My Mom asked for an external hard drive for Christmas. She has a new Gateway computer with Vista, only used for personal use. She's had issues in the past with computers crashing and personal info being "lost" so she wants to prevent that from happening again.

I know nothing about them and she's no expert either. I'm hoping you guys can give me some recommendations on what to buy for the best price. She saw one on QVC for about $130. I quickly looked online at Best Buy and saw some in that price range as well. Is that a reasonable price?

My Mom asked for an external hard drive for Christmas. She has a new Gateway computer with Vista, only used for personal use. She's had issues in the past with computers crashing and personal info being "lost" so she wants to prevent that from happening again.

I know nothing about them and she's no expert either. I'm hoping you guys can give me some recommendations on what to buy for the best price. She saw one on QVC for about $130. I quickly looked online at Best Buy and saw some in that price range as well. Is that a reasonable price?

Seagate Free Agent with firewire connection, fast and awesome!!!!

How much does she intend to backup? Hard-drive sizes vary greatly. More space = more $$$

I'd go with any brand name. Or you can buy the chassis/box and install your own hard drives. It ends up being close to the same price if you build one.

Also, plug and play is always a good thing. The less drivers to install the better.

I've had a Western Digital MyBook (firewire/USB 2) for years now. Never had a problem with it.

get a maxtor one touch. it comes with software to do automatic backups as frequently as you want and restoring it is a breeze. My 500gb was $130 about 18 months ago so it'll prolly be around $100 now

get a maxtor one touch. it comes with software to do automatic backups as frequently as you want and restoring it is a breeze. My 500gb was $130 about 18 months ago so it'll prolly be around $100 now

I've had a lot of issues with the Restrospect Express software that comes bundled. The Maxtor drives are fine, I just use different software for backups.

All but one of my external drives is LaCie. I've had no issues with them at all. I usually buy one of their refurb units at a substantially lower cost, 90 or 180 day warranty.

now i've been using my Apple Time Capsule. Its a wireless N router with a 1tb drive built in so i can back up my macbook pro without wires. I think it works with windows but its pricey (around $500)

I have a Dragon, 2.5 external HD.

Small, compact, easy to travel with. Can fit in the inside pocket of a suit jacket..

ZERO issues in the last two years that I've owned it.

get a maxtor one touch. it comes with software to do automatic backups as frequently as you want and restoring it is a breeze. My 500gb was $130 about 18 months ago so it'll prolly be around $100 now

This sounds nice and simple. For my Mom, the easier to use the better. Her words were, "for dummies is best." :lol:

We'd like to keep it under $150 if possible. She probably won't have a tremendous amount to backup. Thanks everyone, for your recommendations so far.

This sounds nice and simple. For my Mom, the easier to use the better. Her words were, "for dummies is best." :lol:

We'd like to keep it under $150 if possible. She probably won't have a tremendous amount to backup. Thanks everyone, for your recommendations so far.

check amazon!

My Mom asked for an external hard drive for Christmas. She has a new Gateway computer with Vista, only used for personal use. She's had issues in the past with computers crashing and personal info being "lost" so she wants to prevent that from happening again.

I know nothing about them and she's no expert either. I'm hoping you guys can give me some recommendations on what to buy for the best price. She saw one on QVC for about $130. I quickly looked online at Best Buy and saw some in that price range as well. Is that a reasonable price?

Here's a good buy:

Western Digital My Passport Essential 320 GB USB 2.0 Portable Hard Drive WDME3200TN (Midnight Black)
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WD My Passport Essential Portable 320GB Hard Drive - WDME3200TN - Compare Prices and Buy at PriceGrabber (http://computers.pricegrabber.com/hard-drives/m/60886501/st=sort/sort_type=bottomline/qlty=all)

Western Digital is CRAP. The USB, firewire and power cord interface are cheap and break unexpectedly. Mine gave out after a year and a half and there was nothing I could do about it. Lost years and years of digital pictures. I bought a 160GB Iomega. It runs purely off of USB so you never need to plug it into the wall.

Western Digital is CRAP. The USB, firewire and power cord interface are cheap and break unexpectedly. Mine gave out after a year and a half and there was nothing I could do about it. Lost years and years of digital pictures. I bought a 160GB Iomega. It runs purely off of USB so you never need to plug it into the wall.

You couldn't take the drive out and put it in a different case, or use a USB adapter to recover the pics?

Seagate 750Gb in a roll your own case purchased for $25 bucks ... USB 2


I just bought a bare OEM 1 Terabyte - that is 1000 Gb for 94 bucks for my new system ...

You couldn't take the drive out and put it in a different case, or use a USB adapter to recover the pics?



best recovery tool in my box

Newegg.com - External Hard Drive, USB Hard Drives, Portable Hard Drive, WD External Hard Drives, Seagate External Hard Drives, Hard Drive (http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=414&name=External-Hard-Drives)

Hard Drives at TigerDirect.com (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/Category/category_tlc.asp?CatId=8&name=Hard-Drives)

External USB 2.0 Hard Drive - Buy.com (http://www.buy.com/cat/usb-hard-drive/16076.html)

If you go with the firewire it tends to load what you want to copy over a helluva lot faster than usb 2.0 does. I know this from experience. I would not trade my Seagate for any amount of money in the world! ( well maybe if it was like a million dollars or something, then I could just get another. :lmao:)

I've got a Seagate. I'm with Mousebaby, wouldn't trade it for anything. Best part is it's just plug and play.

