Ask Engadget: Best external hard drive under $100?
By Darren Murph 
posted March 5th 2009 10:11PM
posted March 5th 2009 10:11PM
Ask Engadget is back this week with yet another thoughtful reader-submitted question, and if you'd like your own inquiry to get some face time, just send one in to ask at engadget dawt com. Without further adieu, we'll let Zach take it from here:"So I need some extra storage because I've been going a little iTunes "crazy" lately and have been downloading gigabytes of albums, podcasts and movies. I'm looking for a reliable hard drive but at the same time, price is a key factor considering not a lot of money is available at the moment. I'm thinking 100GB or more should suffice. I don't want to get roped into buying a crappy hard drive and have it die on me a week after using it. What's the best one out there for around $100 or less? Thanks!"
We'll go out on a limb here and assume he's looking for USB 2.0 (sorry, FireWire 400), so let loose those opinions!
Well the one I have went under $100 BUT you can buy different gigs for under $100. I got the newer Toshiba HDD drive 500GB. Its awesome. Its very quick, tons of space, easy to set up. I bought the 500gb originally because I have a few older computers, one with 4,000 songs, one with about 1500 pictures from my photography that I do, another with a bunch of important docs, etc. I thought for sure I would have at least seen some room being taken up? No. lol. I still go into shock every time I put a few thousand BIG files on that baby. Its all free space hardly any used! I don't know. I have heard certain people say bad things about how it takes so long but I took about 1400 mp3 files and transfer them in about 7 minutes. Frankly I think that's damn good. Now maybe for some of you techno-freaks its not but I didn't buy it for you.
I bought it for me.
My 500gb drive was bought from this website I found online. It was $110 with tax. But like I said, they have other options available. I believe its 250gb, 350gb, 450gb and 500gb. Something like that. This is the one Im talking about (with the "zebra" stripe lol), this is also the site I bought my drive from:
http://consumer-outlet.com/?p=231
found some useful info here: http://www.giftchan.com/2009/01/20/its-hard-to-find-an-external-hard-drive/
Transcend makes these little ruggedized numbers - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822157013&Tpk=transcend%202.5 - they're essentially the same as the WD Passports, but have a rubber coating, are a tad thicker, and can keep working even after being dropped while the drive is writing. I've inadvertantly done the latter, and the near-4' fall didn't even result in the drive pausing the write. I've got 3 of these (among 9 that I regularly use for work and at home), the oldest being about 1.5 years old, and have nothing but praise for them. I move a lot of data around for my work, so durability is important, and the portability is nice too.
pr0n downloaders, all of ya :P
umm.. HELLO people???. Why is nobody stressing the importance of HAVING A FAN in your enclosure??
It is a must! Heat is a killer, come on people, you know that.
Screw these prepackaged external drives. If something goes wrong you can't pop the enclosure open to fix it yourself without screwing your WARRANTY... Heeeelllloooooo? :-o Buy the drive separate and put it together. PRICEWATCH is your friend.
I'm actually more focussed on the design aspects of products than the technical specs. After some looking around, I have just settled on the Lacie Little disk which has a capacity of 500GB and cost me $99.99 on amazon. The major winner here is actually the fact that the chord is connected to the hard drive. I can't tell you the number of times hard drives with seperate chords disconnect with the faintest touch, causing you to lose everything you've been working on that hasn't been saved (let alone the hassle of having to reconnect etc). There is the buffalo hard drive on the market that has chord connected as well, but just out of personal preference I prefer the way the Lacie is completely concealed with it's lid on, so it doesn't catch on anything win transportation. The main thing I don't like about the Lacie is quite petty, but due to the highly reflective surface, you get finger prints and it shows everything. I think that the majority of people can live with this without too much concern though.
I am myself a user of LaCie external HDD, best design in the market, quiet, and reliable.
I have a few of these and plan to get a few more soon. The advantage is you can pick the brand of hard drive you prefer.
http://www.cooldrives.com/
I have a WD Mybook 500 GB USB...Pretty good so far!
Portable: WD Passport 320 or 500G
Desktop: WD MyBook
I had an "old" 250GB LaCie but gave it away because it wasn't USB powered, and replaced with a 250GB Passport - £ 65 or something like that at Dixons. Does its job, no major flaws, but I never carry it around, as I have a couple of 16GB sticks too.
I'm surprised nobody mentioned Iomega - their HDs look like they mean business
I just bought a LaCie 750GB external for $70 and it's excellent.
I bought a 1TB Western Digital "My Book" from Best Buy for $122..... the $22 are worth it. Everybody else was selling it for $200.
You can always get one of those internal HDD crates that connects via USB to your desktop. You just slide in a 3.5" or 2.5" internal HDD into one of the two slots and you get an instant external HD.
They also have models that can control media and have memory card slots. These typically sell for well under $60 online and you can get internal HDD's cheaper than external ones.
I got a 250GB Seagate FreeAgent Go, and I absolutely love the thing. The thing that I like the most about it is that you can use the software to turn off the activity light as i like to go to bed when my computer is on. And it is really quiet, much quieter than my Western Digital 80GB MyBook.
i got an acomdata 640gb hard drive for around $85 ran great, i removed carelessly to many time and broke it, tech support was great got me a refurbished one with a western digital hard drive, rather than the stock samsung drive. despite the fact that it needs a power plug in it is a good drive. uses usb 2.0, and eSATA.
Antec MX-1 - EC Actively Cooled Hard Drive Enclosure with a 1TB drive from Western Digital (5 year warranty) should come in at under $100 these days.
This enclosure is first class, very quiet and actively cooled.
I'm gonna do something I hate when others did it to me, but this is worth it. I'm going to recommend the 1TB Western Digital for only $130, give or take depending on sales. I know it's more than you were looking for, but it's worth it. Inspight what everyone was telling me I got only a 250GB hard drive and in a year found that isn't going to do it for me in the long run. I then went out after Christmas and got the 1TB hard drive and have been so much happier I did. Now I can self the 250GB with all the info I don't use often, but don't want to get rid of and have tons more space. Trust everyone on this, 100GB is not going to be enough. Happy shopping.
I am looking for a dual HDD enclosure w/passive cooling (AKA made of metal) for cheap. I was planning on raiding two 640GB Caviar drives, the ones newegg reviewers rate so highly (and there's a shit ton of positive reviews).
Admittedly, I haven't really been looking up until now due to a lack of cash money. Please please, I would love to finally move to buy this damn thing! My anime is totally backing up onto this computer's baby HDD. HALP!
I have the Lacie Mobile Drive. I got this because I wanted something simple and easy to use, it's bus-powered, so you don't need to plug it in to a power source, and it's tiny and actually fits in a pocket!
WD 500gb
about 100$
Well, I just picked up a 1TB WD Caviar SATA 7200 RPM 32MB cache for $100, and so far, I'm very happy with it.
I keep all my files on separate drives, (this is a dedicated OS drive/program)... but I wanted to beef things up from my old eIDE WD that was dying after about 5 years of 24x7 on and serious use!
I'm a designer, so speed with programs is nice (less key)! So after lots of research knowing I'd probably not really use the 1TB for storage, I figured I'd give this "green" drive a try, and like I said, it's doing well so far (knock on a wood texture).
Now, I have two SATA drives and 2 eIDE drives in this machine and I must say, there is obvious difference in performance from the new OS drive and the storage drives.
So, if you an pick up one of WDs Caviar drives, I'd consider it. Unless you can afford something better. ;)
LaCie is my brand of choice - I have a couple of their 1 TB Neil Poulton drives, and one 2 TB. They can be had for around $100 dollars if you look around a bit (the 1 TB flavor). Also, watch the Dealzmodo section of Gizmodo.com, as they often feature a real deal in external storage.
I Just ordered a Western Digital Elements 640 GB from Newegg for 79.99 with Free Shipping... It had mostly all good reviews.
FYI, it's "Without further ado", not "adieu"
Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS 640GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM $75
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136218
VANTEC NST-300S2-BK Aluminum 3.5" Black USB 2.0 External Enclosure - Retail $23
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817392020
1TB $118 +Free Shipping (Considering you will probably spend $100 for a lesser drive and $15 for shipping, this is a better deal)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148356
Why limit your options to USB? Get a drive with USB, ESATA for future compatibility (and speed), and 1394a for DV or newer laptop use.
$99 Free Shipping
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822154287
Western Digital Elements. 1TB, I picked it up for $75
If anything, DO NOT buy a Western Digital.
Put ALL my music on that thing and after a year, it malfunctioned. Lost Easily 15GB of precious music, and had to start all over.
So, no Western Digital. They suck.
My 500Gb WD My Book Essentials failed after a couple of weeks. It's not the actual drive but either the USB interface or the PSU. Randomly I am unable to play MP3s or AVI files on the drive due to them being corrupt. Unplug the drive and reconnect and they play fine. Do a bad sector scan, finds loads, unplug, reconnect, rescan, no bad sectors.
I'm going to break mine out of the enclosure and use the drive internally.
Still need an external drive but just don't know which brand to by now.
I bought a "WD" Western Digital a year ago. It is a 320GB and it was very easy to use, UNTILL it just stopped working and the technical support at WD would NOT help me unless I paid to ask questions. YES, pay to ask questions.
I used the hard drive as a back-up and when I needed my info from it, the drive wouldn't open on the computer.
AVOID Western Digital "WD" at all cost, it has a good price but no reliability...
I'd be inclined to look at a waterproof and fireproof ioSafe (www.iosafe.com/bc). They're a bit more expensive than most but ... hey ... how much would you be willing to pay to get your data back were it to be lost?