External hard drive

[Yorky Lass]

I want to buy an external hard drive to use as a backup. I know nothing about them. Can anyone recommend one please. I'm running XP on my desktop and have Vista on my laptop. As I said I know nothing about them so would also like to know if I connected it to the lap top ( presuming I can ) would I be able to play my music through the laptop that is the backup of my XP?
Thanks in advance

[scotman]

I can't recommend any particular item but Western Digital ones have a good reputation.

[bibblebub]

For the past couple of years I have been using an IOMEGA portable hard drive with my XP laptop.

The exact model seems to have been replaced but it looks the same, with a different capacity, as this http://tinyurl.com/6jkrebv (Comet was where I bought it). It plugs in to 2 USB ports and so doesn't require a separate power source. It is also very small.

I haven't had any problems with it in that time.

[snags]

I use a Freecom external hard drive without problem... plugs in to one USB port for power... quiet, small, robust.

[ChuckFickens]

I've used loads of different EHDs and to be honest, don't worry too much about the brand just take very good care of it and don't knock or bang it about at all when it powered on and they will all last, It's fairly rare to see any brand of drive spontaneously fail if it's treated well. In fact you'd be better of getting two of the cheapest you can rather than one expensive one so you can have two copies of everything for backup reasons.

And yes, you can play the music on the drive on any computer it's plugged into.

[VHG]

External hard drives come in two physical sizes (that is 2.5" disks that usually go in laptops or 3.5" disks that usually go in desktops).

Note you can use both types with a laptop or desktop it does not matter as it plugs into the USB slot.

2.5" external drives (often called portable) get their power from the USB so dont need to plug into the mains. 3.5" needs mains power so you need to be near a mains socket.

They comes in various sizes, 250Gb, 500Gb, 1Tb (1000gb), 1.5 Tb, 2Tb. The largest portable ones are 1Tb (1000Gb).

The portable ones tends to be more expensive than the desktop ones (for the same amount of disk space).

Assuming you are using it near a mains power socket then I would go for a 1Tb 3.5" drive that should cost you between £40 and £50.

I have two Western Digital that have been great.

[Yorky Lass]

Thank you VHG. Very useful to know about the power, a usb would be preferable.
Thanks again. I know what I am looking for now.