External Hard Drive Help Pleeeaaase

S

shira

Shinigami
Sup guys.

I'm needing an external Hard Drive, and I figure, well, I may aswell go the full hog and get 1TB cause, I need it, basically.

So, i'm looking around Amazon, and, ineveitably all Hard Drives are having problems etc. but, I wanted to know if any of you can reccomend me something.

I've found this Western Digital which has had decent reviews. To be honest, I don't want to spend more than 100 quid. I'd rather something between 70-90, but i'm willing to go to 100 if its good enough. Preferably i'd rather it plug into a USB 2.0 but I do belive I have a Firewire port/slot on my PC.

Thanks for help guys.
 
After a little help from others here a while ago I have that very WD drive, and it's fine. A lot of the people who rant about external hard drives are using them as portable hard drives, which they aren't. Throwing them around in a rucksack or briefcase is asking for trouble - anyone who wants something portable should be looking at the WD Passport style drives.

USB is a little slow (especially when initially connecting) but it's a lot of storage and music and video files play fine from it. If you're going to use it for big files remember to format it to NTFS - like I didn't *facepalm*.
 
ayase said:
USB is a little slow (especially when initially connecting) but it's storage and music and video files play fine from it. If you're going to use it for big files remember to format it to NTFS - like I didn't *facepalm*.
Click to expand...

Oh yeah I remember FAT32 can only deal with smaller files. I have a mac though so HFS on my seagate 1TB.

Firewire800 is the way I went for a connection as it is faster than USB2.0, although eSATA is faster if I remember correctly.
 
ayase said:
After a little help from others here a while ago I have that very WD drive, and it's fine. A lot of the people who rant about external hard drives are using them as portable hard drives, which they aren't. Throwing them around in a rucksack or briefcase is asking for trouble - anyone who wants something portable should be looking at the WD Passport style drives.

USB is a little slow (especially when initially connecting) but it's a lot of storage and music and video files play fine from it. If you're going to use it for big files remember to format it to NTFS - like I didn't *facepalm*.
Click to expand...

By big- how big?

And i'll take your advice I think. I've heard good things about that Harddrive.

Basically, i've got some Bluray quality stuff to be watching, so you're looking up to 8gig files?

Also- how do I format to NTFS? Is there any disadvantage to formatting like this?
 
I unfortunately can't offer you any help, but I will also be very interested to hear all recommendations since it was something I was looking into purchasing not too long ago. I ended up forgetting about it in the end since every one I looked at seemed to have at least one really bad review.
 
Spyro201 said:
ayase said:
If you're going to use it for big files remember to format it to NTFS - like I didn't *facepalm*.
Click to expand...

By big- how big?

And i'll take your advice I think. I've heard good things about that Harddrive.

Basically, i've got some Bluray quality stuff to be watching, so you're looking up to 8gig files?

Also- how do I format to NTFS? Is there any disadvantage to formatting like this?
Click to expand...

FAT32 can only handle single files up to 4gb. I realised I hadn't reformatted mine when I tried to save a HD movie fansub.

As for how you do it... easy.

> Plug it in
> Go to My Computer
> Right click the drive
> Format
> Choose NTFS as the file system.
 
I had this one for Christmas and it works perfectly fine, It does require to be powered from a plug socket but that's not really a problem.
Works great, really fast and it quite cheap.
The only bad reviews it got are from people that are too stupid to know that 1tb wont give you 1tb of storage and some people that are asking questions on review tabs.. human stupidity truly is infinite =P

http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/6736252/T ... oduct.html

Oh and whatever one you decide to buy you can just format them when you get them like I did to mine, it's not really hard and wont take any time at all being new, they just come fat32.
 
You can ignore most complaints on amazon. They usually come from a genus of humans who are unaware of the existence of any additional mouse buttons, apart from the left and if something doesn't work after a double left click, they just panic and cry for help. Indeed.
 
Derfel said:
You can ignore most complaints on amazon. They usually come from a genus of humans who are unaware of the existence of any additional mouse buttons, apart from the left and if something doesn't work after a double left click, they just panic and cry for help. Indeed.
Click to expand...

So the Hard Drive I linked to should be fine then?
 
Spyro201 said:
Derfel said:
You can ignore most complaints on amazon. They usually come from a genus of humans who are unaware of the existence of any additional mouse buttons, apart from the left and if something doesn't work after a double left click, they just panic and cry for help. Indeed.
Click to expand...

So the Hard Drive I linked to should be fine then?
Click to expand...

Unless the item has 1 user giving it 2 stars and all the rest 1, you are probably fine. I mean, most of the complainers are experiencing problems that just happen. The item just happens to be faulty by no fault of the design. It was transported carelessly, the worksman slipped up, whatever. These things can happen to any piece of hardware given how complex hardware these days is. I mean, there are 37 sellers, most with relatively high rating. They know they can't sell rubbish if they want to maintain that. But yeah, as I said, **** happens, but it can often happen by no fault of the design.
 
Derfel said:
Spyro201 said:
Derfel said:
You can ignore most complaints on amazon. They usually come from a genus of humans who are unaware of the existence of any additional mouse buttons, apart from the left and if something doesn't work after a double left click, they just panic and cry for help. Indeed.
Click to expand...

So the Hard Drive I linked to should be fine then?
Click to expand...

Unless the item has 1 user giving it 2 stars and all the rest 1, you are probably fine. I mean, most of the complainers are experiencing problems that just happen. The item just happens to be faulty by no fault of the design. It was transported carelessly, the worksman slipped up, whatever. These things can happen to any piece of hardware given how complex hardware these days is. I mean, there are 37 sellers, most with relatively high rating. They know they can't sell rubbish if they want to maintain that. But yeah, as I said, **** happens, but it can often happen by no fault of the design.
Click to expand...

Should be safe then.

I'll probably go for that :)
 
I don't own a 1TB drive, but I do own the 500GB drive, which has worked for me fine. The only problem was the AC Adapter. It has no switch, so if you leave the drive plugged in it will eventually break. Or, at least, it did for me. However, I phoned Western Digital and they sent me a new one, free of charge. I now unplug the hard drive every night.

Although, my little story there may not have any relevance if this either doesn't use an AC Adapter or if they now send AC Adapters with switches with their external hard drives now.
 
I also have the 500G WD model and it works perfectly fine. It's true that sometimes people do as Ayase mentioned and try to use it as if it were a giant pen drive and when it becomes faulty, they have no idea what's going on...
 
Spyro201 said:
Also- how do I format to NTFS? Is there any disadvantage to formatting like this?
Click to expand...

Major disadvantage is that most non-Windows devices won't have a clue how to read it any more (for example, I use external drives to back up from my PS3 and don't like them to be NTFS format). If you're Windows-only then NTFS is definitely much, much better than FAT32, but if not there's no really good universal option, annoyingly!

R
 
I use a Buffalo 500Gig external harddrive from argos RRP £50
not bad for a helluvalot of memory...currently backing up 4 pc's a ps3 and still have plenty of room to add films to it.

its the same as the one Jayme has...but mines not a terra
even with 400+songs....thats not 200gig.
what on earth do you need a terra for at your age spyro? :S
 
mines got a few Anime's on that aren't released yet or I haven't got around to buying, some music, a back up of my entire hard drive, and my old images and photo's.. and I'm no where near filling my 1tb up.. or I don't think I ever will..
 
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