Hot Pink List

External Hard Drives?

Edifice

New member
Jul 27, 2003
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Can someone recommend a good external hard drive?

There are so many brands out there, although some are slow and some are fast, it's tough to decide.

What's a good manufacturer and model?

Looking for one with a least 200 - 250gb space max.
 

WoodPeckr

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May 29, 2002
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Seagate Rocks

Seagate gets tops marks all the way!
If you are a little handy get an encloseure kit ($20-$35) and put the internal HD in it. It's fairly easy to do and ends up costing less.
Seagate has a 5 year warranty on their internal HDs.
If you buy an 'ready made' external HD you only get a 1 yr warr.
Western Digital only offers a 3 yr warr.
Stay away from Maxtor!
Make sure whatever HD you get it has at least an 8MB Cache.

I just recently bought a 160GB Seagate HD from Best Buy for $40 after rebate and paid $21 for the enclosure at www.newegg.com
 

nato75

Active member
Aug 6, 2002
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Toronto
If I may, I'd suggest the Carbon Computing house brand. I think it's called Elephant. Great service, fantastic price and a really nice warrantee.

I have used their products in the past and have no complaints whatsoever.

http://www.carbonation.com/
 

thirdtime

on terb
Mar 1, 2004
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Vaughan
How's that a fantastic price??
The cheapest Elephant external that meets his requirements is $199.95.
He could get a 250 GB hard drive with a 16 MB cache and throw it in an external case for just over half that much.
 

bullwinkle

Member
Jan 17, 2004
84
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Easy to get a fast SATA-II drive and a Fanned Enclosure and build one yerself ..

Will easily save ya 50% ..

hth
 

Joxxer

Researcher
Jun 3, 2005
268
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I bought a NexStar-2 enclosure from PC Canada (www.pccanada.com) and dropped in a 320G IDE drive for a friend.

Works great, total cost was ~ $160 and I have a 5 year warranty on the Seagate drive.
 

markvee

Active member
Mar 18, 2003
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Thanks for the info on external hard drives everybody.

Can anyone recommend brands that get the power supply through the USB cable (i.e. no separate power cable required)? 200MB minimum.
 

canucklehead

Active member
Oct 16, 2003
2,428
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carbon uses seconds and the cases are old stock from manufacturers.......... cheap price..... enclosures made by actual Mexican tech they go down and hire every year or so.
make it yourself it is easy and SATA
 

MarkII

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Sep 22, 2004
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They use Seagate drives in teh Elephant line when available.

I bought two internal seagate 320Gig drives for my new system...can't even hear them run.

320 7200 rpm drives for info purposes.
 

Cobster

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Apr 29, 2002
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markvee said:
Thanks for the info on external hard drives everybody.

Can anyone recommend brands that get the power supply through the USB cable (i.e. no separate power cable required)? 200MB minimum.
Powered at 200mb via USB cable?
I don't think there is any out there, could be wrong, but doubtful.
 

markvee

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Mar 18, 2003
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Cobster said:
Powered at 200mb via USB cable?
I don't think there is any out there, could be wrong, but doubtful.
Actually, my post shoud read 200GB storage (not 200MB).
I would settle for 100GB.
 

WoodPeckr

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markvee said:
Can anyone recommend brands that get the power supply through the USB cable (i.e. no separate power cable required)? 200MB minimum.
You can get several notebook 2.5 external HDs powered through the USB cable but I'm not sure they go up to 200GB. They usually are smaller, more compact and slower (5400RPM instead of 7200RPM) and more expensive.
 

foolnarnd

Member
Jul 25, 2005
55
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GTA
Get a network connected drive

Edifice said:
Can someone recommend a good external hard drive?

There are so many brands out there, although some are slow and some are fast, it's tough to decide.

What's a good manufacturer and model?

Looking for one with a least 200 - 250gb space max.

If you have a router to let you split your internet connection between more than one machine, get a network shared drive. Easy as can be to set up and then you can access it at network speeds from all machines. Looks to them like another computer on the network.
 

Cobster

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markvee

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Cobster

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Well there you go, but for the money, I'd go for the 500gig and hassle with a power outlet. :D
 
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