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Online Reviews: External Hard Drives

Do YOU Have a Back Up Plan?

If not, it’s like driving without insurance. Sooner or later, it’s going to come back and bite you!

I was really surprised at what I found...you will be, too.

Recently I was shopping for an external hard drive to not only back up several years of hard work, but to store thousands of pictures that would be devastating to lose. What I found out was very disturbing!

 

Using my standard procedure* for researching a new product that I wanted to buy, I found it fairly easy to narrow down the choices for hard drives to two major brands: Western Digital and Seagate. There were several other brands that would be worthy, but I wanted to be sure I found a tried and true place for my precious data and pictures.

 

I spend about 60-70 hours a week online, so I know a little about computers, but I’m definitely not a computer techie. So when the reviews I was reading suggested putting in an additional hard drive inside my computer, it was an instant NO. Besides, we’re talking laptaps here.

 

Now, I plan on letting you in on the top hard drives and the absolute cheapest way to buy them, but you need to know this critical piece of information. External hard drives are known for crashing. Not a single model review was read that there wasn’t someone that had lost all their data at some point. Ouch.

 

So what it really came down to at many of the review sites and forum discussions were the two brands mentioned above, and most importantly...who had the longest warrantees!

 

Consumer Reports even says that for valuable information external hard drives were not reliable. So I started looking into online back up services, assuming it was going to be costly.

 

Surprisingly, online back up services are really reasonable, with several offering free (limited) service. If you are planning on adding data on a regular basis, a free trial won’t work very well for you, but at an average of just $5/month, it’s not going to break the bank.

 

How much space do I need?

1GB holds about 250 songs, 285 digital pictures and thousands, if not tens of thousands of text files. 40 GB will accommodate over 10,000 songs and 11,400 digital images.

 

What is the difference between portable and not-portable (desktop)?

Aside from the obvious, portable external hard drives are more durable, but significantly slower. The Western Digital “My Passport” is a cute little hard drive that isn’t much bigger than a paperback book.

 

Do I need a eSATA, Firewire or USB 2.0 connection?

That largely depends on your computer. The eSATA (external serial ATA) and Firewires will transfer your data much faster than a standard USB port, if your computer doesn’t have the ports for these, then it’s a moot point. You can adapt your computer with a special card for the eSATA, but the port is still not designed for the speed, so it won’t really be that much more beneficial. USB transfer can be excruciating slow, but I don’t see why you can’t set it up and go find other things to do for awhile.

 

Comparing the top 3 online services:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s what we found for external hard drive deals:(all of these are with a USB connection) Last updated: -Nov 08

 

Western Digital My Book Essential, with 320 GB found for $86.52, or a 500GB for $89.99.  Walmart had some great after T-day sales on these for around $69, but after searching, Amazon had the best price through Tiger Direct-cheaper than going to TD’s actual site! Really reasonable shipping, too! *It looks like it only has a one year warranty on this one. Currently, they have a $5 Mp3 music download bonus with this purchase.

 

Seagate Free Agent 500GB - The Seagate Free Agent Go and the Free Agent PRO were consistently reviewed as the top EHDrives, mainly due to their reliability AND the 5 year warranty. I didn’t see much difference between the GO and the PRO, so here’s the link to one on Amazon that’s only $85.99.

 

If you are looking for a cute portable hard drive for a gift, the Western Digital Passport (the one that the size of a paperback book) comes in a variety of colors and looks sharp. You might find a sale on these before Christmas, because they are really popular, but the best price I found was $96.99 on Amazon.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

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