Best external hard drives to buy right now?

Jason Harris5 said:this is technically off-topic and belongs in the pets thread... but honestly, just lay down some wide double-sided tape on the desk so your cat learns that area is strictly off-limits...
if security is such a massive concern for you, just upload everything to the cloud using one of those services (Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox, Google Docs, etc.).

How secure are those services, really? I mean, can we actually trust that some unauthorized person isn't snooping around? If I were drafting a pitch for a major project funding round, my boss would absolutely murder me if that leaked prematurely.😁
Take the travel site I use to book my flights, for example. It seems perfectly secure on the surface, yet hackers managed to breach them in the last couple of days, stealing everyone's info and draining massive amounts of cash from customers' credit cards.

Let’s be real—nothing you put on the internet is actually safe. 😁

What’s a decent 2.5'' portable hard drive I can pick up for around $90? Is this one any good? I noticed it comes with a 3-year warranty 😁

What would you guys say are the best 2.5" portable drives for professional work? I’ve been looking at some Western Digital options, and their Seagate mini 1 TB model is sitting at about $567, but honestly, I don't think I need to go that heavy-duty just yet. Does anyone have any solid recommendations for something in the 1-2 TB range? Maybe something reliable but a bit more budget-friendly...

I'm looking to pick up an external drive just for some basic stuff around the house—maybe somewhere in the 1 to 2 TB range.
I’m definitely no tech wizard here, so please jump in and set me straight if I've got any of this wrong:
- For what I'm planning to do, a 3.5" desktop drive should be perfectly fine, right?
- If I grab one with USB 3.0, it'll still work on my old motherboard (which only has USB 2.0), yeah?
- And even if I'm stuck with the older USB port, having a faster drive will still give me a bit of a speed boost during actual use.
I stumbled upon this one: http://www.diskont24.com/product.php?productid=107369 and the price seems pretty decent. Is it actually worth grabbing?

Noah Cook6 said:What are the best 2.5" portable drives out there for professional work? I’ve looked into Western Digital—their Seagate mini 1 TB model goes for about $567—but I actually need something a bit more entry-level than that. Any recommendations for something in the 1-2 TB range?

Honestly, why not just grab an external enclosure and pop in whatever drive you actually want?

Paul Cox52 said:I'm looking for an external drive for home use—roughly 1 to 2 TB.
I'm no expert, so feel free to correct me if my logic is off here:
- A 3.5" drive should be fine for what I need, right?
- If I buy a USB 3.0 drive, it'll still work on an older motherboard (USB 2.0), right?
- A faster drive will still perform better even if my connection is limited by an old USB port.
I found this one over at http://www.amazon.com/product/example for a pretty decent price. Is it worth it?

Look, 3.5" doesn't mean "better"—it's just physics. It refers to the size of the actual platters inside; bigger platters hold more data. Smaller ones—like the 2.5" variety—are usually what you find in laptops because they take up less space.

The drive isn't going to magically run faster on a USB 2.0 connector since it lacks the bandwidth of USB 3.0; in fact, it'll be slower. Though, if you're just storing movies and photos, you probably won't notice the speed difference. Even if your computer doesn't have USB 3.0, just buy the USB 3.0 version anyway.

That link you posted is just a bare internal drive, not an external unit. You could go this route instead:

1 TB: http://www.bestbuy.com/product/example

or

2 TB: http://www.bestbuy.com/product/example2

Thanks.
Yeah, over at Best Buy they had this drive listed as an external one—and honestly, the price was such a steal that I didn't even bother looking any further to double-check the specs.😁

Are external LAN hard drives (like this one) actually faster or slower than ones using a USB 3.0 connection?

They ought to be faster—assuming you're actually using a gigabit router, of course. Western Digital claims transfer rates around 100 MB/s, but honestly, I haven’t seen a single benchmark where this drive topped 80 MB/s, and that was just for reading—you can basically cut that in half when you're writing. If you're running on USB 3.0, you're looking at a realistic 60-65 MB/s; though, if your router is stuck with those old 100 Mbit ports, the USB drive will probably end up being the faster option anyway.

I'm using a Motorola Razr WLAN DSL router that features four LAN ports on the back.

According to this section here:
LAN : 4 x 10Base-T/100Base-TX - RJ-45
Data Transfer Rate 108 Mbps
Data Link Protocol Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g

So, does that mean I should be looking for a USB drive instead of a LAN disk?🤔

Well, it really just boils down to what you’re actually trying to do—the main difference is how you're going to use the damn thing. A USB drive is something you plug into one computer at a time, whereas a NAS is built specifically for network access, meaning everyone on the local network can jump in whenever they need to. You can toss a USB stick in your pocket and take it anywhere—it's portable, obviously—but you can't exactly walk around with a NAS tucked under your arm. Honestly, speed shouldn't be the deciding factor here.

First off, I just need this for backups. That Western Digital LAN drive caught my eye because the price looks pretty solid (though maybe I'm dreaming?). Best Buy is close by, and their payment terms work for me.

To be a bit of a nuisance, I wanted to ask about this specific model, the 2 TB, 3.5", USB 3.0 (from a German manufacturer). What’s your take? 🙂

Before I’d even consider picking that up:

From what I’ve gathered checking out reviews on some German tech sites—and believe me, they don't pull punches—that Genesys unit performs pretty poorly, plus you're stuck with a measly one-year warranty.

A LAN drive might be more your speed if you just want something for the house, but honestly, on a 100 Mbit network, your theoretical transfer rate is sitting at 12 MB/s—if you actually manage to hit 10 in the real world, you should probably go buy a lottery ticket.

Looks good. Those "features" 😁 are exactly what I need. I'll put the order in next week. 👍

PS. Does "Headquarters: In stock, ready for immediate dispatch" mean they could just toss it in a van and have it delivered to Cleveland by tomorrow? 😁

I honestly think they haven't rolled it out to the retail stores yet—which explains why it says it’s only available at the corporate headquarters. It’s just an older model from a few months back anyway.

Can someone please throw out a recommendation for a basic, best-buy 1TB external 2.5-inch drive? Just looking for something reliable and cheap. Thanks, thanks a million.

Check this one out—it’s basically just a standard setup, nothing too crazy.

And then there's this option here—just another way to look at things, I guess.

Thanks. By the way, what’s actually the difference between those Toshiba Canvio drives and the Canvio Essentials?

With the S Canvio, you actually get some decent backup and recovery software bundled in—the Essentials version is basically just a naked drive without any bells or whistles. The actual hardware inside both models is identical.

Hey, I hope there's someone online because I really need some help or advice ASAP! I'm looking to grab a new external drive and I'm stuck between the WD Passport 2TB, the General Electric Str.e Canvio 2TB, or maybe the Seagate expansion 1TB—though honestly, that 1TB one is half the price of the 2TB options. Right now, I'm using a 500GB drive and it is seriously almost full. I'd mostly be using it at school where every classroom has an open computer, and since every professor carries their own stuff on a USB stick, I want to use this for presentations, study guides, and video clips. The thing is, the files would be constantly changing and getting updated... like, I wouldn't just be watching movies on it, I'd be constantly editing and tweaking all these files on the drive itself. So, which of these do you think would be the best fit for that kind of constant use?