I need to clean the pictures & music off my laptop. I'm thinking external hard drive maybe 500gb. Just curious how many use them, what brand you have and how you like it. I looked on BesyBuy and theres a ton to choose from.
They have great deals on 1.5 and 2 terabyte external hard drives out there. I recommend you get the bigger size. I had a Seagate, but it clicked in a really unhealthy way - two of them actually did that, so I switched to Iomega. So far so good.
I have a 1TB Western Digital external hard drive. I backup all my photos at the end of each week to the external and keep it locked in a fireproof safe just in case.
So far..this thing has worked great. Had it for a year now, traveled all over the country and the UK with it, no problems at all.
What the shadow said, I've only had a western digital for a few months and I got it 'cos the digging around I did led me to believe they are reliable (I still back up onto another computer too -just in case).
I've got 2 500 gig Seagate Freeagent Externals drives, had them for around 4 years now and no problems. The first drive backs up my laptop each night, the 2nd drive then mirrors the 1st one,
I keep all my photos on redundant external hard drives, and I keep one stored at a friends house. I sync them up about once per month. I've been meaning to open a safe deposit box to store one of them there, but I haven't gotten around to it.
That gives a bit of protection in case on fails, or if the house burns down or something. (Just don't keep your redundant backup at the same location as your primary backup)
Determine what your usage will be for another year or two and get that sized drive. Although the larger drives are great, you don't want to store everything on one drive. And if you can afford a backup to the backup, that is a good idea too. Just don't get both drives at the same time (same batch, could have same issues). Worth the (extra) cost now than losing it all for being a little cheap.
And in two years you'll be looking for something faster, cheaper, and bigger anyways. So goes the life of tech products.
I use a 3TB Western Digital network drive and split things onto smaller drives/computers I've bought in the past.
I have a 2TB iOmega media server. I have had it for a year now, and I think that it is fantastic. It is great because it is connected to our home network so we can access music, videos and photos on our blueray player. Therefore, if people come over, you can look at photos on your TV. I like that it offers that flexibility. I got it from Amazon.
I have two 2TB drives, one Seagate and the other Western Digital. My advice is buy more storage than you think you'll need, plus it's cheap enough anyway.
I have a 1TB WesternDigital. The first one crapped out after a couple of months and it was replaced on the spot at the apple store. The replacement has been just fine.
I have a 3TB Western Digital (solely for Time Machine backup on my iMac), and a 5-bay Drobo S (10TB at 2TB per drive, though you can put 3TB HDDs in there) for my long-term backup. The Drobo also has dual-disc redundancy, meaning that two drives can totally fail at the same time, and I don't lose my data.
i have 3 western digital and 4 segate TB drives, i suggest the portable (smaller) over larger drives which require power sources. if you go full size i suggest western digital, but the smaller segates just my take on it.
I have a seagate and western digital external hard drives for back ups of anything and everything on my computer. I have had two fail before for no reason hence I dont rely on one alone. I keep one in the shed (in case of fire) and alternate each month so I can update them.
Careful of makes / models. with regards to your seagate, they're generally good drives but I believe the expansions have the "click of death" which sounds like what you're describing.
Also, stay away from the WD MyBook network drives. The controller they use for it is cheap and dies. I had one... put all my images in them from 10 years ago to transfer to my new laptop and the controller went kaput. Stupidly i'd deleted the images from my old laptop before putting them on my new one. WD will replace the drive if its under warranty (mine wasnt) BUT wont do anythign for data. If you want your data, you have to PAY them to retrieve it for you. Lets face it, if they didnt use shoddy gear, you wouldnt be in a situation where you'd need it recovered. And because its a EXT2 format, its not a simple job of slaving it to your PC. you've got to get a mac / linux / unix O/S to fix the drive, then download software on your PC to retrieve the data (somehow the linux OS was able to fix it but not read the data). As a result, i'll NEVER buy WD again even though my mate has had no problems with the USB versions.
My solution is now a 2 bay synology NAS with 2 x 2TB drives set to RAID 1 for full redundancy. I intend to get another 2TB drive so that once a month I can dump the contents to the third drive and take it offsite for backup purposes. Overkill? Not when your'e left staring at the possibility of losing all your images for the past 10 years of your life :)
I've got Iomega drives - nice and small (size) Both are a Terabyte. Each drive is a copy of the other and stored in separate locations, backed up every week
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So far..this thing has worked great. Had it for a year now, traveled all over the country and the UK with it, no problems at all.
That gives a bit of protection in case on fails, or if the house burns down or something. (Just don't keep your redundant backup at the same location as your primary backup)
And in two years you'll be looking for something faster, cheaper, and bigger anyways. So goes the life of tech products.
I use a 3TB Western Digital network drive and split things onto smaller drives/computers I've bought in the past.
Also, stay away from the WD MyBook network drives. The controller they use for it is cheap and dies. I had one... put all my images in them from 10 years ago to transfer to my new laptop and the controller went kaput. Stupidly i'd deleted the images from my old laptop before putting them on my new one. WD will replace the drive if its under warranty (mine wasnt) BUT wont do anythign for data. If you want your data, you have to PAY them to retrieve it for you. Lets face it, if they didnt use shoddy gear, you wouldnt be in a situation where you'd need it recovered. And because its a EXT2 format, its not a simple job of slaving it to your PC. you've got to get a mac / linux / unix O/S to fix the drive, then download software on your PC to retrieve the data (somehow the linux OS was able to fix it but not read the data). As a result, i'll NEVER buy WD again even though my mate has had no problems with the USB versions.
My solution is now a 2 bay synology NAS with 2 x 2TB drives set to RAID 1 for full redundancy. I intend to get another 2TB drive so that once a month I can dump the contents to the third drive and take it offsite for backup purposes. Overkill? Not when your'e left staring at the possibility of losing all your images for the past 10 years of your life :)