Pros and cons about EXT Harddrives

[shawn stonbraker 2]

I'd like some pro's and con's about external harddrives. With some of the problems I've had these past years I want a place to store my files to put them back on after a wipe. I saw this one on E-Bay and the price isn't to bad, so if anyone has one of these let me know. All responses are welcome. Thanks in advance.

 

[Tom Schindler]

I have a 200 GB USB 2.0/Firewire EXT HDD for my laptop for satorage of large files, CD back-ups, MP3's, and videos. I really like it and glad I got it. (I have it connected via Firewire)



Theresa has a 120 GB USB 2.0 EXT she uses for all her eBay files. When we go somewhere, she brings her HDD with us so she has full access to her ebay photo's, stats, etc.



She loves it.



Both drives have performed flawless.





Tom

 

[John Mastrocco]

They are fine for backup - and even daily use.



But you can do better than ebay on price if you look around - especially when you factor in that $24 shipping fee.



Here's a 250GB from NewEgg - $3 three-day shipping and a $30 rebate.

 

[Kevin Palmer]

I've been looking into these as well.



The only real question I have is the difference between the fire wire and USB.



Is one better than the other???

 

[shawn stonbraker 2]

I have both, so it doesn't really matter. I use the Fire Wire to download my 5MB pics off the camera and it is a hell of alot faster than my regular USB ports. So I'd say the same probably for these.

 

[Cory Richards]

NewEgg is definately the place to buy from.

 

[TomT]

NewEgg or ZipZoomFly. You can also just buy an enclosure then put whatever internal hard drive you find on sale in it. That's what I did for my son's laptop. FireWire is faster if your computer has it but if the external HD is used mainly for backup or storage, either will do just fine.

 

[Tom Schindler]

Firewire is faster and I like the plugs better. They seem more secure when connected then USB does.





Tom

 

[Deleted deleted]

I had a few spare hard drives laying around, so I bought one of those enclosure kits to turn one into a external hard drive.



For backing up data files and pictures, they are awesome, but I wouldn't try running applications directly from them.

 

[Jacob Dryer]

Firewire is faster more consistantly than USB2.0 however in bursts USB2.0 will be faster. USB1.1 is significatly slower than firewire. I would recommend firewire if you have the ports, if you dont then usb2.0. If your usb's are only 1.1 then I would buy a firewire card to add firewire to the computer.



External harddrives are great but remeber they are still harddrives and can fail. If you have something that would cause you to cry if you lost it, you need to have it in more than one place.

 

[Austin Tatious]

outpost.com has some good specials.



If you can handle rebates: accomdata 160 gb firewire for $69.95 after $70 rebate. They have other drives too. I bought the 160 GB USB2 for $39.95 after rebate, but they seem to be out of them.

 

[Richard L]

I have used a variety of external HHD's for well over 10 years now. I still have a couple of old Kangaroo harddrive cases. One is a parallel port and the other uses a PCMCIA interface for a laptop. Both hold 3.5 EIDE drives and have a separe power supply.



About a year ago I purchased an aluminum 2.5" notebook USB2 drive case and installed a 40GB HHD in it and it works just fine



Firewire drives are faster but I don't have a firewire port on my Notebook. I have a desktop and a Notebook and I like the drives to be compatible with both computers.



The best choice would be a Firewire/USB drive. That's the best of both worlds.



...Rich

 

[Kelly Traylor]

If you have XP it will plug and play, but if you have 98 you will have to locate a driver. The EXT box I bought did not come with the 98 drivers and I gave up looking for them.

My main system uses XP so it works well with it.

If I have to hook a drive up to a 98 system I just open the case and "temp" install the drive.



Hope this helps,

KatManT