Best External Hard Drive

I currently have a Western Digital 500gb Essential Edition hard drive. I am looking for a smaller, more compact and inexpensive one.. Any additional features such as a picture viewer, internet, music player and gps would be nice.

I have been doing some research on the following:

Cowon Q5W
Archos 7 Internet Media Tablet
Western Digital My Passport Essential
Seagate Free Agent Go

I prefer something that isn't a burden to carry around in terms of charging it and weight. Any suggestions?

Subscribing as I too am looking.

I have the WD Passport Studio, 500GB.

Love it, very portable and includes a firewire 400/800 option.

The WD Passport is a good one-- small and does not require external power. I just picked up a WD 1TB --- and it is the same size at the 500gig-- I thought it was going to be a lot bigger-- looks like they use the same casing for both.

I am looking for tiny external drives for my Mac lap top -- to use for backing up photos while on the road---- I just found this that was referred by a friend: http://eshop.macsales.​com/shop/firewire/on-the-go not sure it fits your application but was an interesting find.

just mentioned this one in another thread (i've been toying with the idea of getting one for myself, gets great reviews on amazon).....

http://www.amazon.com …ics&qid=1238601​196&sr=8-1

for smaller, i have one of these:
http://www.amazon.com …ics&qid=1238601​196&sr=8-4

as well as one of these:
http://www.amazon.com …cs&qid=12386022​90&sr=8-18

problem with the smaller portable ones (to me) is that they don't power off when you shut the computer off, and there's no "power button".... you have to unplug them. i want something that either shuts off when the pc powers down, or has a button i can use to power it down manually.

i have had great luck with maxtor and western digital harddrives both the 3.5" and the 2.5" versions. would recommend them both

the passport is great. I have used em for photos, music, documents, ect...
they are extremely small, and as said before, they dont need external power.
+1 vote for the WD Passport

zelseman wrote in post #7644848
the passport is great. I have used em for photos, music, documents, ect...
they are extremely small, and as said before, they dont need external power.
+1 vote for the WD Passport

Not having to plug it into an outlet is a plus for me, especially since as of now when there is a power outage I can't access my files

Anyone have any experience with some of the new online storage places like Mozy?

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LostShootingStar wrote in post #7652288
Anyone have any experience with some of the new online storage places like Mozy?

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this is the one a tech-saavy buddy of mine on another forum swears by......

http://www.carbonite.c​om/

I use a Seagate Free Agent Go because I trust Seagate drives. I've had too many WD and Maxtor drives fail on me in the past although WD has gotten a lot better in the past few years. Don't buy LaCie though, they use cheap drives in their units. If possible, check the actual drive that is inside each unit you're looking at because that's where you want the most quality. An enclosure can die and you can still easily get your data off the drive but if the drive itself fails you're either totally screwed or out several hundred or thousand dollars getting your data back.

ALWAYS have your data in at least two locations or you WILL eventually lose it. I backup my Seagate to my desktop and vice-versa every week.

liquefied wrote in post #7652394
I use a Seagate Free Agent Go because I trust Seagate drives.

Same experience here. Have had both WD and Maxtor failures before. May be luck of the draw, but I have 2 Free Agent Go (a 320gb and 500gb) and have had no problems.

For travel, I wouldn't use anything else then the Lacie Rugged HardDrives.

Subscribed!

I've heard great things abotu the Passports, and I'm thinking of getting one for travel. But, I'm always on the lookout for something even smaller (footprint). What's the smallest footprint anyone here has found? (not a hijack, just asking for more options that could benefit myslef and the OP!)

you can see how big this one is compared to the paper clip
http://www.amazon.com …ics&qid=1238601​196&sr=8-4

dimensions (reported by amazon): 2.1 x 7 x 5.1 inches
actual dimensions (measured by me): 5/8" x 3 1/4" x 5 1/8"