My friends have been telling me that I shouldnt have invested 200(including tax) on a Seagate Portable External Harddrive 100gig. Its very small sturdy and portable but pretty expensive as you see for only 100gigs. I thought since everyone said Seagates were very reliable the money was worth it... could I have gone with a different product and gotten a more bang for my buck?
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Was this a bad buy?
- Thread starter pyune
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yes... i own a macbook pro . and I needed an external harddrive to store all my multimedia files.. nearly 40 gigs of avi movies and music. so to free up space on my laptop i purchased the SeaGate.. my question was was there a better purchase with same quality/reliablilty for 200 dollars.
crazycat said:
I just did a quick froogle, but the $200 seems slightly high for that product... I found it pretty quickly in the $165 range. But what's the difference between a "portable hard disk" and an "enclosure?" Just the fact that it can run bus powered? (EDIT: oh, never mind, 2.5")
mkrishnan said:
The "enclosure" doesn't include a hard drive.
Seagates are good drives with solid warranties. What kind of connectivity does it have? If it's just USB 2.0, you may have overpaid a little bit, but if it includes FireWire (especially FW800), it's too bad a price.
You don't say whether you really need the portability of a bus-powered 2.5" drive. A desktop drive/enclosure would have been cheaper, but if you need to take your external with you, what you have is obviously a better option.
pyune said:
It's more expensive because it's portable. If you didn't need a portable one, then you could've gotten like a 300-500GB external HDD.
well... i have this problem of rushing my purchases. *i always do this!!*
Yeh well.. Best buy didnt have fire wire so i thought ill just be content with USB 2.0 .. yeh well I believe the portability of this harddrive was the main reason for the high price.. but the question of whether I really need it or not is very subjective... could i have lived without it? yes. but I am using this to take to my dorm in college and probably will be storing more important files for future purposes and it is a nice convenient size to just throw into my bookbag.
Yeh well.. Best buy didnt have fire wire so i thought ill just be content with USB 2.0 .. yeh well I believe the portability of this harddrive was the main reason for the high price.. but the question of whether I really need it or not is very subjective... could i have lived without it? yes. but I am using this to take to my dorm in college and probably will be storing more important files for future purposes and it is a nice convenient size to just throw into my bookbag.
I think this thread needs clarity, just for sanity sake. 
There are 3 types of external harddisks:
#1: The first type is usually sold by companies like Maxtor or LaCie. It's a single prepackaged harddisk that comes with nice, fancy enclosure (aka: outer metallic case) and a normal 3.5" harddisk installed inside. There's no installation or work necessary on your part. All you need to do is plug the unit into your computer. Since they use normal desktop HDs inside, they're usually at least 150 GB capacity now, probably larger.
The 2nd type is one you essentially assemble yourself. You need to buy a regular harddisk, buy an enclosure/casing of your choice, and put the HD into the enclosure yourself. It takes 1-2 minutes, and the only difference between #1 and #2 is that this method will save you money and likely give you a better quality HD for the same price. The capacity depends on the type of HD you buy, but since desktop HDs tend to start at around 150 GB to 200 GB, that's the smallest you're likely to get.
The 3rd type uses the type of HDs normally found in laptops and stuff. They're around 2.5" rather than 3.5", so they're smaller, and use very small enclosures. In many cases, they can be powered by plugging it into a powered USB port. Since they're small and don't necessarily need to be plugged in, they're more portable. You likely have one of these.
Do you, pyune, plan on taking this HD all over the place with you? I mean, will this external HD ever leave your desk? I have an external HD that I use to back up my photos and stuff, and it sits on my desk, and never moves.
There are 3 types of external harddisks:
#1: The first type is usually sold by companies like Maxtor or LaCie. It's a single prepackaged harddisk that comes with nice, fancy enclosure (aka: outer metallic case) and a normal 3.5" harddisk installed inside. There's no installation or work necessary on your part. All you need to do is plug the unit into your computer. Since they use normal desktop HDs inside, they're usually at least 150 GB capacity now, probably larger.
The 2nd type is one you essentially assemble yourself. You need to buy a regular harddisk, buy an enclosure/casing of your choice, and put the HD into the enclosure yourself. It takes 1-2 minutes, and the only difference between #1 and #2 is that this method will save you money and likely give you a better quality HD for the same price. The capacity depends on the type of HD you buy, but since desktop HDs tend to start at around 150 GB to 200 GB, that's the smallest you're likely to get.
The 3rd type uses the type of HDs normally found in laptops and stuff. They're around 2.5" rather than 3.5", so they're smaller, and use very small enclosures. In many cases, they can be powered by plugging it into a powered USB port. Since they're small and don't necessarily need to be plugged in, they're more portable. You likely have one of these.
Do you, pyune, plan on taking this HD all over the place with you? I mean, will this external HD ever leave your desk? I have an external HD that I use to back up my photos and stuff, and it sits on my desk, and never moves.
I almost bought a hard drive and enclosure and from what I read it isn't hard at all to assemble. You just stick the drive in the enclosure and thats about it.
Here is an option to consider: (if you can take back current hard drive)
1. Buy a hard drive (3.5"; not a portable one) and enclosure as others have described above.
2. Clean up MBP hard drive so it holds only essentials and all the avi files you need. You should have the space since it is at least 80GB.
3. Use the external hard drive you bought in step "1" as storage for everything that doesn't need to be portable all the time.
This could save a lot of money and give you more disk space.
If apple puts Seagate's upcoming 60 & 120GB drives in the iPods you could buy one as an excuse to store files. Even buying the current 60GB one is a good option.
Here is an option to consider: (if you can take back current hard drive)
1. Buy a hard drive (3.5"; not a portable one) and enclosure as others have described above.
2. Clean up MBP hard drive so it holds only essentials and all the avi files you need. You should have the space since it is at least 80GB.
3. Use the external hard drive you bought in step "1" as storage for everything that doesn't need to be portable all the time.
This could save a lot of money and give you more disk space.
If apple puts Seagate's upcoming 60 & 120GB drives in the iPods you could buy one as an excuse to store files.
Even buying the current 60GB one is a good option.Yes you overpaid. Since the files you're storing there are really things you wont (and shouldnt) be carrying around alot then theres no purpose on spending the premium to be portable. So for $200 you couldve got 3x more storage on a standard sized external. Or you couldve just invested that $200 towards a larger internal HDD upgrade for your macbook pro since that would be more useful, then buy a nice little $20 enclosure for your old drive.