I have a WD pasport 250GB USB. Stupid simple to use. 100 bucks at best buy (much cheaper online).

Since hard drives seem to eventually fail at some point in time.....it might be worth your while to get Acronus True Image (50 bucks) or Norton Ghost to back up your HD image onto some DVD's. Fairly quick. I hate HD failures (it sucks bad when you loos projects).

Thanks again everyone. My brother & I have to make a decision this weekend because we'll be ordering it online (just like 90% of the other shopping I've done this year). This is the last gift I have to get and I'm all done with XMAS shopping! :yahoo:

If this helps at all Seagate is the highest rated external Hard Drive out there. That is the main reason I bought it and I am glad I did.

If this helps at all Seagate is the highest rated external Hard Drive out there. That is the main reason I bought it and I am glad I did.

Yes thank you, it definitely helps. I see quite a few recommendations for Seagate. I'm looking at them now.

Looks like newegg.com (thanks JustinB) has some good prices but of course I'll shop around and hopefully get the best price.

If this helps at all Seagate is the highest rated external Hard Drive out there. That is the main reason I bought it and I am glad I did.Seagates are the best (all of them, IDE, SATA, SAS, SCSI, USB, Firewire). Higher quality, better support (even free hard drive analysis/utility software).

We bought a bunch of Maxtor One Touch drives where I work and almost evryone of them has failed. The storage surface seems to be fine, but the controller board gives up the ghost.

We now have several SimpleTech drives and I also use one at home. They seem good so far and if you get the mini it will easily fit in a shirt pocket. Also it does not need an external power supply...only need o plug it into the USB port and it works great.

We bought a bunch of Maxtor One Touch drives where I work and almost evryone of them has failed.

In 25 years of getting paid to pay with computers, I've only had 2 disk drive failures (not counting big iron)... both of 'em were Maxtor drives. I'll never buy another again. That being said, I do have a 300 GB Maxtor drive in the basement as part of a RAID-0 array that's been running fine 24/7 for almost 4 years. But no more. Seagate isn't that much more expensive.

Sometimes at work, for backups we buy these cheapie 1 TB USB drives (Cavalry, I think is the brand name). Don't know who's disk is in there and don't really care. At $189 they're disposable!

But for home use, you want something that'll last.. don't skimp.

The key is to use it. Windows has a backup tool built in, and you can get others for free. I like SyncBack, which isn't free, but at $30 or so, it's a nice bit of software. I schedule it to do backups every morning at 03:00 and sleep better knowing I've got two copies of the data (three actually, since I'm backing up to the RAID-0 mirror in the basement).

In 25 years of getting paid to pay with computers, I've only had 2 disk drive failures (not counting big iron)... both of 'em were Maxtor drives. I'll never buy another again. That being said, I do have a 300 GB Maxtor drive in the basement as part of a RAID-0 array that's been running fine 24/7 for almost 4 years. But no more. Seagate isn't that much more expensive.

Sometimes at work, for backups we buy these cheapie 1 TB USB drives (Cavalry, I think is the brand name). Don't know who's disk is in there and don't really care. At $189 they're disposable!

But for home use, you want something that'll last.. don't skimp.

The key is to use it. Windows has a backup tool built in, and you can get others for free. I like SyncBack, which isn't free, but at $30 or so, it's a nice bit of software. I schedule it to do backups every morning at 03:00 and sleep better knowing I've got two copies of the data (three actually, since I'm backing up to the RAID-0 mirror in the basement).

Oh my God I LOVE nerdspeak!!! :hot: You're killing me here!

Seriously though, I love to read the computer forums as I learn from them and I am a computer geek. :nerd:

Seagates are the best (all of them, IDE, SATA, SAS, SCSI, USB, Firewire). Higher quality, better support (even free hard drive analysis/utility software).

We wound up buying a Seagate, based on everyone's input here. After that and reading all the reviews on various sites, Seagate seemed to be the best option for us.

Thanks to everyone who responded, for all of your recommendations and info provided.

I am seriously considering the Drobo as my attached storage, but am holding out until they get a Version 3 released (which I think will be in a few months). I want gigabit ethernet on the device and I would like it to stand alone in my garage which is separate from my house (I had ethernet put out to the garage last Summer). I actually want to put in some fireproof safe or something, but haven't figured out the ventilation issues.

I have TBs of data, mainly a ton of HD video from my camcorder of my kids and about 30,000 pictures or so. My backups are somewhat haphazard at the moment so I'm hoping to get some NAS and make a bit more sense of the whole process.

I really think external NAS devices will be a hot seller in the next year, especially as 1TB drives can now be found around $100 or so at places like Microcenter in Rockville/Fairfax.

I really think external NAS devices will be a hot seller in the next year, especially as 1TB drives can now be found around $100 or so at places like Microcenter in Rockville/Fairfax.


clevally posted a nice one last month ... it is a Linksys NAS can fit 1.5Tb drives .... and you can strip or mirror the drives for redundancy ...the drives are non proprietary format aka NTFS I believe ... so in the unit fails you can pull the drive connect it to your PC and away you go ...