External storage....

iamcombat · Mar 19, 2010

Anyone have an external drive? I was thinking of getting one of the Western Digital MyPassport drives (250GB) to store my photos one but didn't know if they were any good....does anyone have experience with them?

keith foster · Mar 19, 2010

I have 3 Western Digitals and have had no issues. I think the oldest one is about 4 years old. I just opened it a few days ago and took some photos off of it to use in a slide show.

icassell · Mar 19, 2010

I have 2 WD 500GB drives. They've worked fine for me so far.

KmH · Mar 20, 2010

No problems here with 2 1TB WD drives.

I lay them on their sides and make sure nothing blocks the air flow through them.

I also put a couple strips of foam weather sealing on the bottom sides so air can get underneath them too.

clarinetJWD · Mar 20, 2010

The Western digital external drives are great because of the technology built into the enclosures. Though they may be USB, they feature the ability to turn off when they haven't been used in a while to save juice, and they're fast coming back online, just like if it was a SATA drive.

However, I don't know what to say about the quality of the internal drives, as I've had wildly different experiences with them... Some live forever, way beyond what they have any right to (I had a drive from 2003 make it until last year before showing any signs of stopping), but some (too many) die an early death. I haven't had any that lasted as long as they should. Either way more, or way less.

iamcombat · Mar 20, 2010

I went to Walmart (the only store within 30 miles that sells stuff like this) and was looking at what they had. The 320GB WD passport drives were something like $73 and I saw a 500GB Seagate drive for only a few bucks more...so I ended up getting that. The better part is that when I took it to the register it rang up for only $50