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Hey guys. I don't know if this belongs here, but I didn't want to join a tech forum for one question.

I take alot of pictures, I also record alot of videos with my HDD camcorder and save them to my computer. Recently I realized that I am starting to run out of space and wanted to find a safer way than CDs to store my stuff. Someone I know suggested I get a External Hard Drive. I've been looking around and don't really know what to look for. I have Windows Vista and own a Dell that's about 3 years old or so. I'd like a External HDD that doesn't cost too much, but can hold a decent amount of files. I found a few at Walmart that can hold 1 TB of data. I don't know how good they are.

I am curious if anyone here has a decent external drive they would recommend. Like I said it can't be too expensive. I'd prefer under 100 dollars. My Hard Drive on my computer holds a little over 220 GB so I guess around 500 MB would be good enough.

If this is in the wrong place or doesn't belong here at all I can try a tech forum. I just wanted to ask some place familiar first. Thanks for any help you guys can give.

My g/f has one that she got for about 70 bucks. I used it to switch out my HD on my PS3 and everything went really smooth.

I'll post model and whatnot when I know more.

Tyrannotaur wrote:Hey guys. I don't know if this belongs here, but I didn't want to join a tech forum for one question.

I take alot of pictures, I also record alot of videos with my HDD camcorder and save them to my computer. Recently I realized that I am starting to run out of space and wanted to find a safer way than CDs to store my stuff. Someone I know suggested I get a External Hard Drive. I've been looking around and don't really know what to look for. I have Windows Vista and own a Dell that's about 3 years old or so. I'd like a External HDD that doesn't cost too much, but can hold a decent amount of files. I found a few at Walmart that can hold 1 TB of data. I don't know how good they are.

I am curious if anyone here has a decent external drive they would recommend. Like I said it can't be too expensive. I'd prefer under 100 dollars. My Hard Drive on my computer holds a little over 220 GB so I guess around 500 MB would be good enough.

If this is in the wrong place or doesn't belong here at all I can try a tech forum. I just wanted to ask some place familiar first. Thanks for any help you guys can give.

Seagate and Western Digital are the brands that Wal-Mart offers. Both usually have high marks in terms of quality. There are two different types of external drives. Portable and desktop. Both can be used with a desktop, but portables are used more for laptops, because they don't require a power adapter, and use two USB ports for power and data, whereas a desktop external is larger, weighs a good bit, and does require a wall outlet for power, and only uses USB for the data, not power.

Desktop hard drives usually give you double the amount of space for the same price, whereas a portable will usually give you half the space, but you gain portability. If you plan on keeping the computer and the drive stationary, I'd recommend a desktop external. A terabyte for $100.00 is not bad at all.

Thanks both of you for your help. I really appreciate someone giving me an answer

I wont be buying one until I get home from vacation next week so Random if you can find out which one your girlfriend has that would be cool.

Ok, the one I was talking about is, like Autobot032 said, one from Walmart. It's a Western Digital, 320gb. It's worked great. She got it during Black Friday, so it was a little cheaper than you may find, but it was under 100 bucks.

I'd say shop around first. Especially try online places like Newegg or Tiger Direct.

Random wrote:Ok, the one I was talking about is, like Autobot032 said, one from Walmart. It's a Western Digital, 320gb. It's worked great. She got it during Black Friday, so it was a little cheaper than you may find, but it was under 100 bucks.

I'd say shop around first. Especially try online places like Newegg or Tiger Direct.

Ah, then she bought a portable external.

I agree that you can shop around, but you're not going to find a much better deal than $100.00 for a terabyte. Plus you can just drive up to Wal-Mart and come home happy. No shipping, no waiting, no dealing with return policies that are an absolute pain in the @$$.