Buying an external hard drive from Komplett.. which one to buy?

Trotter

A friend missed out on the Lidl/Aldi external drives and wants to buy one from Komplett.

The budget is around €110. 250GB would be plenty.

Thanks!

beerbaron

Think they have a Western Digital 250gb should fit your budget nicely.

Anti

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=318873

One of the best ones available really.

Or you could go down the route of making your own, Pretty simple really, buy a caddy, put in the hd. And off ya go.

Caddy:
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=320708
Hdd:
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=329043

Works out at the same price. And you get that little tingle inside knowing you made it happen

*edit* You also get a 320gb drive, instead of a 250gb drive

Trotter

Good stuff. The Western Digital is ordered. Its going under the stairs and will only be used when the photos and music need to be backed up.

Thanks for your help!

Anti

No tingely feeling for you then so

blorg

You are better off getting the all-in-one if the price difference is not too great, they are almost always better stuck together than the seperate caddies. They also tend to have nice features like automatic power saving (they spin down if the drive isn't in use) which the caddies tend to lack, as well as backup software (not used by me, but you may.)

I have and have gone through many seperate caddies as well as Maxtor OneTouch and the WD MyBooks. My favourite by a _long_ way would be the Maxtors (unfortunately no longer sold by Komplett.) They are fanless and use the all-metal enclosure as a very effective heat sink. Nice design and stack well, and very easy to open up for upgrades should you want to. The MyBook is plastic and thicker (giving a bit of room for air circulation due to the lack of a metal shell) but annoyingly does not use the default USB/Firewire mass storage drivers (e.g. you have to install WD specific drivers.) Apart from that it's a fine choice and still well ahead of a generic caddy.

Soundman

blorg wrote:

They also tend to have nice features like automatic power saving (they spin down if the drive isn't in use)...

I absolutely hate that function. Takes too long to spin back up when in a hurry. Seems to screw up the Safe Remove function for me too.

blorg

I am fond of it as I have these drives hanging of a "home server" that's on 24/7. Spin-up is very quick. In any case, it's a configurable option on the Maxtors, you can disable it if you don't like it.

Soundman

blorg wrote:

I am fond of it as I have these drives hanging of a "home server" that's on 24/7. Spin-up is very quick. In any case, it's a configurable option on the Maxtors, you can disable it if you don't like it.

Don't think you can configure it on the WD MyBook

Anti

with a firmware hack you can. but not really the wisest thing to do.

Duffman

blorg wrote:

but annoyingly does not use the default USB/Firewire mass storage drivers (e.g. you have to install WD specific drivers.)

Wow, I was considering buying one. That's terrible and unexpected!

Col_Loki

but annoyingly does not use the default USB/Firewire mass storage drivers (e.g. you have to install WD specific drivers.)

U mean Maxtor Specific? Ive used a few WD ones and they work perfectly, plug and play just like a USB key.....no drivers ever needed.

Ive never used a Maxtor One Touch, but if it requires drivers thats a bit of a joke IMO.

blorg

No, it was a WD issue, the Maxtor worked straight. I might have it a bit off here, had always used the Maxtors and then got a WD as I needed a firewire disk and the WD was significantly cheaper than the nearest Maxtor.

Specifically I needed a drive that did firewire (not USB) with Windows ME (yes, a Sony VAIO, what else.) This is where the funny stuff came in, the WD drivers were actually on the disk itself IIRC and you have to install them through USB connection first before it would work through firewire. Never had that problem with the Maxtors.

May well be a firewire mass storage issue, you should check out for yourself. I do remember that the external drive came up in a somewhat non-standard manner in "My Computer" but it may well have appeared as a stardard drive letter as well.

Col_Loki

Windows ME would be your problem there , they work straight off the bat with Win2k & XP (from the 3/4 ive tried).

If your using a newer OS then either should be fine, i dont think there are many using 98/ME anymore (well users that would need that amount of storage anyway).