Selecting The Best External Hard Drive For Your Needs

Today we will discover what you need to know when choosing an external hard drive.

Best External Hard Drive

Updated 11/27/2009

The hard drive I bought has now been discontinued so I’m linking you up to the current Western Digital external hard drive model and other options based on if your a Mac or PC person and the type of connection you need.

Western Digital My Book Studio II – 2 TB (2 x 1 TB) USB 2.0/FireWire 400/FireWire 800/eSATA Desktop External Hard Drive WDH2Q20000N

Now you can get 2TB for $249 with free shipping.  This hard drive solution comes with all the possible ports you could want on a drive and a 5 year warranty.  PC or Mac.

Western Digital My Book Studio 1 TB FireWire 800/400, USB 2.0 External Hard Drive WDBAAJ0010HSL-NESN

This one has similar specs but no eSata.  Now you get a digital display to show you the amount of available hard drive space.

You can choose 1TB ($149), 1.5TB ($179)or 2TB($239) and has a 3 year warranty.

Shipping time was a bit out when I looked at this model but that could be due to Black Friday.

Western Digital My Book for Mac 1 TB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive WDBAAG0010HCH-NESN
If you want an external hard drive compatible with your Time Capsule, check out this Western digital drive that you can pick up for $109 with USB 2.0

Discontinued Drive

Western Digital My Book Studio Edition 1 TB Desktop External Hard Drive WDH1Q10000N

$160 at Amazon with Free Shipping
I picked this drive up in April of 2009 to use on my Windows XP box with plans to use it with my new Macbook and I’m happy to report it’s working great!   I did have some issues transferring through Firewire where it would fail after a few hundred gigs of data but I went to Western Digital’s website and updated the firmware and have had no problems since!   I paid $154.99 on 4/23/2009 and just price checked today and it’s at $169.99 (6/11/2009) so it’s still a great deal.

• 1 TB of space (1,000 GB)
• 5 year warranty
• USB 2.0/FireWire 400/FireWire 800/eSATA
• Very quiet
• Compatible with PC, Mac and Linux

Show Discussion

A study conducted by HP and SCORE revealed that 70% of businesses who experience major data loss close within one year.

What size should the external hard drive be to make sure all your data get’s backed up?

What connection types are there?

Will it work with your computer?

Types of drives you can select

Backup software

Types of backups – Files vs Image backups

Ease of use when running backups – scheduling

Is this external hard drive reliable?

External hard drive solutions vs DIY kits

Making backups of your backups – Redundancy is very important

Where to research External Hard Drives

Online Backups with Mozy

NOTE: While backing up your system is a great idea, make sure you have a backup of your backup.

A fast, easy and affordable solution is Mozy’s online backups.  Mozy supports Windows and Mac’s plus you can get 2GB of free space to try it out or get unlimited space for $4.95 /month.  I use MozyPro to backup my client’s servers.

Contest Question

Name 3 companies that contributed to the development of USB (Universal Serial Bus)

Winner Nic Baisley @nbaisley
6:23 pm nbaisley: Compaq, Digital Equipment Corp, IBM PC Co.

Today we will discover what you need to know when choosing an external hard drive. What size should the external hard drive be to make sure all your data get's backed up? What's a good price?