghhh) – by moving all to Drive 1
* By using drive 1 – if the computer dies you just plug the drive into another computer – easy, simple and no hassle, no data lost
* This also frees up space on the actual computer which improves the performance - important as I plan to store my whole family archive of photo's and video, edit it etc
* use Drive 1 as a general useage for everything and anything (instead of C:\) back up important things to Drive 2 (the content of which will be enormous as I have loads on disk to put on, plus all the photos and things in the "cupboard under the stairs" to scan and tidy up (a bit like tidying the kitchen/spare room but you just can’t see what I’m doing, however this job is probably bigger than either of those!)
* This now means that I have an original on Drive 1 + a copy of important stuff on Drive 2 (in case Drive 1 dies) – simple easy and fairly foolproof for not loosing stuff

I've been doing some research, and I think the best deal is

Western Digital 400GB "My Book" Premium 1C External Hard Drive USB2.0/Firewire

because - Western Digital is a well known and reportedly reliable brand, from reading the reviews there seems to be a lot of unreliability with some of the cheaper makes
because - firewire would provide a more reliable transfer rate without "dropping bytes"
because - the buffer size is 16mb so would provide faster transfer rate for editing video etc

The best deal I have found at the moment (in stock) is £157.82 at Amazon

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/tech-data/B000EXO47I/ref=dp_nav_0/026-1540321-7991608?ie=UTF8&n=560798&s=electronics

Can anyone provide feedback on this please, or find a better price, or does anyone have an Amazon Code?

Thanks very much
Kind regards
Tracy

wazza

something posted here

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=256360

tracylaw

Thanks - but the post you referred to has a different (less powerful) specification, with an 8mb buffer rather than 16mb - I think the buffer size is important?

C_Ronaldo

i have a 250gb that cost 89/99 from aldi, it came with i think 3 years warranty

i dnt know about the buffer size and i know its not 400gb, i thought id post anyway

Zahc

Just to throw my 10 penneth in, I found it cheaper to by an internal HDD and fit it to a usb external HDD caddie. It really isn't difficult as long as you can follow instructions and use a screwdriver.:beer:

tracylaw

Zahc - would it be possible for you to post details of the components to do this, where you got them from and price?

Screwdriver is no problem, I'll ask hubby nicely! :0

Thanx

Zahc

500 Gb drive £143

SATA-USB enclosure £25

That's for a 500Gb set up, including postage at 'buy it now' prices. I know it's £10 more expensive, but you get 100Gb more. Does the Amazon price include P&P?........

ABH_3

Zahc wrote:

500 Gb drive £143

SATA-USB enclosure £25

That's for a 500Gb set up, including postage at 'buy it now' prices. I know it's £10 more expensive, but you get 100Gb more. Does the Amazon price include P&P?........

I wouldn't advise anyone to store 400GB of important data on a Maxtor harddrive, it will cost you more in the long term when it comes to getting the data back when the drive eventually crashes. If you are going for reliability, then Seagate is a much better make and offers greater reliability. Anything important however ie: photo's, decuments should also be backed up onto dvd.

HTH

Zahc

Anything important however ie: photo's, decuments should also be backed up onto dvd.

Precisely.
This being MSE, I was offering a cost effective alternative. As with all things mechanical, one has to go for what one can afford against possible failure rate. There is no doubt that there are better built HDDs out there, and Seagate's are amongst them. I, however, have had Maxtor drives without a moments hicup. I do, as everyone should, back up my important files onto disk to counter against the inevitable.