Looking for an external hard drive recommendations

My 700GB external drive is starting to fail on me, so I've decided it's time to pick up a new one.
Right now, I'm using this motherboard
. I am currently torn between
SEAGATE FreeAgent GoFlex Desk 0.1 (3.5", 2TB, USB 3.0) Black
Western Digital HDD 2TB My Book Live, 2000 GB, LAN, 64 MB, 3.5", LAN
Hitachi 3 TB GST Touro Desk Pro 3.5", USB 3.0, BlackRock. Aside from the price tag, I'm not sure which one offers better speed or runs quieter.

Since my motherboard doesn't feature USB 3.0, I was thinking about grabbing this USB 3 controller as well. Is there anything else I should be looking out for?

I usually lean toward NAS drives, but Toshiba keeps popping up here because they really nail the capacity-to-price ratio, especially with those solid 7K3000 drives and the speed they offer... honestly, it makes sense why they call them the "flagship" of the Hitachi lineup...

http://www.rwlabs.com/article.php?ca...0&pagenumber=9

I picked up this drive along with a USB 3.0 card, but I'm having a bit of trouble tracking down the right drivers for Windows 7 64-bit. It’s an ASUS USB 3.0 PCI-E card with two slots. It came with a mini CD containing the drivers, but I just can't seem to find the right ones on there.

I managed to track down the drivers after checking in with the guys over at Geek Squad, and they sent me a direct download link. However, I’ve run into a bit of a snag. I also picked up a 16GB USB 3.0 flash drive, but while I was trying to copy files to it, my Hitachi 3 TB GST Touro Desk Pro 3.5 external drive just stopped working entirely. It only started behaving again once I pulled the flash drive out. The technician mentioned this might be happening because the drive isn't pulling enough power from the PCI-e card. I had assumed the drive would draw its power directly from the wall outlet since it's plugged in, and I noticed there's an extra power slot right on the PCI-e card itself. I figured the motherboard would handle the heavy lifting, but now I'm wondering—do I actually need to plug a power cable into that specific slot on the card?

If there's a power connector on the ASUS controller, you really ought to plug it in. I guess the power drawn from the PCI-E slot might be enough to get the card itself running, but it probably won't cut it once you actually try to run whatever devices you've attached to it.

Even if the external drive has its own power supply? I have a quick question regarding how to properly shut down external drives. Since we aren't talking about simple USB sticks here, is there a specific technique for powering them down? This Hitachi 3 TB GST Touro Desk Pro 3.5 I picked up doesn't have a dedicated power button, and I can't find a way to gracefully shut it down through my PC. The only option I see is "Safely Remove Hardware," but even then, to actually turn it off, I end up having to unplug it from the wall outlet...

There isn't really some secret technique for shutting it down. Just treat it like any standard USB flash drive—use the "Safely Remove Hardware" option first. If you're using an external drive just for storage or to watch movies, once you've done the safe removal, you can just pull the power cable. Or, I guess, you could just leave it running constantly.

I’d honestly rather just shut it down. My street deals with frequent power outages, and I don't have a UPS for my drive. I ended up connecting the power supply directly to the case, so now my PC recognizes both the stick and the drive simultaneously. Now I just need to pick up some USB 3.0 cables.

David Price5 said:Honestly, I’d rather just shut it down. My street deals with frequent power outages and I don't have a UPS for the drive. I ended up hooking the power supply directly into the case, so now my PC recognizes both the stick and the hard drive as internal components.Now I just need to track down some USB 3.0 cables..

😕 So, what didn't come included with that Hitachi 3 TB GST Touro Desk Pro 3.5 external drive?

I went with the Hitachi drive, but I also picked up a USB 3.0 flash drive. It seems like standard USB cables just don't support those actual USB 3.0 speeds...