Best external hard drives to buy right now?

I’ve been using a Verbatim 320 GB drive for a while now, and honestly, it’s been perfect for what I need. I keep all my movies and books on there since I'm always on the move. I’m actually looking to pick up a new one soon because I want to give my current one to my sister. Does anyone have any good recommendations on what I should get?🙄

So, this is what I'm currently using:



And while we're on the subject, can I plug this into my TV to watch movies? I have a Samsung plasma at home, but I haven't tried it yet...🙂

If you were actually happy with what you already had, I guess you might as well just stick with the same brand and grab a larger model. Regarding the TV, though—which specific model are we talking about? 🙂

Joshua Garcia3 said:If you liked what you already had, maybe just stick with the same brand but get a bigger size. Which plasma model are we talking about? 🙂

I actually got that Verbatim unit as a gift from AT&T🙂
The Samsung model is: 37LH3000

Here’s the answer to that other question you had about hooking up an external hard drive to a plasma TV. 😢

http://www.hdtelevizija.com/forum/vi...hp?f=27&t=1133

Joshua Garcia3 said:Here’s that answer you wanted about hooking up an external hard drive to a plasma TV. 😢

http://www.hdtelevizija.com/forum/vi...hp?f=27&t=1133

Thanks so much....👍....I might actually give that a shot.😂

What’s your take—is this actually worth the investment? Or should I be looking elsewhere? I want something built to last, something reliable—not just some cheap gadget that dies on me in two years.

Anyone here actually messed around with the Seagate Expansion Desktop 2 TB before?
The price tag is sitting at $467, and honestly, I’m wondering if there's anything out there a bit easier on the wallet that isn't total junk. I'm looking for something with similar specs—specifically a dual-disk RAID setup. It doesn't even have to be 2TB; I could probably live with 1TB if it means saving some cash.

Hey,

I'm looking at picking up an external hard drive somewhere around $167. I need something with decent speed, mostly because I plan on plugging it directly into my TV to watch movies. The TV is an Apple 40-inch model. Honestly, I have no clue what specs I should be hunting for in the description to ensure the data transfer stays fast enough.

If you’re actually looking for decent transfer speeds, you really need to stick to USB 3.0—something along the lines of this:

Then again—and I mean this practically—that speed is totally irrelevant if all you're doing is watching movies. You could run everything off a dusty old USB 2.0 drive and it wouldn't skip a beat.

Benjamin King2 said:If you actually care about transfer speeds, stick to USB 3.0. Something like this should do it: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/usb-drive-example

Honestly, if you're just watching movies, speed doesn't really matter. Even a cheap USB 2.0 drive will handle playback without breaking a sweat.

What do you think about these two? http://www.amazon.com/product-link-1 and http://www.amazon.com/product-link-2

You could go that route too—just keep in mind that Western Digital tends to offer a shorter warranty period.

Benjamin King2 said:That’s an option, though you might find Western Digital offers a shorter warranty.

I get that, but I lease them a storefront, so maybe there's room to negotiate. 😁What’s your take on the actual build quality? Is it any good? Also, can I run 3.0 gear on older computers or TVs that only support 2.0? I assume they'll just be slower, right?

You can plug a 3.0 drive into a 2.0 port without any issues at all—it works just fine. If you’re shopping over at Protis, honestly, I’d either grab a Western Digital or go with this one:

As for those Apple drives, I haven't really played around with them enough to say—but Western Digital is okay, though Verbatim is pretty garbage, and Western Digital is overpriced and has that cheap, flimsy plastic housing.

Benjamin King2 said:A 3.0 drive works on a 2.0 port just fine. If you're buying from Proton, I'd suggest either a Western Digital or this one:

I can't vouch for those Samsung drives. Verbatim is junk, and Seagate is overpriced for a cheap plastic shell.

Fair enough. Thanks for the heads up. I'll probably grab one of those two options. Still need to look into how reliable Western Digital drives actually are.

Hey there, I’ve been wondering about how network drives actually work in practice. What's the deal with setting them up—do you just plug the drive directly into your wireless router, and if you do, can multiple computers all access those files at the exact same time?

Yeah, they're wired directly into the router—totally hardwired. And as for the second part of your question? Yeah, that’s a definite yes.

Does anyone have a solid recommendation for something topping out at $500, maybe in the 1-2TB range? 🙂 Also, what kind of transfer speeds are we actually looking at here? I’m wondering if it's even feasible to pull 720p video from network storage on two different computers at the exact same time—and I mean specifically for that particular model, not just some vague generalization, please! :S Thanks!

Something like this should do the trick:

You’ll need to pick up the drives separately—and honestly, you really ought to stick to the exact same model, regardless of whether you’re running them in a RAID setup or just playing it safe. When it comes to transferring files, the network is going to be your bottleneck, not the drive speed itself. If you've got a standard 100 Mbps connection, you shouldn't run into any issues streaming 720p movies, provided the video bitrate stays within a reasonable range—say, 5-6 Mbps. And please, don't even think about using Wi-Fi for this kind of thing; unless you want a headache, stick to a wired connection. 🙂 Besides, the NAS has a Gigabit LAN port, but I’m guessing your router isn't exactly top-of-the-line Gigabit gear, so that extra speed probably won't even matter for you right now.

http://www.normann-engineering.com/p...n/_twg850_.pdf

This is a router model, a pretty standard piece of hardware from B-net. So, if we're talking about having laptops hardwired directly into the router via Ethernet, streaming movies on two different laptops at once shouldn't be an issue, right? Thanks.

Hey everyone,

So, I totally missed out on all those summer sales, which kind of sucks because now I’m stuck hunting for an external drive—something at least 500GB or maybe a bit more if I can swing it. It looks like Western Digital bumped up their prices recently, so I've been scouting around for other options instead. I stumbled upon some decent deals on a few different brands: Toshiba, Transcend, HP, and Prestigio. My big question for you guys is, does anyone actually have any real-world experience with these specific brands? Like, if you were in my shoes, which one would you actually trust enough to grab?
Thanks.