external hardrive

[losixxx]

well after coming back from holiday and downloading a few hundred pic's:lol: i found my 40gb (:woot:) hard drive full, so looking for an external one

does anyone have any recommendations or link's to good cheap one's??

thanks

[Southwell]

USB powered or mains powered, 2.5" or 3.5"?

[VintageRacer]

eBuyer are pretty cheap for that kind of thing. I've used them for various bits in the past and found them to reliable.

http://www.ebuyer.com

[losixxx]

USB powered or mains powered, 2.5" or 3.5"?

basically just to store pic's on so don't really know.....usb i would imagine but not sure on 2.5 or 3.5

[bigred5765]

just got in from shopping aldi have some 250gb ones think they were 40-50 quid

[losixxx]

can you plug external hd up to 2 dif pc's say a desktop and laptop?

[Rich D]

Yes you can but the external USB ones have their own power supply :)

I got a Western Digital USB external drive from eBuyer this week

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/136212

Click the video link and all is explained clearly enough :)

[jimmy]

2.5inch drives are more portable and are powered by the USB wire - 3.5 drives are a lot bulkier and require an additional power supply. Both work on USB of course.
Not sure if you'd be easily able to hook the drive up to use on both computer at the same time - you could get a crossover network cable and create a simple network with the external drive on one PC and share it out. ?

I have a 400gb maxtor 3.5inch external which I lug about to big meetings - bit of an arse but the 2.5 drives are more expensive and of course smaller in capacity.

[losixxx]

cheer's, won't be lugging it around with me just for home use so will probably go for the 3.5
thanks for the link rich, does look good

[Rich D]

Your welcome mate :thumbsup:

[Southwell]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Digital-Elements-500GB-External/dp/B000OS54TA/ref=sr_1_34?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1216329017&sr=8-34

[ashleyb4]

Check out maplins i got a newsletter and they had agood deal on a500 one.


A

[bigred5765]

http://www.microdirect.co.uk/ProductInfo.aspx?ProductID=37719&source=MDnewsletter
just found this 500gb 51 quid

[Richard Lowe]

can you plug external hd up to 2 dif pc's say a desktop and laptop?
Do you have a router for your internet connection?

If you do you need whats called a NAS (Network Attached Storage) box. You can get a ready made one >here< (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-126-WD&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=707&name=Western%20Digital%20MyBook%20World%20500GB%20 Gigabit%20Ethernet%20NAS%20Hard%20Drive%20(WDG1NC5 000E)), or you could buy one of >these< (http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=97390&criteria=nas&doy=25m7) and put whatever IDE hard drive you want in :)

[mark christopher]

Do you have a router for your internet connection?

If you do you need whats called a NAS (Network Attached Storage) box. You can get a ready made one >here< (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-126-WD&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=707&name=Western%20Digital%20MyBook%20World%20500GB%20 Gigabit%20Ethernet%20NAS%20Hard%20Drive%20(WDG1NC5 000E)), or you could buy one of >these< (http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=97390&criteria=nas&doy=25m7) and put whatever IDE hard drive you want in :)
rich does that allow you to access it from any computor?

[Richard Lowe]

Yep :)

The maplin box has an FTP server built in so you can access your files over the internet if you set your router up properly, not sure if the WD drive has FTP though.

[losixxx]

Do you have a router for your internet connection?

If you do you need whats called a NAS (Network Attached Storage) box. You can get a ready made one >here< (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-126-WD&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=707&name=Western%20Digital%20MyBook%20World%20500GB%20 Gigabit%20Ethernet%20NAS%20Hard%20Drive%20(WDG1NC5 000E)), or you could buy one of >these< (http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=97390&criteria=nas&doy=25m7) and put whatever IDE hard drive you want in :)

i don't at the moment but will do soon, 99.9% of the time it will be plugged up to my main home pc as thats only got a 40g hard drive and i've filled 38g:thumbsup: and keep getting error message to empty some of it.

do i still need the NAS box if the hardrive is connected to the pc, i won't need to access it via the internet connection!

[super__dan]

Sorry to crash Chris thread but I'm in a similair position, well I just want an external drive to back my laptop up to. My HD is 80gig and no where near full so I really don't need anything very big. I don't download much off the internet or anything, it's just to backup what I've got.

So if anyone has a second hand one they would want to get rid of (cheap goes without saying) then please let me know and we'll sort something out.

[losixxx]

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/6756224/c_1/1%7Ccat_10198997%7CHard+drives+and+data+storage%7C 10199109/Trail/searchtext%3EHARD+DRIVE.htm

just seen this and look's good value with 2gb flash as well.
has anyone got this make or used them at all???

[Southwell]

Maxtor arn't the best about but ive never had any problems with them.

[losixxx]

Maxtor arn't the best about but ive never had any problems with them.
in what way? i purely want it to store photo's nought else, oh maybe a bit of porn now and again:thumbsup:

[jimmy]

I had a problem with a maxtor drive once and they were awesome - I got it from pcworld and couldn't be bothered taking it back, maxtor sent me one out just from phoning them, then paid the postage to send mine back..

Anyway, my external drive happens to be a maxtor as well, and it's been good. no complaints. doesn't do anything fancy, just works.

[losixxx]

guess i will check my nectar points and give argooooos a visit, cheers for the help peeps:thumbsup:

[Richard Lowe]

The Maxtor drives of old are gone now Seagate has bought them, all the latest Maxtor's are Seagate with a different sticker.

We have had a few Seagate drives going belly up recently at work though, which would never have happened a couple of years ago. Western Digital make the best consumer drives at the moment IMO, I don't think I've seen a single dead one in the last couple of years. Their latest drives are nice and quiet and fast too.

[ben]

oh maybe a bit of porn now and again:thumbsup:

:o:eh?::eh?::woot::woot::thumbsup::thumbsup::drool :

[losixxx]

after reading richard's comment's just ordered the western 500gb from ebuyer

:thumbsup:

[losixxx]

just got my 500GB HD installed it but im a little confused

its only showing 465GB and 99% FREE, so where my other 35GB bloody gone???:o

[Alan1467]

That sounds about right you loose some when you format a drive I have 2 500's and they both say 479 free

[losixxx]

my pc im plugging up too is only 40GB yet ive lost nearly that just by plugging up my new one, bloody crazy might phone em up tomorrow and ask for some money off :woot:

your's is still 14GB more than mine though.....

do you need to defrag the HD same as normal pc?

[JCJC]

This is standard stuff, the drives appear less than you expect, its to do with giggabits and giggabytes...........or something. Don't worry you should have trouble filling it up, but if you do you can get another one !

[Richard Lowe]

In a real gigabyte there are 1024Mb, but hard drive manufacturers call a gigabyte 1000Mb :(

I've 'lost' 122Gb on my server lol :woot: