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External Hard Drive

post #1 of 7
5/5/07 at 8:13pm
Thread Starter 
I need to buy an external hard drive, mainly for media, and I was wondering if any of you had personal experience with any brands of hard drives, ones I should look at, ones I should avoid, etc.

Im looking for between prolly 60g-100g, 7200rpm, doesn't matter if its IEEE 1394 or USB 2.0. Ive found a Calvary for relatively cheap, but I've never heard of Calvary, was wondering if I should stay with a more name brand like Western Digital, Seagate, or something.

Another question: I've never used an external hard drive. If I load programs that are on my hard drive currently on to the external hard drive (big ones like WoW, AutoCAD, SketchUP, iTunes), but have it connected at all times to my laptop, am I going to see any performance issues as opposed to running them off my C that I currently run them off of?

Appreciate any and all input. Thanks in advance.
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post #2 of 7
5/5/07 at 9:29pm
USB 2.0- or Firewire 400-based external hard drives will be a little lower performance than internal/SATA/eSATA drives.
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post #3 of 7
5/5/07 at 9:58pm
Do you want a portable external HDD? Since you only are looking at 60g-100g, then I'd just get a 2.5 notebook HDD and an external case. You should be able to find a good deal on the HDD at Newegg, and a case will run you 10 to 20 bucks.

The VANTEC NexStar3 enclosures are finished very nice and come in a lot of colors.
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post #4 of 7
5/5/07 at 11:56pm
you're going to have slower load times if you have programs on an external, as the transfer rate is going to be about 20(USB)-25(FW)MB/s compared to about 30-35MB/s (depending on the drive). also, i feel for external hdd's, i don't think you need to worry all that much about the spindle speed, since the usb/fw port is often going to limit it anyway.
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post #5 of 7
5/6/07 at 12:42am
Newegg about a month or two ago had a 500GB Maxtor OneTouch III hard drive for only $120. I have a 300GB OneTouch III and I love it. Its quick and the software they have on for it is actually pretty good for making backups and such. The only problem with it is its already full
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post #6 of 7
5/6/07 at 2:54pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by odious_m
Do you want a portable external HDD? Since you only are looking at 60g-100g, then I'd just get a 2.5 notebook HDD and an external case. You should be able to find a good deal on the HDD at Newegg, and a case will run you 10 to 20 bucks.

The VANTEC NexStar3 enclosures are finished very nice and come in a lot of colors.


portability really isn't a huge thing, cause my laptop weighs a ton (thanks dell for making a centrino that weighs like 900 lbs!) so anywhere the drive needs to be, I will have a backpack with my lappy in it.

more than likely im going to buy a used 160GB Western Digital from a friend of mine (he's upgrading to something bigger) for about 60$. but I would still appreciate any more input anyone can offer.
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post #7 of 7
5/6/07 at 5:34pm
Really thats no to good of a deal. If you wait a bit Newegg or someone should have a hell of a deal on a drive and it will be new. Like a said, a month or two ago they had a 500GB OneTouch III which is a great hard drive and it was only twice as much as the one your "friend" is selling you.
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