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

[aeron-lanart.livejournal.com]

I have a lovely seagate 1 terabyte external usb drive and an older seagate 250Gb external usb drive (currently empty as I lent it to someone after I got the bigger drive) but then I'm a bit of a hard drive junkie - I have 2 currently in my computer (1 is for boot and system/program files only, the other has the 'my documents' folder, the games and pretty much all my stored files (bar my music as that won't fit). I have another ready to be fitted when I feel like it.

I like seagate drives though I know some people have had bad luck with them - both my externals have been great and of my internals 1 is a seagate and the other is a western digital.

I use a backup program with my big external drive that was written by my ex rather than a commercial one and it works like a dream.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

I've heard good things about seagate too, and there seems to be sales semi-regularily for them which is a plus. Thanks for the info