Hey all,

My PC's backup internal drive was about to die, so I managed to backup all the info I needed from it, and just a day later it is well and truly dead (good timing!), it was only an 80Gb drive, and I need far more space than that now, so I was looking at buying an external drive.

My problem is that I've never owned an external HDD so I've no idea what to look out for.

I will of course keep my internal to install applications/programs etc.

However, I would love to store music files / video files / pictures on the external HDD.

Everywhere I have looked online, they seem to give the impression that they are for backup. But as I listen to music most of the day, then obviously I want to play the files from the HDD, and not just sit there as storage.

Do external HDD's give you speed / buffering issues?

Money is also an issue, and so I was looking at either:

WD Elements 500Gb - 7.200 rpm - 8 MB Buffer - USB 2.0 - Buffer to host 480 MB/s

or

WD MyBook Essential Edition 500GB - 7.200 rpm - 16 MB Buffer - USB 2/0 - Search time 8.9ms

Any thoughts on either of these two?

Thanks!!

I have the MyBook Pro. Works just fine.

Make sure the version that you purchase includes backup/restore software. It works well.

I would not place programs on the drive. USB is not fast enough to support them.

But for movies, photos, songs, etc. It is great. All my video stuff goes on that drive. Actually I have another one to backup my main internal drive.

Enjoy!

use fire wire if u want performance for movies ertc

You cannot replace your internal drive with an external if that's what you're proposing. Windows won't boot from an external drive.

USB 2.0 is way faster than USB 1.x so as long as your PC supports USB 2.0 you'll be fine. I just bought a USB 2.0 external case for an existing 3.5" drive and the speed is comparable to the internal drive speed.

The 2.5" external drives are smaller but also slower. The same type as are used in laptops so if you want speed go for a 3.5" drive.

Just plug it into USB, format it and then it'll appear mounted as a new drive just like an internal drive. Backup software is not a must except if you want to make an image of your internal drive.

External HDD's are perfect for what you want - storing\watching movies, music, etc. I have two of them, both USB - a 320GB Toshiba, and a 500GB Lacie\Porsche, and although both work fine I prefer the Lacie. That said, the Toshiba has a small security partition that provides password protection for the rest of the drive, that some may find useful. Transfer rates, from internal to external, max out around 25MB\Sec, at least on my system. I haven't experienced any problems with buffering.

One mistake I made was to buy an external network hard drive. Although I'm fully aware of the limitations of home networking equipment, it just didn't work nearly as well as the USB externals. If you need to share data between computers, I think it's better to use a USB drive and just set up sharing on the machine it's attached to.

One last thing, if you're interested in the Toshiba, due to it's security features, be aware that if you're running Vista you will need to visit their website and install a software update to allow it to work correctly.

I got a sitecom md-250 network drive case. only 70 euros in dynabyte
just slap in any old ide harddrive.
it has 100mb n/w and usb also. I got it shoved in the meter cupboard plugged into wireless router.
it has browser config util and can set up separate user space
great place to shove all those pirate videos!

I hope someone has experience with this one http://www.freecom.com/news.asp?id=7308&catName=press

It's an ext. HDD but it's mostly meant as a multi-media player. It has a remote control, and depending on the version: HDMI to HDMI, USB, Composite, Ethernet, WLAN, Firewire and up to 1Tb of storage.
Dynabyte had a case for 119 euro's.

It's sounds very interesting for holding Multi-Media. I would like to connect it via USB or Composite to my TV (the HDMI version is a bit too expensive).

I wonder if the transfer rates would be enough to play movies directly to TV, especially HD movies.