Looking to buy an External Harddrive
 

I'd really like to get an external harddrive to store my endless supply of crap on. Any recommendations? I'm a cheap bastard, but I need about 50 gigs at least.

I'd recommend an internal one, but heres an external one. http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Weste...oductDetail.do

Get a regular ATA Hard Drive and an External Enclosure. Much cheaper and Much more durable (i.e. you can easily replace the drive if it dies)

My suggestion is to buy an internal hard drive and an enclosure; not both in the same package. That way you have options. I recommend firewire enclosures over USB if you can, because it's faster.

Also, you should go bigger than 50GB. You'll spend about $40-50 bucks on a hard drive that small, where for twice the price you can get a hard drive that's perhaps six times as large.

How do I know whether I can use firewire on my computer(laptop) or not??

If you have the port or not, I guess.
http://mediaworks.it.northwestern.ed...s-firewire.jpg

A lot of computers don't have one. For example, strangely, a 500MHz Pentium 3 PC of mine has one, but my new computer doesn't have one at all.

I have three external USB enclosures and they work fine. I don't really need firewire; it's not as if having a USB enclosure is undesirably slower. The speed difference is only apparent when copying several gigabytes of data. For storing files, an external enclosure is fine.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...asp?CatId=1204

Also, if I had to recommend a brand of drive, I'd go with Seagate. Maxtors are a lot cheaper, but also have a very short warranty and are more prone to failure outside of a year for that very reason. If I'm not mistaken, Seagates have a five year warranty; your drive will most likely be obsolete before it breaks.

http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16817146312

This is what I put my last HD in and it works great for me. I like it's small size too...great for taking it with me.

This drive will work with IDE drives and it states it can handle up to 400GB.

And considering the cost of an 80GB HD to a 250GB HD, go as big as you can afford. Looking on NewEgg, the 80GB was about $50 and the 250GB was about $100. You do the math.

*Comparisons were of Maxtor HDs, 7200RPM IDE.

Okay so... I buy the Enclosure, and I can plug any harddrive into the Enclosure, and the enclosure attaches to the computer via firewire/usb. Right???

I own this
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822173004

and

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822154613

both are great

Whenever I need extra space I'm usually quite happy with LaCie products. I have their 250GB Mac mini external as well as another model. Also, I totally agree with using FireWire, or if your computer doesn't have the port, try for USB 2.0.

Correct, as long as it's a HD that the enclosure works with. So don't buy an enclosure that works with IDE drives then buy an SATA drive.

Are those the only two variables? IDE/SATA? The two main ones at least? I don't even know what IDE and SATA are :(

IDE(40 PIN)
http://www.knudde.be/ide_vs_scsi/ide.jpeg

SATA (7PIN) (1.5 GB/S; 3.0 GB/s)

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/sata2.jpg