External 320GB hard drive for £79.99 (merged)

Lord_Gardener

Misterel wrote:

An "external drive" has the hardware to support connecting a standard SATA/ or PATA hard drive to a PC via USB (2).

A network drive or "network attached storage" (NAS) is a more complicated beasty - effectively a mini computer in its own right it has a network interface and the hardware on board to handle requests from other devices on the network (they usually have a chip-embedded operating system on board)- sometimes these can also act as simple FTP or web servers - a bit more than just a hard-drive in a box.

Can the NAS be used as an external drive in the first instance - I'm looking to network our 4 pc's next year but initially looking for extra storage?

dc

If your computer has a network card, then there should be no problem. You might need a crossover cable tho.
If not then a network card can be fitted for a few quid.

jertzy

Chippy_Minton wrote:

This drive comes pre-formatted as FAT32, which has a maximum file size of 4 GB. If you want to store larger files (e.g. videos, disk image backups), then reformat it as NTFS.

To do this, right-click the drive in My Computer and click Format. Make sure you're formatting the external drive (called SEA_DISC) and not another, choose NTFS as the File system and click Start.

Got mine today - which aint bad as curry's quote 5 working days & i got it after 1.5. Its really small and very quiet, the missus didn't even notice it next to the monitor.

Chippy, I reformatted per your tip and now it says its 298GB, is that normal?

Cheers

Towner_2

Free delivery with this now so with 10% code works out as £71.99 delivered + further 3% back with Quidco.

Chippy_Minton

jertzy wrote:

Chippy, I reformatted per your tip and now it says its 298GB, is that normal?

Yes, normal. You might have noticed that it was also 298 GB with FAT32.

abdulinyourface

Checked a few pages back to see if anyone else has posted this so apologies if anyone has. Maybe a board guide can merge the threads if this is the case.

Had a quick look in my local pc world to see if they had anything decent. Only thing I saw was a couple of external HDD's which were at a good price.

They had a seagate 320gb for 79.99 which is a very good deal considering you can just go instore and pick it up rather than wait for online stores to deliver it to you. This is the link which shows the price:

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/product/seo/240892

Also they had a freecom 400gb for 104.99 which again is a very good deal considering there were selling a seagate 500gb for 229.99! Basically you could get 2 of these freecom drives for less than the seagate and have about 60% extra storage space! This is the link for the freecom drive:

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/product/seo/620543

I did see posters saying that pcworld were selling items at internet prices so maybe thats why the figures mirror each other.

Nevertheless considering I own 2 usb external HDD (unfortunately I dont think I'm ready for another one! :rotfl:) I think these are pretty good prices and you have the luxury of being able to walk in the store pick one up and buy it, rather than waiting for delivery.

Saying that they were going off the shelves pretty fast.

HTH

sandybrag

abdulinyourface wrote:

Checked a few pages back to see if anyone else has posted this so apologies if anyone has. Maybe a board guide can merge the threads if this is the case.

Had a quick look in my local pc world to see if they had anything decent. Only thing I saw was a couple of external HDD's which were at a good price.

They had a seagate 320gb for 79.99 which is a very good deal considering you can just go instore and pick it up rather than wait for online stores to deliver it to you. This is the link which shows the price:

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/product/seo/240892

Also they had a freecom 400gb for 109.99 which again is a very good deal considering there were selling a seagate 500gb for 229.99! Basically you could get 2 of these freecom drives for less than the seagate and have about 60% extra storage space! This is the link for the freecom drive:

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/product/seo/620543

I did see posters saying that pcworld were selling items at internet prices so maybe thats why the figures mirror each other.

Nevertheless considering I own 2 usb external HDD (unfortunately I dont think I'm ready for another one! :rotfl:) I think these are pretty good prices and you have the luxury of being able to walk in the store pick one up and buy it, rather than waiting for delivery.

Saying that they were going off the shelves pretty fast.

HTH

Thanks for this. The Freecom 400GB is actually just £104.99 if you reserve it over the web before you pick it up. Bargain!

biglugs

Are these devices fast enough to use as video jukeboxes and store my movie files to play back from there??

ollyshaw

Yes they will be biglugs, no problem.

Loads of people I know have those seagate ones, and everyone is impressed.

Olly

Johntea

The only trouble with the Freecom is the old 'cost vs quality' debate. With Seagate, you are getting what you see, with Freecom who knows what drives they use?

I also spotted some 500gb IOmega drives at Staples the other day and I think they were £119.99!

Was going to pick up a extra Seagate from PCWorld but I ended up deciding to wait for another few months until I fill up my current 320gb one (Not to mention my 300gb NAS!!!).

Hard drives and flash memory are amazing value these days