woodyprint
newbie
Reged: 23/08/2006
Posts: 22
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I'm thinking about getting an external hard drive to back up my photos etc. I like the sound of Western Digital My Book as I gather it plus into a usb port and runs on the pc's power. Anybody got suggestions that this is a good choice?
Thanks
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Panda_
enthusiast
Reged: 17/06/2008
Posts: 202
Loc: South Wales
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I've always bought a freecom 500GB external drive. Only problem with is you need to plug it into a socket, so doesn't run off the PSU.
Reliable and fast enough anyway 
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My Flickr account.
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LargeFormat
old hand
Reged: 24/10/2006
Posts: 948
Loc: Buckinghamshire and Cumbria
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Any of the known makes are OK. Buy LaCie and you don't actually know who supplies the insides. You need to decide whether you need the portability of a 2.5" drive with its attendant higher cost or the better value in Gb/£ of a 3.5" drive. Only the former will run off the USB power and generally have a split plug to go into two sockets to get power from both. 3.5" drives require a power supply. Also you may want to consider the interface. It can be USB2, Firewire 400 or Firewire 800 the last being the fastest if that matters with price premiums across the range.
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Scphoto
Little Fruitbat
Reged: 13/11/2005
Posts: 2384
Loc: Birmingham, UK
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Quote:
I'm thinking about getting an external hard drive to back up my photos etc. I like the sound of Western Digital My Book as I gather it plus into a usb port and runs on the pc's power. Anybody got suggestions that this is a good choice?
Thanks
Not too sure if new MyBooks run off USB only. The last few I've had experience with required a separate PSU.
I have my own MyBook and it's always been fine, only issue is it's capacity is too small for my needs (now used as a Time-Machine backup for my Mac).
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Happiness is a Kebab call donor - Pictures/Blog
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deddard
newbie
Reged: 11/03/2008
Posts: 40
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Western Digital, Seagate, Lacie are amongst the top.
Interface is a matter of preference and availability.
If you have a modern machine with SATA disks, you may want to find out if you have the ability to use ESATA external disks - faster than anything else as they plug directly into the SATA control system
Other than that, FIrewire 800 or USB2 is the way to go.
3.5inch for desktops, plus a 2.5inch portable with a good sized disk.
3.5" disks are cheap, even the ESATA versions when compared to the 2.5", but do go for as big a disk as you can afford to get - you will use it!
One of the beauties of External disks is that you can backup and then leave the disk with someone else - off-site backup is great for peace of mind.
Edited by deddard (17/07/2008 23:14)
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woodyprint
newbie
Reged: 23/08/2006
Posts: 22
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Thanks for the postings. You've given me food for thought. I really want an external drive and will try for a good size of memory as too small amount would be false economy.
Thanks again.
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