I need recommendations for external hard drives.  I know nothing about them but I do know that I need one and soon!  I'm hoping to stay in the $100 and under in price range.  I also shoot in RAW if that makes any difference in speed and storage capacity.

Thanks!

 Kelly
 

The My Books from Western Digital are pretty good and you can get a 160GB one for about 70 dollars.

Either that or you can buy an external enclosure separately, buy a 3.5inch drive and make your own. The advantage to this is you can easily swap out drives if you want to upgrade later, keep close watch on what type of enclosure you buy and the hard drive though. There are the EIDE enclosures and drives and the SATA enclosures and drives.

There are also 4 different types of connections right now, USB1, USB2, Firewire 400 and Firewire 800, USB1 is all but out of here, but you may want to make sure that the enclosure or external hard drive is USB2. USB2 and Firewire 400 are nearly identical in speed, so it's your preference. Firewire 800 is very fast, I've clocked my firewire 800 external at almost the same speed as my EIDE internal. It's probably important to note that unless you have a pretty new media PC, firewire does not come standard with PCs, you'll need to buy a card and install it, also firewire 400 and 800 are different in connectors and prices, also if your PC currently has USB 1, then you won't see the speed in the USB 2 device, so you'll need to buy a USB 2 card to install.

Either way you go, I'd be careful about relying on one hard drive as a backup solution. The drive will eventually fail. It's a great temp storage area until you copy to DVD/CD, but not for a permanent solution. If you want it more permanent, you might want to invest in the RAIDed externals. 

Thanks Guys and Gals!  Your the Best! 

Happy Holidays!

 Kelly
 

buy.com

320 gb Mybook for 99.00 after google checkout..

 (got mine last week)

merryxmas

gtrman:

buy.com

320 gb Mybook for 99.00 after google checkout..

 (got mine last week)

merryxmas

Awesome!  I'm glad I waited.  This deal sounds excellent.  Thanks!   

   I  picked up 2- 250gb My Book drives from Western digital.  (External)  They were on sale day after Thanksgiving for about $70-80.   There are 2 versions of the My Book.  The one with green is lower cost but uses USB 2.  Be sure your computer has USB 2 or you will need to add a card.  The second one which has blue packaging has USB 2 or firewire.  I got the cheaper green one since it was on sale for such a good price.  Internal drives are cheaper, if you can install yourself.  You can also buy an internal drive & enclose it in a external box that is available at most stores like Best Buy, Circuit City etc.

Traz

Traz:

   I  picked up 2- 250gb My Book drives from Western digital.  (External)  They were on sale day after Thanksgiving for about $70-80.   There are 2 versions of the My Book.  The one with green is lower cost but uses USB 2.  Be sure your computer has USB 2 or you will need to add a card.  The second one which has blue packaging has USB 2 or firewire.  I got the cheaper green one since it was on sale for such a good price.  Internal drives are cheaper, if you can install yourself.  You can also buy an internal drive & enclose it in a external box that is available at most stores like Best Buy, Circuit City etc.

Traz

Taz, how do I know if I have a USB 2?  

And to piggyback on my previous question, Does anyone have any recommendations for a CD and/or DVD Burner?  Thanks! 

I have a collection of external HDs (6, so far) that I use for backup.  My backup/archive strategy is as follows:

- Create 2 sets of DVDs (primary/backup)

- Create two sets of HD backups (primary /backup)

Store the primary at the house and the backup at the office.  Rotate them on a regular basis.

Anal?  Perhaps. But better safe than sorry.

I find the best deals on a web site called edealinfo.com.  Check them out.  If you're willing to play teh rebate game, some of the deals they publish are definately worth it.

I know this is a lot more then what you wanted to pay but if you are in business professionally you need good equipment. I use the below.

http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=270