External Hard Drive Recommendations.

[Ortiz]

What are some good external hard drives for under $300? I need one for storing my media files on. It has to work both with Mac and PC and have at least 250GB. Something with both FireWire 800 and USB 2.0. Oh and it should be reliable/long life. Thank you in advanced for those who reply to my question.

<3 µTorrent

[abbad0n]

Your parameters are too large.

1) As far as I know Firewire 800 is only for Macs (and at that not all models have the port), so your PC's would be limited to USB2 unless you have Firewire 400 port.

2) Are you OK with an external power supply if the drive doesn't have the ability to receive through the USB or Firewire ports? Also if your computer (not the enclosure) doesn't support power through the cable, you are definitely going to have to use it. I have one laptop that has a firewire 400 port, the enclosure has the same, but because the laptop won't support power through it, I have to use an external PS with it.

3) Are you talking 2.5" (laptop) or 3.5" (desktop) hard drive? Do you need it to have a minimum transfer speed?

4) Are you looking for a prepackaged unit, or are you open to getting components seperately and put them together yourself?

I found some links to sites on google searching for ["firewire 800" usb external enclosure] but a more detailed search might be more fruitful.

Good luck.

[Ortiz]

I need one for travel from house to house so it doesn't matter if it needs a power supply. I also don't mind if I have to put it together myself. I would like something with a warrenty you know... PCs can have firewire 800 on them and its backwards compatiable to firewire 400, thats the same with USB 2.0.

My situation is I need extra storage for media, but I do not want to have it stuck inside one computer. I'm getting a Mac and I use a PC as well so I need it to work with both. I move from house to house and I need to take my files with me. I don't need one of those powered by computer drives (power supply is fine).

Thank you for replying back abbad0n.

[abbad0n]

Hmm... I've never seen a stock PC come with Firewire800, although I've seen the adaptor boards you can install...

As for ones premade (which I've never used, so can't say how good they are):

Iomega: http://shopper.cnet.com/Iomega_External_Hard_Drive_FireWire_800_FireWire_400_USB_250GB/4014-3186_9-31119038.html

Lacie: http://www.lacie.com/products/p_comparison.htm?id=10029&pid=10058

For putting together your own, find an enclosure you like, a hard drive that will fit it, and remember to fill out the warranty (that includes the premades).

And if money isn't an object and you want to go full out, try Network Addressable Storage (NAS) using something like what I use, a ReadyNAS NV (http://infrant.com/). Has a nice strong handle on the back that makes it easy to carry between locations and supports gigabit ethernet (way faster then Firewire). Bought a barebones, then got the hard drives I wanted (at a lower price) elsewhere. Lots and lots of room for media files. :cool: