Help with hard drive. What to look for/where/how much

magan

I am completely useless at computers. I nearly lost all my data last week. So I have been told I should get an external hard drive to back up. I have a Windows XP running in a desktop computer, What should I look for?, what capacity would be enough?, should I get something from shops like PC world or amazon?, how much would be a normal price? I have heard prices between £20 and £90. I am completely lost in this one. Any advice would be immensely appreciated.

closed

how much capacity depends on how much data you have, look on the c: drive for space used, and double it.

macrium reflect free can be used to backup

amazon/ebuyer etc are usually cheaper than high street, a 500GB-1TB portable drive are around £50

googler

Stick to recognised brands - Seagate, Western Digital, Samsung etc

Just get a portable USB drive with a higher capacity than all the data you want to back up, plus allowance for adding more data in the future.

Portable drive won't require separate power supply as it's driven from your USB port(s), desktop USB drive will use a power supply so is less convenient.

Amazon should be fine. I've bought almost all my drives from there.

welshee

magan wrote: »

I am completely useless at computers. I nearly lost all my data last week. So I have been told I should get an external hard drive to back up. I have a Windows XP running in a desktop computer, What should I look for?, what capacity would be enough?, should I get something from shops like PC world or amazon?, how much would be a normal price? I have heard prices between £20 and £90. I am completely lost in this one. Any advice would be immensely appreciated.

This would be ideal.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Elements-500GB-Portable-Hard-Drive/dp/B005A97A86/ref=sr_1_3?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1360579935&sr=1-3

macman

Don't even think about buying it from PCW.

agrinnall

macman wrote: »

Don't even think about buying it from PCW.

For a consumer item like this I don't see any big issue with buying it from PCW, it would probably be a bit cheaper online but then you'd have to wait for it to turn up.

OP, if your computer is old one thing to be aware of is that the current required to power a USB hard drive may not be enough from a single USB slot. I had this issue with an old laptop and a WD drive (bought from PCW funnily enough, and they refunded me when it didn't work), the solution is either the buy a drive that has a low power consumption or one that can be powered from 2 USB slots with a Y cable (I got one of these with the Storejet drive I now use, although it's not necessary with my current laptop). Or buy a mains powered drive.