External Hard Drive for Laptop

colblimp

Hi folks.

I'm not sure if this is the correct place for my query, but I'm going to give it a go. I need an external hard drive thingy for my laptop to store photo's in RAW format as my laptop is completely full. For my sins, I'm looking in the A*g*s catalogue and have seen a 'Seagate' yoke which claims to hold 300,000 pictures for €134.99. The memory is 1.5TB, if that makes any sense to anyone, because it doesn't to me!

Simply, am I on the right track, or totally barking up the wrong tree? Thanks in anticipation.

asgaard

First you should check what's the size is photo in RAW and how many have you got it. As you know 1.5 Tb is around 1500GB or 1536000MB (1GB=1024MB). Am i right or is it something wrong?? Once again:
1.1024 B =1MB 2. 1024 MB = 1 GB 3. 1024 GB = 1 TB

Anyway should be enough for a while (if you don't take a lot of photos)
I'm lost - if 1024 GB=1 TB so how many GB will be in 1.5 TB??

colblimp

Thanks for the reply, Asgaard. I take a hell of a lot of photo's, it's one of my main hobbies. Each pic is around 10megs so what sort of capacity would the hard drive hold at 1.5 TB? *Sorry, maths isn't my strongest subject!*

asgaard

F.e.: if one photo is around 10 MB you can take around 100 per 1GB. Am i right??
So you can take around 1500 photos. If i make mistake, please correct this.

I found on the website that: 1 500 000 megabytes = 1.43051147 terabytes

so 150000 photos. I hope it's right now.

colblimp

asgaard wrote: »

F.e.: if one photo is around 10 MB you can take around 100 per 1GB. Am i right??
So you can take around 1500 photos. If i make mistake, please correct this.

I found on the website that: 1 500 000 megabytes = 1.43051147 terabytes

so 150000 photos. I hope it's right now.

I bow to your superior knowledge - thanks muchly! One last question, would the make, model and price of the unit I mentioned be OK, in your opinion, or do you have any other suggestions?

asgaard

Argos-last place where i would buy portable HDD (they're very expensive). Go across on Komplett.ie, Peats, eBay websites and probably you gonna get for a lower price or you can use google to find the most suit price for You.

Best of Luck

sceptre

Easons (of all places) are selling 1.5TB external Seagates for €108 and 1.0TB external Seagates for €78. They're 3.5 inch drives so they're the regular ones rather than the smaller 2.5 inch pocket-sized portables but you'll get one immediately and it's rather cheaper than Argos. I'm guessing this was the one you were looking at in the Argos catalogue as well. Online they won't be much cheaper, definitely when you include delivery.

ED E

colblimp wrote: »

Thanks for the reply, Asgaard. I take a hell of a lot of photo's, it's one of my main hobbies. Each pic is around 10megs so what sort of capacity would the hard drive hold at 1.5 TB? *Sorry, maths isn't my strongest subject!*

I know this a big discussion point for photographers, but unless you're shooting RAW/BMP then ten seems a little excessive. You could probably batch process them in PS down to around the 5MB mark with no perceivable degradation.

colblimp

Lethal_Bullet wrote: »

I know this a big discussion point for photographers, but unless you're shooting RAW/BMP then ten seems a little excessive. You could probably batch process them in PS down to around the 5MB mark with no perceivable degradation.

As posted above, I shoot in RAW mode... :rolleyes:

colblimp

sceptre wrote: »

Easons (of all places) are selling 1.5TB external Seagates for €108 and 1.0TB external Seagates for €78. They're 3.5 inch drives so they're the regular ones rather than the smaller 2.5 inch pocket-sized portables but you'll get one immediately and it's rather cheaper than Argos. I'm guessing this was the one you were looking at in the Argos catalogue as well. Online they won't be much cheaper, definitely when you include delivery.

Blimey, if it is the same one, it's a hell of a lot cheaper than the one in A*g*s. Thanks for the heads up, I'll check it out tomorrow.

ED E

colblimp wrote: »

As posted above, I shoot in RAW mode... :rolleyes:

Failure to read OP, :P

Yeah, in that case you'll continually and steadily fill drive space, after a while a single drive will fill then you'll need to buy a second and so forth, leaving your data all over the place. Also, HDDs do die, its not if but when really. If you buy an external and clear the laptop, then you only have one copy. If you read this forum people give externals a knock and drives die all the time:eek:

Thats why I'd suggest get a NAS(Connect to your router or USB) box that has a few 3.5 bays that you can add drives to and will be able to keep backups to prevent data loss.

