External HDD, which is best/best value?

Forgot about this, as I only have about 200mb left on my 250gb hard disk, I am gonna need to get an external hard drive.
I have been reading around and trying to take into consideration the 3.5" vs 2.5", the capacity seems to be 1TB that looks good value from what I saw.
As for the brand, the Western Digital, well, I read on the web that it had something to do with DRM technology!
Not sure what that's all about as a WD was one of my main considerations.
Then as for seagate, I have been reading horror stories about the firmware problem and the fact that the external drives use the same HDD essentially but the cover can't be removed to upgrade firmware as it will void the warranty.

Now, as can be expected my head's all muddled up after all that reading I thought i'd better ask in here for peoples first hand experiences with external HDD's.

Any suggestions are more than welcome
Lew

 

External drives always use some internal model. Maxtor externals will usually have a seagate model in them as they are now the same company. SimpleTech's 2.5 enclosures use western digital scorpio drives. If a WD Model says it saves 30% power over standard it has the desktop Green Model of their hard drive, if it has esata its a SATA hdd if its usb then its the slower PATA model as USB is slower then a good PATA hard drive anyways.

You can see my tear down of a WD 1TB here - http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=387655

If you have eSATA then getting one with eSATA is worth it. If you only have usb and firewire or usb only then save yourself the money. Firewire 400 tested no faster than usb on the 1TB WD HE. eSATA is blazing fast though.

 

DRM on external drives? that would be madness.

Keep in mind 2.5" is USB portable while the 3.5" requires an external power supply.

Grab yourself a 500gb 2.5" WD scorpio blue, and slap it on an enclosure. I know i did

 

Flipfire on the flipside lol from new egg the simpletech 500GB with a scorpio in it is only 10 bucks more then the Blue (the one without shock protection at 99.99). Blue models benifits of lower power and heat, seem nice but not sure id worry about that on the simpletech.

My only point on that is can you get a reliable, nice enclosure for 10 bucks?

Something i found awhile back, and its becoming less and less true while desktop externals are usually overly expensive the laptop externals were cheaper then the internals. As i said slowly becoming not true but i dont think they out pace the cost of an enclosure yet.

 

Id rather spend a few extra $$ on a Vantec USB/eSATA enclosure.

OP: High-performance drives are titled Black, Mainstream drives are Blue and power-efficient drives are Green.

Clutch: I like your Mybook review, the 'destroyed part' is an eye catcher. Whats are you getting next?

 

...wow you can rip a sata drive from a running system!

Looking at the WD2500BEVS i ripped from a simpletech nearly 2 years ago for 99.99 to put in the laptop i had at the time of the 1.5Gb/s variety.... Interesting it is listed as a blue model, label does not reflect this.

Yeah if an eSATA enclosure is avaliable go for it. You like vantec? im looking for a new enclosure for my 1TB drive that i killed the enclsoure on (link in sig lol).

EDIT - LMAO what am i getting next? Not sure got suggestions? Im always looking to break something.

 

I've just run some price checks on google shopping quite crudely and it came up that a 1TB 3.5" is the same price as a 500mb 2.5".
The 1TB 2.5" costs almost 4 times as much though!

 

Laptop drives cost more and there are not any 1TB models on the market yet. I think the 1TB essential edition of the WD is like 119? Good option if you dont have eSATA on your laptop.

Though id like to modify Flip fires idea. Buy the 500GB 2.5 internal for 99.99 put that in the laptop, then put the 250 in a 20 dollar enclosure.

 

You can buy a Seagate 7200.12, or an ES.2 like I have, and put it in an Antec MX-1, and you would have the coolest running hard drive on the market.