OT: Buying a new computer, need an external hard drive

Any one have any suggestions? Mostly gonna be used to back up music, photos, and some games maybe.

Mini drives are good for backing things up and nowadays you can get several hundred gigs on a drive. But, if you want to be more selective in what you carry with you, CD's and DVD's are great for backing up and most computers already have a CD burner. DVD's hold nearly 5 gigs, which is a lot.

Dave

Yeah I definitely want a hard drive. I have a couple gigs of songs and a butt load of pictures. Looking for a 60-100G external. From what I have seen the Westerns seem to be the front runner.

There's a brand called Buffalo here in Japan that's popular. The price of 60-100 gig should be pretty economical now and probably about the size of a pack of cigs (gigs & cigs?).

Western Digitals are pretty good. I have one I like a lot. One thing to keep in mind though. You mentioned you wanted 60-100gb of space. One thing to keep in mind is that you'll always be adding more pics and whatnot, so more space is better. I usually check to see how much a drive is per GB of space. I was checking out Best Buy Western Digital drives... 60gb - $ 90 bucks or about $1.50 a gb 120gb - $127bucks or $1.05 a gb 160gb - $152 buck  or %.95 a gb Basically you can get more bang for your buck by getting the bigger drives. I'm using a 300gb drive I got for about 200 bucks and it's awesome.  Just an idea for ya.

Thomas, I have had great luck with LaCie drives (www.LaCie.com). Some of them are a tad pricey, but they are great products with excellent customer service. I've been running some of them for years with no problems. Doug

I just saw an ad in the newspaper Comp USA has an external drive on sale $60 for a 160gig USB, that price is after a $70 rebate. It is a Maxtor. Woody

Maxtor is another one that's big/ cheap here in Japan (Probably made in a developing country somewhere).

It is good to put as much as you can on something beside your main C: drive. I've heard that when the main drive gets more than 20% full, the computer slows down considerably.

Dave

Dave, I think you mean that when the drive is fragmented more than 20% it slows down. Less than 20% free space is not ideal either but depending on the size of the drive, it can be more than enough. As for an external drive, it depends on your budget. I have 3 of them ranging from 160G to 500G and am satisfied with all 3. The 500G is a Western Digital IBook I paid 259$ (for music & pic & home PC backup) The 160G is a Kaser I paid 99$ (for office laptop backup) and the 250G is a ???( doesn't say on it, IIRC Sony) paid around 149$ : it was the first one I bought (will find a use for it, probably store X10 home security camera captures on it). They are all USB2.0 and all work very well. Regards, Marcel

Consider getting a Firefly drive.  Very small, powered off the USB port so it doesn't need an external power source.  Fits easily into your pocket.  Works great.  I use this for my midrange backups for my business.  That or any ultra-portable USB drive.  Simpletech makes one as well.