Best 1TB external hard drive?

f1goldenbeach

Which 1TB external hard drive would you recommend and why? I need one to back up my computer and free up some space on my hard drive.

tronator

f1goldenbeach wrote: »

Which 1TB external hard drive would you recommend and why? I need one to back up my computer and free up some space on my hard drive.

If it's just for backing up then almost any would do. You should maybe chose the one with the longest warranty. Don't bother with all these "One-Click-Backup" hard disks and get a good free backup program like Syncback instead.

kwikbreaks

It depends on your priorities.

If cost and speed outweigh all else then a known brand USB drive will cost around £60-£70.

A NAS RAID will be slower and cost well over double but gives a lot more security as you can set them up such that a single disk failure can be completely recovered just by slapping in a new drive.

If chosing the first option there really isn't much to chose between models imo. If looking for a raid solution you need to read some reviews as performance does vary. I bought a Dlink DNS323 - with 2 1TB drives in it the cost was somewhere over £250 (I forget exactly how much) but it does mean I have fairly secure data. For really secure you need to look at off-site solutions.

DazedByTheLight

I purchased the Western Digital drive for £55 from Amazon. It has excellent reviews; I received it today and so far very impressed! It is big and chunky and quiet and very re-assuring. It is currently backing up from my 360gb drive and so far no hiccups.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Digital-Elements-Desktop-External/dp/B002E7HEVU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1282412566&sr=8-1

DBTL

*Kat*

Western Digital are pretty good or so I've heard, but I have an iomega I got from Tesco reduced to £40 so that'll do me. I'm not sure the brand really matters tbh :S

diable

Remember to backup your backup as well..........

John_Gray

About 6 months ago the price of 2 TB drives per GB of data was much greater than that of the 1 TB and 1.5 TB drives, but now they have come more into line. Consider whether 1 TB (or 930 GB, which is roughly what you'll get) is enough.

The contrary view is that the USB2 interface is now regarded as agonisingly slow and it takes megayonks* to back up anything of any size. Think seriously about ethernet-connected NAS boxes if you're doing large backups.

+1 for SyncBack, by the way!

* a megayonk: longer than you would ever dream possible...

diable

NAS boxes are slow and I have one for storage and a Time Machine for backing up my Mac.

John_Gray

Not when you have twin 1 Gbps NICs on them...