iMac Hunt

Hi,
I am also looking for an external hard drive for a laptop. Does anyone know if you can buy portable 1TB external hard drives yet? The largest available seems to be 500gb, could get a mains powered 1.5TB but would prefer a plug and play one that doesn't require a power supply. Have had a bad experience with a drive that I bought in Argos, it overheated an hour after I started using it, went back and exchanged it for a 320GB Buffalo portable drive.

colblimp

Lethal_Bullet wrote: »

Failure to read OP, :P

Yeah, in that case you'll continually and steadily fill drive space, after a while a single drive will fill then you'll need to buy a second and so forth, leaving your data all over the place. Also, HDDs do die, its not if but when really. If you buy an external and clear the laptop, then you only have one copy. If you read this forum people give externals a knock and drives die all the time:eek:

Thats why I'd suggest get a NAS(Connect to your router or USB) box that has a few 3.5 bays that you can add drives to and will be able to keep backups to prevent data loss.

OK, now you've lost me! What's a NAS, how much do they cost, which unit should I buy? Basically, what is the solution to my problem?

Confused of Cork!

Amalgam

I don't want to start a flame war, but wasn't there 'quality and manufacture' issues with Seagate after production moved to mainland China.

OP might scout around for online reviews before commiting to that manufacturer\brand.

ED E

colblimp wrote: »

OK, now you've lost me! What's a NAS, how much do they cost, which unit should I buy? Basically, what is the solution to my problem?

Confused of Cork!

Actually, scrap that, it would be to costly short term.

There are two options:
Buy an external(like a Seagate FreeAgent 1.5TB) and use that but be very careful not to give it any kind of impact
or
Buy two internal 1TB drives(or 4 500s if you have the slots) for a similar price and fit them to a desktop(easy peasy to install) and then have 2x each file, but it would be less portable.

Amalgam

I would go along with Lethal_Bullet, always wise not to have all your (Data) eggs in one basket.

2 x 750 GB or 2 x 500 GB drives to me, would be safer.

ondarack

hi lads, i'm a bit like the OP and a bit new to technology. I would like to back up bout 10gb of music, 15gb of video (and slowly expanding) and a few photo's nothing worth taking bout really. Firstly is it just a case of copy and pasting my itunes onto the external HD? Secondly i would like to watch my videos on my tv, do i need a seperate device? I think i do and I think its called a media player. My tv is old school and has a scart connection so am i being a little ambitious? if not what about this combination?? http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=698 http://www.wdc.com/en/products/index.asp?cat=30

Amalgam

ondarack, that link is fine for your needs.

Then, to play, you'll need a WD Live player, or one of the Asus players.

Western Digital HD Live (Elara.ie)

http://elara.ie/products/detailsfull.asp?productcode=ECE1811532&productID=S6958287

Asus O!Player (Amazon.co.uk)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Asus-1080p-HDP-R1-Internet-Streamer/dp/B002OQPBVQ/

Amalgam

Forgot to say, shop around for the WD Passport drive, the price can vary a lot, if you're buying it from a bricks and mortar store.

ondarack

was in pc word today and they had a sale on an older type WD HD which would do me fine. wat bout my scart issue???

Amalgam

Yes, PC World are clearing the last generation WD. What was it.. 89.95, or about that? I was thinking about it a few weeks back.

Just get a SCART to Composite, L\R\Video.



Works fine with older TVs.

As you can see, on the right.



Just to add, your WD Passport Hard Drive will be powered by the WD HD Player. Plug it in with the USB.. and away you go.

AIR-AUSSIE

iMac Hunt wrote: »

Hi,
I am also looking for an external hard drive for a laptop. Does anyone know if you can buy portable 1TB external hard drives yet? The largest available seems to be 500gb, could get a mains powered 1.5TB but would prefer a plug and play one that doesn't require a power supply. Have had a bad experience with a drive that I bought in Argos, it overheated an hour after I started using it, went back and exchanged it for a 320GB Buffalo portable drive.

Chack out amazon, they tend to be good for this type of stuff - here

Pixmania and Dabs are also worth a look

Pixmania.ie
Dabs.ie

I'd recommend Western Digital as a make. Have had one for around 3yrs tend to carry it around in my bag and drop it a lot. but have had little problems with it.

seraphimvc

as a general good practice mindset - if you move around alot with the portable/external harddisk,you might as well as get a reasonable/lower price one eg 320gb or 500gb max, and use a bigger size desktop internal harddisk to backup your data. You never know one accidental drop of your external harddisk from the coffee table when you are using it outside may break your external harddisk (and lose your data forever).

and when you have been using the external or internal harddisk for more than 2/3 years(depends on brand and usuge), you should prepare to look for new harddrive too, some good ones can goes more than 5 years or even more than 10 years but some can fail anyday after 3 years.

ofcourse flashdrive/SSD is another whole different matter :P