Was this external HDD a good buy?

[dmw007]

I was shopping at Staples today and I saw a Maxtor external HDD on sale. It is a Maxtor Basics Personal Storage 3200 HDD

Specs-
300GB, 16MB Cache, 7,200 rpm USB 2.0, etc....

I paid $130, was this a good deal. Is this HDD okay for backing up my data and providing extra storage space? Is there a better model/make that I should return this one for? Any help would be appreciated.



BTW, anyone care to recommend some software to backup my data?

 

[extraextra]

I have a Maxtor external HDD. It works fine. (it only works on Windows though - or at least mind does!)

Although I paid $100 for a 100GB one at Office Depot.

 

[Nuc]

I've never had a maxtor external drive last very long. The drives were always fine but the enclosures sucked. If you ever find that the enclosure has a problem just stick the drive in another enclosure. Other than that I believe this was a good buy.

Nuc

 

[dmw007]

I have a Maxtor external HDD. It works fine. (it only works on Windows though - or at least mind does!)

Although I paid $100 for a 100GB one at Office Depot.

I just wiped and reformatted the drive to work with Mac OS X- now it works for both reading & writing to the drive. Seeing how I paid $30 more for 200GB of extra storage, it sounds like I got a bargain.

 

[Heb1228]

Sounds like a pretty good deal. I'm not big on USB, but its likely that Intel Macs do a better job with performance than PPCs Macs do/did.

The brand is fine, there isn't much difference between HDD brands.

 

[illegalprelude]

Got a damn good deal I believe. For backing up content, no big diff. between Firewire and USB 2 imho. For streaming and editing and such, huge but for just my backup drive, I also use USB and it works just fne

 

[dmw007]

Sounds like a pretty good deal. I'm not big on USB, but its likely that Intel Macs do a better job with performance than PPCs Macs do/did.

The brand is fine, there isn't much difference between HDD brands.

I am not a big fan of USB either, but the only firewire HDD that Staples had cost $300 for the same size. And yes, Intel based Macs are supposedly faster when reading/writing to USB.

Got a damn good deal I believe. For backing up content, no big diff. between Firewire and USB 2 imho. For streaming and editing and such, huge but for just my backup drive, I also use USB and it works just fne

Yep, I just plan to use it for backup my files.