Evening,

Brother has asked for one of them external hard drives for his christmas…

It needs to be 500GB minimum, powered by the usb cable which also transfers the files etc and cost about £70.

Never ever bought one, don't know what to look for etc so any recommendations please ?

Ta.

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/171896

job done

Found the same drive at PC world for £5 less 🙂

Not much to check really. The USB powered ones are a bit slow as they are all laptop based 5400rpm drives but not much you can do about that. Keep on a decent brand – I tend to stick with Seagate/Samsung drives just cause they have been reliable for me really.

1tb WD elemenets 65 bucks

Currys

I picked up a 1tb seagate one from maplin for £50 about a month ago

and it's 7200 rpm SATA, well mine was when I bought it in store 🙂

I am sure neither your 1TB WD nor the Seagate 1TB are bus powered that the OP asked!

Unfortunetly it has to be USB powered, it's going around the world on board his ship and space/weight is a premium so can't carry a mains charger/plug adapters etc etc everywhere.

In the real world how much slower are they ?

That Western Digital one looks alright, there is a PC world just down the road from me too….

I use mine for iTunes and iphoto and it is fine.

did some looking about, seems that WD one is one of the few options, the list price is £99 so £69.99 is pretty good.

Free home delivery too. The 1tb ones i found are external power supplied or the portable ones are into the £130 range.

I have a 320GB 5400rpm bus powered external (not sure of the brand of the HD itself) and a TB external Firewire 800 one. Yes the bus does make a difference but it is at least twice as fast if not more.

And in non PC tech speech that means… ? 😆

Well a 1GB movie from my laptop to the 'slow' one is a minute and a half deal, on the 'fast' it is a 30-40 second. Backing up my laptop on the small takes 30 minutes or so about 15 on the fast. Depends how often and for what he will be using it for :p
Having said that the convenience factor of the USB powered one is probably worth the speed hit.

But there is a big but here, if he is planning on loading movies on the drive to watch – especially if they are large files – you can expect slow downs and stuttering.

Right Ok – so transfer of files im sure he can handle the 30 second extra 🙂

As for it's use yes it will have movies on it but the files will be transfered to his laptop first which should then be ok correct ? His laptop has a dinky HDD hence the need for something external (plus it means it can be plugged into ships computer etc)

It's just for taking all his music and some films with him when he is away etc.

That should be no problem then. Many movies will probably even play from the external anyway.

In any case you have no much of a choice if he cares for portability and ease of use 🙂

Righto, shall visit the shop on the way home tomorrow.

Thankingyou 😉

Freecom tough drive – powered from the usb and the cable is a short integral flexible thing that folds away. And it lights up blue when its working.