I am at the point where I need to purchase an external hard drive. I will use it to store disk images to backup my PC. I am hoping to spend $100 or less. Walmart sells a Western Digital 500GB external for about $100. But I worry about longevity of the drive. Any suggestions? Also, I read a review where one person suggested reformatting the hard drive from FAT 32 to NFTS so that it can accomodate large files. I don't even know what that means, but should I do it if I buy this product? PS...My PC has a c drive that has 194 GB free out of 224 GB. The D drive (recovery) has 995 MB free of 8.83 GB. Thank yoiu in advance for your input!
134 Reviews http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16822136175 FAT32 supports file size up to 4gig, if your backup images are larger than 4gig you'll need NTFS- (you could split the images in sections ?).
All my externals are formatted with NTFS, it's suppose to be more reliable and your files can be larger (example each individual file can be larger than 4gb, If you do backups and your backup is a single 10gb file that will fit on your NTFS drive, on a FAT32 drive that 10gb file needs to be split into smaller "less than 4gb" size files). As long as you are using windows xp or vista, it will recognize the NTFS external, some of the older OS won't recognize it. If you have windows 95/98/ME you might just leave it FAT32. I've never encountered a situation or reason that required me to go back to FAT32. Western digital is a good brand hard drive. The only thing with externals is you need to keep them cool. If you just need to turn it on copy some files over, and then turn it off it shouldn't get too hot. If you plan on leaving it on all the time, that's when you need to get an external with a built-in fan. You can also just point a room fan on it, which is what I do when I have to leave it on for long periods of time. Any air blowing on it will keep it cool especially if it has one of those metal cases. As long as you don't drop it, and don't keep it on all the time (without cooling) they will last a long time. Some of my externals are 3 years old.
Thank you very much for the input. I think I am going to go with Seagate instead. Their probably isn't much difference but: 1. The seagate comes with NFTS...don't have to reformat 2. 5 year warranty gives me more conmfidence than WD's 1 year
- takes very little time to reformat as ntfs, so that should not be a consideration - i've never had a problem with a couple WD external harddrives that i own. My only comment is they seem to be loud (fan, I guess), but I've never done a side-by-side comparison, with other brands. mine are a couple of years old - you have a lot of unused space on your c drive. Maybe you should consider partitioning it and using 175 gig of that for storing more data
That's a great idea. Can Paragon Drive Backup partition my hard drive? I have only beginner to moderate computer skills.
I'm not familiar with Paragon products - I'm guessing the answer is no, but I'm sure someone else can give a more definitie answer. Again, I am guessing, but you'd probably need Paragon Partition Manager.
I have a couple of the Western Digital MYBOOK external USB drives. They work fine. I actually like them better than some of the others because they come with their own power supply; it doesn't load your computers power supply. I also use Paragon Drive Backup, and it addresses the USB drives fine. I just don't know about repartitioning though. To just reformat it as NTFS is trivial under VISTA or XP. Just select the drive, choose "Format" and it will give you format options.
Personally I prefer Seagate...I've had a few problems with WDs. If you can afford it have one with a fan - I never buy one without a fan or other cooling tech. Last one I bought was the 1TB Freeagent(Seagate) for my media and works very well on the network, came with a 5yr guarantee!
Hardware does'nt matter,your personal files matter,it depend on your backup strategy to stay safe but thats is another story.No money or guarantee in the world can help you if your backup routine fail.
True, but some hardware obviously can better than other hardware and I'm just saying I prefer Seagate because of experience and whatever you buy, include cooling - that I feel is important.
Hello, I have used only WD for all purposes in the last 7 years, they work like charm, touch wood, pray to heathen gods ... Including external 2 x 500GB, 1 x 250GB and 1 x160GB. They work fine, hold up to heat and spin down when not in use. I warmly recommend them. Mrk
