Can't decide on External Hard drives

[rio_bugarin]

I had been trying to decide for a month now whether to get a 500gb external HDD with external power supply and a less than 200gb USB powered one.

Is there someone out there who have either one of these?are you satisfied?

I tried reading the customer reviews from circuitcity but it just made me more confused.

BTW, im only planning of spending $200 or less.

[preet]

Hi.
My friend did bought a 500gb external hard powered externally. But do you know what happened? One day, he was cleaning up his room and to his great bad luck the hard drive fell down due to his carelessness. Nothing could be done than sit and cry on the money spent. If you desperately need the external hard drive be cautious. And as far usb and externally powered, the latter would be better assuming that it has a cooling fan and also not stressing your board drawing out power.

[Paul Komski]

As a rule you don't have an option with 3.5" drives but most 2.5" drives can be powered via the USB cable itself. Some ship with a cable that has two USB connectors at one end (only one of them transmits a data stream) to allow power to be drawn from two ports. Some 2.5" enclosures ship with an accessory external power source in case you are using, say an external self powered hub, or the port it is attached to has deficient power or you don't want to put a drain on a laptop's battery.

You can buy external cases complete with a hard drive inside or buy a case and a hard drive separately. Ones already in a case are usually pre-formatted and thus user ready. In the latter situation you can buy as big a drive as the case will support; with 3.5" this could certainly be up to 1TB and maybe higher but I havent yet seen 2.5" drives bigger than 200GB.

[Erik]

It depends on what you need. I have a 2.5" drive that is powered by USB. I just carry it around with me in my laptop bag and use it when I need to transfer files around easily. Not having to deal with an external power adapter makes it more portable and better for my needs. I also don't leave it connected for long periods of time, just to transfer files.

If I were to get a 3.5" drive that I wanted connected all the time I would go for an external power adapter. As already mentioned it will put less stress on the computer it is attached to. I would also opt to put together my own drive. Buy a good case you like, and whatever HD you like (or have around) and you are set.

[George Hallam]

i agree with erik it works out cheaper if you buy a hd and buy case to go with it than buy a ready made one and also there is more choice in sizes. personly if you are only using it for personal use you should get an internal one you same £20-40 and all that could be spent on extra space (for £40 i got a 250gb SATA)