External hard drives?

[donutsweeper]

Appealing to my flist for information here :)

I know next to nothing about computers. I would like to get an external hard drive or a zip drive or something that I can back up my files with. I would be backing up word docs, photos and a bunch of .avi files (tv shows and movies). Anyone have any suggestions as to what device would work best for this? Any info- like what brands are good or which ones should be avoided or what storage size is ideal would be appreciated.

Comments

[webbgirl.livejournal.com]

I use LaCie external HDs. I have two that I use. One is for all my media files and the other strictly backup. I've never had issues with them, but I have had issues with Western Digital ones in the past.

How it's going to work is partially going to depend on what type of computer you have. Most externals are set up for PCs so using them with Macs can be a little more problematic.

Storage size is really going to depend on how much media you have that you want to back up. I have one that's 500GB and the other is a Terabyte. I have a LOT of media though.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I was hoping the whole family could use the same one. Three of us have PCs, but one has a Mac. Hmm, I don't think I have all that much media, probably well less than 100GB, so I suppose the 500 would work fine.

I'll look into the LaCies, thanks.

[phoenix64.livejournal.com]

I've been using a LaCie with my Mac without any problems at all. I have the 500 GB drive partitioned into 177 GB for backup and 323 GB for external media storage (no, I don't remember how I came up with those numbers). The hard drive on my laptop is 120 GB. I wish I'd allocated a little more space for backup but it's been running fine for over three years now. I use Time Machine (which is disgustingly easy to use) and my oldest backup is from July of this year.

PS: I know this is from back in September but I have taken that long to make a decision on a tech purchase myself. ;P

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

We still haven't gotten one. I did a bunch of research and then we decided we should go over it all and... yeah. It's still on our 'To Do' list.

Thanks for the input though, and by responding you made me remember we needed to get one, it had kind of fallen off our radar.