Which external HDD to buy?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I need to reformat and want to back up my data first, ergo the purchase of an extermal drive.

I know nothing of these things. Do they all connect with USB?

Any brands/models that are recommended, or which are to be avoided?

2

You cannot go wrong with Seagate or Western Digital hard drives.

I’m partial to Seagate, mainly because of their warranty and no need to ever exercise the warranty.

3

Buy an enclosure just for a HD and use a cheaper internal drive in it. Yes on the USB

4

I don’t recommend the Western Digital MyBook. Lots of people have a problem where the files seem to disappear and the drive becomes unusable until you disconnect/reconnect it. It’s not the drive itself that’s the problem, but it somehow triggers a bug in Windows. Either way, it’s pretty useless if you experience the problem (not everyone does, but enough people do to make it not worth the gamble).

5

I have this Seagate external drive. I have had it for maybe a year and it has done everything I need it to. The only problem I have had (and I am not sure if ANY external HDD will fix this, is that I keep all my music on the drive and stream via Winamp the music straight from there. And often times if it’s idle for awhile and I click play my computer will lock up for 2 or 3 seconds while the external HDD spins up. But, like I said, I don’t know if any would fix this and it isn’t that big of a deal anyways.

6

FWIW I have a WD Passport; it seems to work reasonably well.

7

Hmm. I’ve had a WD MyBook for about eight months and have had no problem with lost data, thank goodness, but I’m constantly disconnecting and reconnecting the thing (Thanks for not including an on/off switch WD), so I’m constantly worried something like that will happen. It is very good for back-ups and general storage, and quick.

I wouldn’t touch a Seagate drive with a ten-foot pole, but I’m still in shock from the massive problems Seagate had with their drives in the late '90s. Their products may be better now, but I’ve lost too many Seagate drives to crashes to care to try them again.

8

That’s what I did with a drive from a dead computer. When I first bought the one I’m using now, I also got a MyBook to easily transfer files from the other (now dead) one.