I never thought the day would come where I needed more than 100GB of storage, but here I am… looking to buy another 1TB (1,000GB) drive!
I do a lot of graphics and photo editing for work so storage space on my computers internal drives just aren’t enough. I have had to invest in 2 x 250GB external drives, 1 x 500GB external drive and most recently bought a 1TB (1,000GB) external hard drive.
Western Digital MyBook 250GB External Hard Drive
The two 250GB drives are Western Digitals MyBook drives. I bought them from Amazon almost a year ago and I think paid a little over £70 at the time. Prices have since plummeted and you should be able to pick up the 320GB version for about £50-£60 now. These drives have been used quite extensively and for sometime I used them as scratch discs for Adobe Photoshop.
Installing the drives were simple and straight forward. They are plug-n-play with Windows XP – so no problems there. I don’t use the software that came with them but my colleague does and says they are quite simple and useful for back-up tasks. The drives have performed superbly for me so far (touch wood). The only thing I don’t like is that they power down every 10mins of being inactive – they go into sleep-mode and it takes a few seconds for them to wake up again. Nothing major, but just a bit annoying sometimes.
Seagate FreeAgent 500GB External Hard Drive
The 500GB hard drive is a Seagate FreeAgent drive bought from a high street store for just over £90. I could’ve got it for a lot less online, but I was in a hurry! I’ve had it for almost 4 months now and its used purely for back-ups of photos/graphics. Installation was a breeze and the software that came with it is very useful and straight forward to use. File transfers are quite fast, the drive isn’t loud but can get a bit hot / warm at times. Other than that its been reliable so far. But then again I’ve only had it for 4 months so would expect it to be good for many more months to come!
1,000GB Drives
I’ll wait a month or so before reviewing the larger drives. I’m still on the search for a another one, so I’ll write about it very soon.
