Advice on Maxtor & Seagate External Hard Drives

I'm shopping for advice fm this forum on external hard drive to provide for full system backups for my Dell XPS. I've read spec's on the Seagate, Maxtor, Western Digital & Omega. My built in hard drive is 120gb so I probably wouldn't consider anything lower than 80gb. Any recommendations?

 

Like the other person who replied, I've "stuck" with one brand pretty much exclusively, namely Maxtor.

Excellent, reliable hard drives from both Maxtor, Seagate, Western Digital.

As far as External vs. Internal, yes you will pay more for External, but you can "install" it more easily (ie, without opening your computer case), you can take it to another computer to share files, etc.

I've been considering a new Maxtor 200 or 250 gig "One Touch" external drive.
The prices for the 200 gig Maxtor OneTouch have been around $299 (US) but you can occassionally find even better deals. The Maxtor models have USB2.0 and Firewire, for connections, and a button to push to do a full backup using the included software.

In any case, whether you choose internal or external, buy the largest and fastest you can find.

 

External Hard Drive

As always...appreciate the rapid response. Considered the external drive merely because I felt more comfortable not having a drive internal and risk an anomoly like losing important data in the whole machine. At least the external would be outside & separte. Does that make any sense? Yes...I like the one button feature of the Maxtor also. You say get the biggest, fastest I can get. Even if my machine is 120gig's, I could do well with a 200 gig drive? Can you partition an external drive to store backups & say photo's & music?

 

Sure, you can partition the drive. If you like to use it to backup/store pics and music files, you will use all the space eventually, anyway

BTW, on drives of this size, partitioning is a good idea anyway. Helps to cut down on "fragmentation contagion"
Smaller block sizes, more efficient use of the drive, can improve throughput with reads and writes.

 

Like MA, I don't want to get off track of your original question, but just something to think about. I read an article not long ago about the "pros and cons" of external hardrives, like you kind of thinking about it. The article listed all the good things and bad, but what caught my attention and something I never considered was theft.

I changed my mind and just installed an extra HDD. Steve

 

External Hard Drive

Never thought about theft Steve...good point!

 

theft is definitely a possible.

also keep in mind, an external drive is less "secure" from physical damage.
In other words, dont throw it in your backpack and bounce it around.

 

do you know where the article is located? i've got a friend considering an external drive to use as back up for his laptop. so i know he doesn't have any other options, but it would give him more information about external drives in general.

 

External Drive

Is there anything else I should know such as...if I buy the 300 gb Maxtor external, would I need any other periphal stuff like a cooling fan etc. Or...can it be used right out of the box?

 

it can be used right out of the box, no need to get any fans or anything like that, the hdd's don't run extremely hot anyway and the Maxtors come with all the cables etc you need.
One thing I would advice is to get something like a steel cable with a lock so you can at least decrease the possibilty of someone stealing it.

 

External Drive

Thanks Fleppen...good idea. Any difference btwn external drive connection being a firewire connection or a USB connection? Is one better?

 

I will look for it tonight, it's in one of the computer magazines I get. Steve

 

xtor external drive using either Firewire or USB?

I noticed that my firewire cable is thicker than the USB cable. I've heard that using the USB connection provides a little more visual quickness in the backup but in physical terms the backup goes a little slower. With a Firewire connection, the backup goes a bit faster. What is the real scoup here?