external hard drives

renovation · Post by **renovation** » Sat Feb 25, 2012 5:24 pm

i know I've asked this question before. tomorrow i think im really going to break down and buy one as i can save 25% off at officemax . there have a 20 % off bag sale and a extra 5% using ebates .
here go's anyway if all works out.
any brand not to think about buying ?
i will be only looking at usb2 drives and 1.5 gig or large for picture back up mostly.

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Sat Feb 25, 2012 5:52 pm

No experience in external ones here. I have only built my own.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sat Feb 25, 2012 8:13 pm

Honestly, I would never buy an external HDD. I prefer to buy a Vantec metal USB enclosure and a regular 3.5" hard drive from Newegg. Most externals only have a 1 year warranty and that should tell you everything you need to know. I see terrible failure rates on those things.

The office supply stores sell extremely over priced externals BTW. Same drive on Newegg is usually 20% less.

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EDIT:

Case in point on the price:

Seagate 1Tb STAM1000100 at OfficeMax (OfficeMax doesn't seem to sell any 1.5Tb drives) is $159.99: http://www.officemax.com/technology/dri ... rod3310150

At Newegg the very same drive is $129.99 with free shipping: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... TAM1000100

With your 25% discount it's worth it I guess, but without it, it sure wouldn't be.

I still prefer buying an enclosure and a drive and assembling it myself. Price is usually no worse and now I can remove the drive from the enclosure to run Spinrite on it without voiding the warranty. Also those metal Vantec enclosures usually have better cooling (the heat is radiated away through the metal case) than those plastic enclosures they use for external hard drives.

BTW: This is an awful time to buy hard drives. They are over priced due to the flooding in Thailand last year. Prices should get back to normal in the 3rd quarter.

EvilHorace · Post by **EvilHorace** » Sat Feb 25, 2012 10:00 pm

I've got one like this that I've had for years and never had one problem with it. I bought it at our local BB and I know that I didn't pay nearly that much for it. I think it was under $100 then.
All I use it for is for storing duplicate files on, music and photos.

http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-1 ... B000VZCEUI

They make smaller wallet sized units today and I'll probably get another one so I can keep duplicate files at work rather than online.

renovation · Post by **renovation** » Sun Feb 26, 2012 12:25 am

here is what I'm thinking about getting .
Verbatim - Store 'n' Go SuperSpeed 1TB USB 3.0 Black Portable Hard Drive
it has a 7 year warranty and $149 less like i said 25 % off starting today . i be ordering one up later today ! figure it be $100 plus tax !

CaterpillarAssassin · Post by **CaterpillarAssassin** » Sun Feb 26, 2012 9:33 am

Ren,

That sounds like a decent deal about now.

renovation · Post by **renovation** » Sun Feb 26, 2012 3:57 pm

i order this after looking a bit .and my final cost after discounts and tax's was $120 to the house .the big factor was the the 7 year warranty. for about 30 dollar more i found a seagate unit that was 2 tb but reveiws were not so good and warranty was only like 2 years . and to buy a enclosure and drive was going to cost more then what im paying .