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External hard-drives... ? good deals? internal drive in an enclosure?

BrettM

BrettM

NAXJA Forum User
Location
michifornia
My 60gb drive is getting near full and I want to get an external, 100gb would probably be fine, but of course the more the merrier. I probably don't need anything too fancy or fast, but I'm not sure of what features to look for besides storage. I'm looking to spend under $100, BestBuy has an 100gb on sale for $80 (http://bestbuy.shoplocal.com/bestbu...2811&pagenumber=8&rapid=271769&prvid=052106ba)

Also, I've seen the enclosures to put internal drives in and it seems that comes out cheaper, any concerns?

Anyone know of any good deals online?

Thanks.
 
i was in the same situation i went to staples and found a 100g for 90 a 200g for 100 and a 300g for 129 with a $30 mail in rebate so for $10 dollars more than the 100g i got a 300g. those kinds of deals are all over. pricewatch.com is a good place to look for computer stuff cheep.
 
Why are you dead set on external? Personally I demand internal unless it absolutely has to be portable (unless we're talking SCSI - but I know you're not.) Performance is important to me.

The only external drive I have (aside from 73 gigs of U160 SCSI scratch space) is my iPod for music and shuffling files between home and work (doubles as external drive - currently I have about 28 gigs free on it).

Sequoia
 
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BrettM said:
I have a laptop, I don't think there are any cheap internal options. correct?
Click to expand...

You is correct- shy of upgrading the internal drive and transfering everything over...

Now I would run the un-essential files off the external device. Your music and stuff could go on there. Try to keep the larger files and in particular the stuff you're working on a lot (especially if you're doing any photo / video work) on the internal drive as the performance is much better there.
 
GSequoia said:
You is correct- shy of upgrading the internal drive and transfering everything over...

Now I would run the un-essential files off the external device. Your music and stuff could go on there. Try to keep the larger files and in particular the stuff you're working on a lot (especially if you're doing any photo / video work) on the internal drive as the performance is much better there.
Click to expand...
that's the plan, music (where most of my memory has gone) and backups on the external. I probably won't even have it connected most of the time. I have a 30gb Creative player that I listen to music off of, so I don't need any music on my hard-drive, but I don't want to only have it in one location incase something breaks or gets lost.
 
I run a pair of 20Gb 2.5"FF EIDE drives in USB external enclosures, and they work well for me. I've got a 60Gb in my ThinkPad, and the "pocket" drives make it easier to move large chunks of data from machine to machine.

Check around tho - depending on what model laptop you have, you may be able to get an "internal drive bay" - I've also got those for my ThinkPad, and they're noticeably quicker than USB. Since my wife and I both have ThinkPads (T20 and T30,) they make it a LOT easier to swap back and forth, especially since it's a "driverless" install...

5-90
 
GSequoia said:
Why are you dead set on external? Personally I demand internal unless it absolutely has to be portable (unless we're talking SCSI - but I know you're not.) Performance is important to me.

The only external drive I have (aside from 73 gigs of U160 SCSI scratch space) is my iPod for music and shuffling files between home and work (doubles as external drive - currently I have about 28 gigs free on it).

Sequoia
Click to expand...

Good Point G, get a 60GB iPod and run double duty. I've got 5000 songs on mine and I have 40GB of free space.

Fawk EIDE/SATA. SCSI is the ONLY way to go when it comes to internal HDs ;)
 
cracker said:
Good Point G, get a 60GB iPod and run double duty. I've got 5000 songs on mine and I have 40GB of free space.

Fawk EIDE/SATA. SCSI is the ONLY way to go when it comes to internal HDs ;)
Click to expand...

Yeah, but it's a little difficult to find laptops running SCSI-anything... Besides, one of the key points of SCSI is easy expandability - when was the last time you saw a laptop with six drive bays?

Desktops, on the other hand... Next desktop I build is going to have a SCSI case setup IN it or NEXT to it. I don't have a RAID card, but I've got a few SCSI cards laying about doing nothing...

5-90
 
5-90 said:
Yeah, but it's a little difficult to find laptops running SCSI-anything... Besides, one of the key points of SCSI is easy expandability - when was the last time you saw a laptop with six drive bays?

Desktops, on the other hand... Next desktop I build is going to have a SCSI case setup IN it or NEXT to it. I don't have a RAID card, but I've got a few SCSI cards laying about doing nothing...

5-90
Click to expand...

Yeah. I think the older Apple laptops might have had SCSI HDs but for most everyone we are stuck with EIDE until Samsung releases their half solid-state half traditional hard drive to increase performance and battery life (just a huge cache before read and write). That should be interesting.

Key to a good desktop, a 15,000rpm boot/app drive and a Raid 5 array for data ;)
 
Screw those toys, 300 gig PFFFFFFT
This is what you want
http://www.apple.com/xserve/raid/

Or this one that you can grow as you go
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811219014

Something cheaper if you have a big enough case this goes in the top end of a tower
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817121404

GB indeed, TB, now thats worth talking about...
Go with a seagate, they have a 5 year warranty on them, blow off bestbuy and most local stores, hit newegg....
 
im running a 60gig laptop HDD in an external case. its usb 2.0 and works pretty good. i spent aroung 70 bucks on the whole setup. only draw back is i wish i had gone with a bigger HDD.
 
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