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External hard disk on the cheap

B

brap

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Ok, so one of my aged 120GB hard drives in the PC is dying noisily and horribly, and I also need to back up the data on my Powerbook, so external is the way to go. Problem is, with so many new technology purchases, I'm broke, man...

I like the look of the 250GB Maxtor Onetouch drives, anyone have any advice regarding these? They look pretty, and it'd give my Virtual PC a helluva speed boost... LaCie has always had good reviews from the Mac community but they seem overpriced over here, so unless anyone knows of any wonderfully cheap shops not on Kelkoo, they're out.

I'd also consider making my own with an enclosure, but I can't for the life of me find a USB2/FW400 enclosure which is worthwhile buying at the price! (Looks are important, too). Any help appreciated.
 
If money is an issue, definitely buy a regular hard drive with a rebate or what ever, and an external enclosure. They are very easy to put together, and much cheaper than the pre-built ones. A good FW case can be had for about $40 American.

eBay is also a good bet. I might be putting my 200GB FW/USB2 drive there soon. They seem to be going for about $120.
 
Humbug.

Thanks for the responses, but I don't seem to be able to get anything near good enough in an enclosure over here for a decent price - think of the numbers in USD and that's what I'm paying sterling. Silly money. So I'm deciding to go the whole hog so to speak and get a pre-built one, only I've heard the Maxtor (scratch that, I've read) the Maxtor is hella slow comparatively.

I've found a retailer that sells LaCie drives at prices lower than that of a Western Digi (FWIW, I'm going 250GB), but I can't find speed tests for the P3 model. Surely someone must have one here; how does the P3 stack up?
 
brap said:
Thanks for the responses, but I don't seem to be able to get anything near good enough in an enclosure over here for a decent price - think of the numbers in USD and that's what I'm paying sterling. Silly money. So I'm deciding to go the whole hog so to speak and get a pre-built one, only I've heard the Maxtor (scratch that, I've read) the Maxtor is hella slow comparatively.

I've found a retailer that sells LaCie drives at prices lower than that of a Western Digi (FWIW, I'm going 250GB), but I can't find speed tests for the P3 model. Surely someone must have one here; how does the P3 stack up?
Click to expand...

Well the p3 looks good to me, im going to order one off dabs.com right now 😛

edit.. oo theres a D2 refurb.. what a to do!
 
And the $100,000 question is...

brap said:
(scratch that, I've read) the Maxtor is hella slow comparatively.

I've found a retailer that sells LaCie drives at prices lower than that of a Western Digi (FWIW, I'm going 250GB), but I can't find speed tests for the P3 model. Surely someone must have one here; how does the P3 stack up?
Click to expand...

Are YOU really going to notice 6m/s of a difference? 🙄
 
I went for the D2 Firewire 800, 400 and USB2 Refurb drive on dabs.. apparently those P3's have noisy fans in them 😱 (where as the d2's are fanless).

I ended up paying £114 for it, (on amazon they are £218.. £150 on dabs new) 😀
 
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