External Hard Drive - confusion!

sitcomsarah

I'm looking to buy my BF an external hard drive for christmas - I'm looking at minimum 500GB, but 1TB would be great, if I can get it for a not unreasonable price!
I'm hoping to get a USB 3.0, but 2.0 is fine too!
Basically I want to get him the best hard drive my budget allows me to - I ideally want to spend between £40 and £50, but would go up to £60 if theres a really good deal on offer!

Does anyone have any good tips for finding a hard drive to these specifications? I've had a little look on Comet and Curries and found some okay deals, but hopefully someone knows something better - a cheapsmells.com but for computer hard ware!

Also does anyone know if any computer shops, like Comet and Curries, do student discount?

Thanks!

James_Lahey

Many seem to be 3.0 these days (I have been looking and wouldn't mind a 2.0 myself,) I'd imagine you could find something in your budget fairly easily - have a look over on HotUKDeals (HUKD) as they are often listed there. As you're looking for a xmas pressie it might be worth waiting as prices are changing all the time (nothing worse than buying something then seeing it reduced afterwards :mad:)

Alternatively try asking over on the MSE tech forum as they will have some recommendations for you (and will be able to suggest reliable brands, which are obviously important for a HD.) I was looking at some cheap (500gb/1tb) buffalo drives recently but they had several bad reviews on amazon suggesting they could pack up within six months - which would be totally useless for the purpose.

Curries, comet et al may well do a student discount but still wouldn't come close to the likes of scan,ebuyer,amazon and other online retailers.

Other known brands with reasonable prices seem to be WU and seagate - again the tech forum should be able to advise further on which would be most reliable.

philhoggins

If you can, look for a NAS drive (Network Attach Storage) as this can then be shared between computers, tablets etc so if you use the external drive to store photo's, music etc you can get it from any device that can see the drive. This will cost more but the benefits are great otherwise if it's hooked up to a stand alone PC it is really nothing more than a backup device.

The Iomega device below is not bad, will stream music, pictures, films etc over a wireless network. It's a little slow to load onto but one your content is there it works well. I have a 2 TB version of this installed in my study and can quite easily watch movies from it in the conservatory via the wireless network which is the biggest test.

http://www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/9195853/art/iomega/home-media-network-hard-d.html?srcid=11270&nopopup=1&gclid=CLOz_bT8-rICFSPHtAodfzIAwQ

looking4luck

sitcomsarah wrote: »

I'm looking to buy my BF an external hard drive for christmas - I'm looking at minimum 500GB, but 1TB would be great, if I can get it for a not unreasonable price!
I'm hoping to get a USB 3.0, but 2.0 is fine too!
Basically I want to get him the best hard drive my budget allows me to - I ideally want to spend between £40 and £50, but would go up to £60 if theres a really good deal on offer!

Does anyone have any good tips for finding a hard drive to these specifications? I've had a little look on Comet and Curries and found some okay deals, but hopefully someone knows something better - a cheapsmells.com but for computer hard ware!

Also does anyone know if any computer shops, like Comet and Curries, do student discount?

Thanks!

I have been looking to get a portable hard drive for a while, they come up quite often on eBay daily deals just looked and there's a seagate 1tb usb 3 for £63

and an Hitachi 500gb mobile portable hard drive usb 3 for £43

http://deals.ebay.co.uk/spoke/electronics

clemham83

Tescos have recently had some really good in-store deals on external hdds. I haven't been lucky enough yet to get one myself! Keep an eye open if u have a store near you.

OneBrightStar

You could get him this portable one which is USB 3.0.

Slighlty over your budget but it's a portable hard drive hence doesn't require an external power source. It's plug and play in any laptop/desktop.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005A97APO/ref=oh_details_o02_s00_i00

I bought one and am quite pleased with it.

It's currently £61.99 from Amazon (Look at the right side to select Amazon as seller otherwise price shown is higher). Hope it helps.