[BabyK]

Hello there! New laptop user here but I'm currently still using my desktop to type all this stuff up. Anyway... I just got a laptop that's 250GB and even when I haven't even put a thing in there I have like 194GB left. Sure it's good but I want an external hard drive to back up and keep storage for future use. I'm looking for it to hold all of my music, pictures and videos here. Maybe something around 250-320GB i want

Just answer my simple questions below please. Need as many opinions as possible <33

*What good external hard drives or even portable ones are out there?
* How long have your had yours?
* Did you ever had to replace?
* Did it break down on you yet?
* i CAN move files from here (desktop) TO my laptop with the help of an external HD right?
* Is Toshiba, Western Digital, or Seagate any good? Pros & Cons please

I told my mom about the idea of an external hard drive but my aunt is like: you already have enough room on there. and i'm trying to say that I need this for backing up my current files here and transferring them to my laptop.

I've read the reviews from amazon and some really scare me x_x

Seagate Reviews vs Western Digital

[Eja]

Well, products/gadgets die. Settle for those brands who offer long warranties (about 5 years?)

[Pogichinoy]

* What good external hard drives or even portable ones are out there?
* How long have your had yours?
* Did you ever had to replace?
* Did it break down on you yet?
* i CAN move files from here (desktop) TO my laptop with the help of an external HD right?
* Is Toshiba, Western Digital, or Seagate any good? Pros & Cons please

* I'm a bit of a computer geek so I know what to get. I simply bought a 500GB SATA 2.5" notebook hard drive and a case for it. The case handles USB and Firewire, there is also an eSATA option that can transfer data fast but not any of my current laptops have eSATA ports.
* I've had my 500GB for about 2 months, and my 2 x 80GB for 3 years.
* No.
* No.
* Yes.
* Yes they're good, but I recommend you to buy the items separately and put them together. Turns out to be cheaper in the long term plus you don't have the 'disk utilities' that come accompanied with certain drives like WD.

[boa808]

Honestly, I think any of the major hdd brands are fine. The two big ones are Seagate and WD. Others include maxtor, samsung, hitachi.. In general, if you don't abuse the hdd like drop it all the time or whatnot, it should last you a while. I've gone through maybe 10 or so hard drives and none has failed on me, and I've been using Seagate, Maxtor, and WD. I'd look for the best price per gb. That means a 3.5" hdd. You can get the smaller 2.5"ers but those are more expensive (~twice the cost for the same storage as 3.5"), but you do get portability.

[awdark]

My WD mybook 750gb is nice, I like how I don't need to use a power switch and it automatically turns off. But it has froze up on me about 4 times, where it stayed on even though I disconnected the USB. my drive is under my desk so I don't notice it until much later and its usually kinda hot from the hard drive spinning in it. I had to unplug and plug the power to the drive to get it working again.

[mystique]

I got a WD My Passport, 400 gb with free case the 500gb one was oos T_T

* What good external hard drives or even portable ones are out there? I reckon WD is pretty good, heard good stuff abt imation too .. my cousin has a maxtor one but i reckon mine looks more sleek ^^;; and he's made a weird beep and fuzzy noise once when transferring movies to mine o_O
* How long have your had yours? 3-4 months..
* Did you ever had to replace? nope
* Did it break down on you yet? nope
* i CAN move files from here (desktop) TO my laptop with the help of an external HD right? yes!
* Is Toshiba, Western Digital, or Seagate any good? I've only ever had my WD so the pro's about that, its small and light, portable and it transfers pretty fast.. and the higher/better version of the one I have transfers even quicker! I've never caught a virus on it, though my cousins HD gave my laptop one lucky i got anti virus LOL as for the cons.. i wanted a white one but it only came in black or silver xD and... its actually not full 400 gb which annoys me, I dont know why they round UP.. it's total size is actually 372 gb. My bf's 1 tb one is only 930ish gb =\ and if I want to remove the usb connection with my laptop i have to safety remove otherwise if i re-connect it doesnt read and I have to restart my laptop O_O only happens to mine for some reason...

Ohh and warranty for mine is 3 yrs~

[j00n]

I've been a fan of the WD MyBook series for a while. They're cheap, fast enough, easy, and work both PC to Mac. I got the 1TB MyBook for $125, which is pretty amazing.

[19~28]

I use both WD passport and Mybooks since they're so good! Also your new laptop must have alot of crapware on it for it take 50 gigs of data. I suggest deleting it as it usually isn't that essential

[yoh]

*What good external hard drives or even portable ones are out there?/Is Toshiba, Western Digital, or Seagate any good? Pros & Cons please.
It's hard to say exactly because every brand has pros and cons but the more reliable ones for me are WD, Seagate, and LaCie. I have two portable WDs (a 250GB and a 500GB) , a 500GB and 1TB LaCie, and I just recently purchased a large 1.5TB Seagate, all of which have been efficient and tidy. One con about the 500GB LaCie is that it's a little slow during transfer in comparison to my portable WDs. But a problem with the WDs is that there's a limit to the file size that you transfer, such as 3GB files (this may be because they're portables). I've only had my Seagate for about two months and it's been working great.

* How long have your had yours?
2-3 years.

* Did you ever had to replace?
Nope.

* Did it break down on you yet?
Never.

* i CAN move files from here (desktop) TO my laptop with the help of an external HD right?
Yes.

[blackmagic911]

*I have 2 Western Digital and 1 Seagate drive. Both work fine, but the WD's run warmer than the Seagate and bit louder. Of course that all depends on the technology in the newer HD's.
*I've had my hard drives for 1 to 3 years
* I never had to replace a HD but i've had to replace the enclosure for one of them. The chip in it broke or something.
* Nearly all enclosures are USB's so you can easily copy data from desktop to laptop. There are other options such as firewire and eSATA.

[**lily**]

* What good external hard drives or even portable ones are out there?
- i have seagate freeagent go 500 gb

* How long have your had yours?
- maybe 4 months?

* Did you ever had to replace?
- no. and i hope not in a very long time! i've used my dad's external hard drive (which was also a seagate) back when portable external hard drives weren't that portable yet. and that one never bugged down on me. it was just big to carry around on trips.

* Did it break down on you yet?
- nope. it's my little friend.

* i CAN move files from here (desktop) TO my laptop with the help of an external HD right?
- yes. it's like a usb. only bigger capacity.

* Is Toshiba, Western Digital, or Seagate any good? Pros & Cons please
- toshiba is good. haven't tried wd. seagate is good.
the specs on mine: 5,400 RPM Spin Speed, 8 MB Cache Buffer | USB 2.0: up to 480 Mb/s | 5.1 x 3.2 x 0.5 inches ; 5.6 ounces | 5-year limited warranty
haven't encountered cons yet ~

[kaydeex]

removed~
removed~
removed~

[cluu1]

for me, i would get a random enclosure and buy a harddrive.

[刘尚明]

LaCie is pretty good:

http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=11062

[Stolen_waters]

^
I have La Cie too. It's working well, and I haven't had any problems since I bought it which was around 9 months ago.
I sometimes even forget to turn it off at night, so it would just run till morning.

[shortboy]

But a problem with the WDs is that there's a limit to the file size that you transfer, such as 3GB files (this may be because they're portables). I've only had my Seagate for about two months and it's been working great.

You may want to look into reformatting your external as NTFS. FAT or FAT32 has the 3gb (or whatever size) transfer limit.

I have a 160gb Seagate that I got for $50 when it was on sale back then. I want to say I've had it for 3-4 years now with no problems. As others have already said, Seagate's and WD's are the two that you want to look into. Buffalo's aren't that bad either.