Good portable hard drive?

[vashappenin]

Hi guys,
I'm looking for anyone's advice on a really good portable hard drive that isn't too expensive and that has a lot of storage space.
The main reasons I need one are:
- To save important files onto
- To have a single source to save everything onto for the whole family rather than having things scattered amongst the several computers/laptops in the house
- For movies, photos, videos, etc.
 
Please help me out! If you can, please recommend a hard drive (model, storage space, etc.), its pros and cons, where I can buy it and how much it'll cost roughly

Thanks

[Stevensmay]

Generally any hard drive that has the store you need and isn't suspiciously cheap will be fine.

Make sure you keep at least two other copies of your important stuff, preferably with one kept offsite.

If the computer supports it then maybe look into USB3, depending on whether you will be using the drive for large files often.

[slothpomba]

Pretty much what Stevensmay said. They're all pretty much the same honestly, it's a bit like paying attention to the brand of lightbulb or socks you have, they all tend to work the same. I suggest you stick to one of the two major manufacturers - Seagate or Western Digital but its not 100% necessary.

If i were you i'd be more concerned about the price and any extra features it has (ones that are real features too like USB3, not some made up stuff). I think 1TB should last you for ages, if its not too expensive, maybe upgrade to 2TB to future proof it. A downloaded movie is ~700mb or 0.7 GB, to make it simple (not technically correct though), a terabyte is 1000 Gigabytes. Say you have 100 downloaded movies that are 700mb each, thats only 70 gigabyte or 0.070 terabytes (out of 1) used so far. 5000 digital photos, assuming they're ~4mb each will roughly be 20 gigabyte or 0.020 terabytes.

As you can see its a serious amount of space. You might not even need that much, just see what the most cost effective option is.

Centrecom or MSY are usually very cheap for buying parts but they barely know the meaning of the word customer service. If you buy from them, know 100% what you want, they dont really like dealing with people who aren't sure but again, they are pretty damn cheap.

[vashappenin]

Pretty much what Stevensmay said. They're all pretty much the same honestly, it's a bit like paying attention to the brand of lightbulb or socks you have, they all tend to work the same. I suggest you stick to one of the two major manufacturers - Seagate or Western Digital but its not 100% necessary.

If i were you i'd be more concerned about the price and any extra features it has (ones that are real features too like USB3, not some made up stuff). I think 1TB should last you for ages, if its not too expensive, maybe upgrade to 2TB to future proof it. A downloaded movie is ~700mb or 0.7 GB, to make it simple (not technically correct though), a terabyte is 1000 Gigabytes. Say you have 100 downloaded movies that are 700mb each, thats only 70 gigabyte or 0.070 terabytes (out of 1) used so far. 5000 digital photos, assuming they're ~4mb each will roughly be 20 gigabyte or 0.020 terabytes.

As you can see its a serious amount of space. You might not even need that much, just see what the most cost effective option is.

Centrecom or MSY are usually very cheap for buying parts but they barely know the meaning of the word customer service. If you buy from them, know 100% what you want, they dont really like dealing with people who aren't sure but again, they are pretty damn cheap.

Ok thanks! Keeping these suggestions in mind, what's a good price range?

[slothpomba]

Ok thanks! Keeping these suggestions in mind, what's a good price range?

Whats that saying, something is worth only as much as the consumer is willing to pay for it or something like that. It's really up to you what you want to spend. I definitely wouldn't go over $150 max, even then its overkill. As i said earlier, try get the most TB's for your money and any extra features if you need them.

Just look around centrecom (http://www.centrecom.com.au/external-desktop-hard-drives?orderby=10) and MSY (http://www.msy.com.au/Parts/PARTS.pdf). OzBargins sometimes posts hard-drive specials as well but you could be waiting ages for one.

[lala1911]

Anything with USB3 and a transfer rate of up to 5GB/s (USB3) is handy.. plus you can now buy portable hard drives that have the ability to be encrypted with a password. My 1TB portable hard drive which was bought a while ago when they first came out is very slow. So slow that I don't even use it I guess. It took hours to copy a few gb so you'll definitely want to pay that bit extra for a quality hard drive. Don't make the same mistakes as I usually do by going for the cheaper alternatives. Just be weary of crappy brands. Western Digital, Seagate and Samsung are probably your go-to brands.

[Greatness]

Xmas sales should be out soon, keep an eye out for Officeworks, Centrecom, Harvey Norman etc they'll have some good prices on portable hard drives. I'm hoping I see some 750gb - 1Tb ones for around $65-$80, they sell them at these prices every now and then which is quite a bargain! Most of them also have USB 3.0.

[Russ]

If you're going to be using it for the entire family, consider a NAS (network attached storage) hard drive? You can just plug it into your router and have everyone connect to it that way, rather than having to keep moving it around.