I'm wanting an external hard drive that I can use to back up my laptop, and pc at home. I do some photography and have some home videos that take up a lot of room on my laptop (20+ gigs). I have been looking at the 250 gig versions but I don't know if that is to much or not enough for the future. I know I would like to have the firewire port if possible for a faster connection.

My question is what else should I look for, what brands to stay away from, etc... Also my uncle said that I should just buy an internal harddrive and an enclosure and make my own. This something that is possible and wouldn't require a lot of computer know-how? The more plug and play and portable the better.

Thanks
Jonesy

Right now Seagate seems to be the most reliable. Getas big as you can afford, because you'll always run out of space.

I just purchased a 60 Gb 2.5" HDD (laptop hard drive) and an external enclosure that is USB for less than $75. Bought the hard drive off ebay and the enclosure at CompUSA.

I like it because of the size. It is just a little larger than a deck of playing cards.

I agree with both posters above. However, laptop hard drives tend to be a little more prone to death when shocked (I.e. dropped or banged around), while desktop drives aren't.

These days, prices of external enclosures are waaay down. It is still cheaper to make your own, but not by much. I love Seagate as a brand and I've had huge problems with pre-built Maxtor externals. Western Digital does not get any credit in my book. Seagate internal hard drives come with 5yr warranty while Maxtor, Hitachi, and Western Digital usually have 1yr. Does that tell you anything about Seagate's faith in their product versus the competitor? :)

If you can hold out a couple of days till I get back from vacation, I can price out some stuff and give a suggestion on how you can combine a coupon + purchase to get a great enclosure at a low price (I only sporadically have internet down here)

That's cool shifty. Not in a big hurry to get one, just out pricing them at the stores and see what all is out there.

Thanks to all for the info.

Jonesy

Shifty's exactly right about the laptop drives being more delicate ... I managed to kill one a couple of weeks ago ... thus the reason for the external HDD I have now for back up purposes

Heck, it was just a little drop that the laptop made off the conference room table :rolleyes:

For deals and crap like that, check out this section of this website:

http://dealnews.com/categories/Computer/Storage/51.html

Dealnews is a great place to find bargains on stuff: my advice: watch very closely at stores to see what the warranty is - anything less than 2yrs with an external hard drive is unacceptable.