Im gonna be going out of country for the next two years and I cant take my computer with me. Im giving my computer to my younger brother (he's going to college) and Im looking into buying a external hard drive so that I can keep my 20+ gigs worth of papers, pictures, and other stuff for when I get back. I figured external hard drives was my best bet. Anyone got any pointers? What brand is best, what to look for, what not to. I know amazon has some good deals, but this is one area of electronics I know nothing about. It will pretty much be sitting around for two years at my parents house in a box most likely, so is there something in particular i need to look at for this reason. Thanks in advance.

8/19/2006 3:41:19 AM

Hard Drive quality usually only matters when it is going to be used (low quality hard drives wear out early, but you only "need" to use it twice). If the purpose is storage I do not suspect it will matter what HDD you purchase, only how you store it, which doesn't matter a lot because the drive is already sealed and shielded... So, if I were to guess, go buy the second cheapest one you can.

But if you allow me to suggest, it sounds like burning the data to DVD-Rs (multiple copies) would work just as well and be a tad cheaper. 20GB is only 5 DVD-Rs, so getting 2 copies of each disk is only 10 DVD-Rs or about $4.

8/19/2006 9:59:45 AM

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?Order=PRICE&Page=1&N=2010150414&Submit=ENE&Nty=1&SubCategory=414

8/19/2006 12:16:19 PM