Needing a good external hard drive...

[theworldwithout]

Ok, I'm looking for a good external hard drive that has a lot of memory, at least 500 gigs or so, backwards compatible with USB 1.1 and that can just plug in and work right away. Usually in the weekend ads I see all kinds of different brands for sale for very cheap prices, but what I want to know is what are some of the best ones out there that are around $150 (I'm willing to go a bit higher if needed)?

 

[ComNavFdgPk]

Go to Buy.com. They've got Western Digital 500Gb external drives for about $150. Really simple, plug and play...no software to download.

 

[provenlogic]

Nah, avoid Buy.com, Newegg.com has the absolute best prices. You don't have to pay $150 for a 500GB external. Check these out:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136080

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822144080

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136025

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148235

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822144069

With hard drives, there's basically 3 things you want to get right: Brand (Maxtor, Western Digital, and Seagate are amoung the best), Cache (the higher the better, minimum of 8MB), and disk rotation speed (the higher the better, at least 7200rpm).

 

[theworldwithout]

Thank you very much for the links . Never heard of Newegg before. I think I know where I'm going to buy my new drive from...

 

[provenlogic]

NP! Glad i could help, have fun!

 

[mike_n_herrin]

NewEgg is great. you could also try pricewatch.com http://www.pricewatch.com/hard_drives/usb_500gb.htm

but you should check into the company selling to make sure they aren't like some flash in the pan store or have low ratings. that way you wont get screwed.

 

[me12121]

The drives themselves are all the same these days, but I'd buy a Seagate since they're the only company who offers a 5 year warranty on their drives.

 

[maxpowr9]

The only two websites I would look at for computer stuff are newegg and tigerdirect. newegg is more about peripherals while tigerdirect is more hardware orientated. I personally love Western Digital for an ex-HD (thats what I have). most WDs come with USB and firewire so you can use on both Windows and Mac. Just make sure it has the proper memory storage that is the same with your computer. I think most ex-HDs can switch between FAT32 and NTFS now. That's probably over most people's heads though.

 

[provenlogic]

The only two websites I would look at for computer stuff are newegg and tigerdirect. newegg is more about peripherals while tigerdirect is more hardware orientated. I personally love Western Digital for an ex-HD (thats what I have). most WDs come with USB and firewire so you can use on both Windows and Mac. Just make sure it has the proper memory storage that is the same with your computer. I think most ex-HDs can switch between FAT32 and NTFS now. That's probably over most people's heads though.

That's absolutely not true. Newegg is the premiere online hardware retailer, they have a FAR larger hardware selection than tigerdirect, and a far larger hardware selection than peripheral selection.

Any new hard drive is going to have to be formatted with a file system when you get it, no matter what, so there is no "matching" needed. And you do not have to have the same file system on every hard drive you have. You can have any number of hard drives with say both FAT32 and NTFS filing systems, windows at the very least, won't care. However NTFS is considered superior to FAT32 for most situations.