1 TB external HD options

Hey all. I am going to get a 1 tb external and my budget is about 50 bucks. Now, for about the same price, I can get a regular bare HD, and then my own enclosure. This seems to make more sense as prying apart the factory build drives can be a pain if it even supports replacing the drive inside of it. What would you do? I was looking at these.

Seagate Backup Plus Slim

Toshiba Canvio

Or buy the drive and case separate. This lets me choose the drive and case. What would you go with?

a reply to: CosmicAwakening

Think about waiting a week and looking online. Next Thursday and Friday should have some pretty sweet deals, you may be able to get a 2tb for the same price.

Just a thought.

a reply to: CosmicAwakening

Are you using it just for backup or are you going to require accessing it frequently?

If the latter, I'd look into a small, single drive, NAS item.

originally posted by: CriticalStinker
a reply to: CosmicAwakening

Think about waiting a week and looking online. Next Thursday and Friday should have some pretty sweet deals, you may be able to get a 2tb for the same price.

Just a thought.

True. But that still leaves the question, factory or buy the 2 pieces separate.

originally posted by: MisterSpock
a reply to: CosmicAwakening

Are you using it just for backup or are you going to require accessing it frequently?

If the latter, I'd look into a small, single drive, NAS item.

Strictly backup. I plan to copy to it once, filling it, and then sticking it away. Maybe refreshing/transferring it when required due to lifespan of the magnetics inside, etc. There are better options like M-disc and blu-ray for long term storage, but I do not want to do all that yet.

originally posted by: CosmicAwakening

originally posted by: MisterSpock
a reply to: CosmicAwakening

Are you using it just for backup or are you going to require accessing it frequently?

If the latter, I'd look into a small, single drive, NAS item.

Strictly backup. I plan to copy to it once, filling it, and then sticking it away. Maybe refreshing/transferring it when required due to lifespan of the magnetics inside, etc. There are better options like M-disc and blu-ray for long term storage, but I do not want to do all that yet.

I have bare drives and a drive dock, works good for what you are describing. Didn't bother to put them in an enclosure, just stack them on a shelf.

I'd probably just buy a bare drive, enclose it or not, since it's strictly storage and portability and frequent handling wouldn't be an issue.

a reply to: CosmicAwakening

I recommend the Western Digital 1 TB My Passport USB3 3.0 drives. We've been using them for a while now without any issue and prior to that, smaller capacity My Passports for years.

We switched from using the Seagates (I don't recall the model) because they were flaky. In fact, I recommend using WD drives all the way around.

Also, there's really no need to replace a drive from a USB enclosure. In fact, there's a thing called "shucking" where sometimes the USB drives end up being cheaper than buying the bare drives inside of them and people pry the enclosures open, remove the drives and shuck the enclosure to save a few bucks.

Heck I may just have to get both. A bare one to store and an enclosed to carry and use a little.

originally posted by: CosmicAwakening

originally posted by: CriticalStinker
a reply to: CosmicAwakening

Think about waiting a week and looking online. Next Thursday and Friday should have some pretty sweet deals, you may be able to get a 2tb for the same price.

Just a thought.

True. But that still leaves the question, factory or buy the 2 pieces separate.

If you don't care about size maybe 2 separate pieces.

But honestly, the price difference isn't too much more to get a small external.

The only time I've seen a big price difference is when people want to get the fastest read/write speed.

If you're not going to run programs off of it (or video games), a small external should suffice.

originally posted by: theantediluvian
Also, there's really no need to replace a drive from a USB enclosure. In fact, there's a thing called "shucking" where sometimes the USB drives end up being cheaper than buying the bare drives inside of them and people pry the enclosures open, remove the drives and shuck the enclosure to save a few bucks.

Will look into that as well thanks.

I use a HD docking station by Inatech. It handles 2.5 and 3.5 HD/SSD's. Easy swapping. The offline clone is really handy if you need to make backups fast.

www.amazon.com...

a reply to: CosmicAwakening

Make sure you get a usb 3 drive.

also make sure your pc has usb 3 ports.

they will be blue.

Not to go off topic, but I have a question for peeps...

I'm looking to get an new laptop but an inexpensive - yet one that is fast - not to do much of anything like gaming, just typical work within excel and word, and internet surfing with some flash utilization. So I was going to get an HP or Dell @ $500 with a 1 TB HD, then buy a 500GB SSD to replace the 1 TB HD. It's just less expensive than buying a laptop with an SSD installed.

Am I going about this the right way? What are the alternatives while staying under $600 total?

a reply to: six67seven

You could get a chromebook, if space isn't an issue. Surf the web fine and isn't most of the office suit online now?

I believe most of them(chromebooks) come with flash storage(either onboard or a small SSD).

ETA: But your idea is fine, I did that with a cheaper laptop I bought, SSD made a big difference performance wise.

a reply to: MisterSpock

Ok good - with regards to your edit.

Although a chromebook is a fine idea as well, especially since our little one will soon be ready to graduate from the tablet soon.

'ppreciate it!

a reply to: CosmicAwakening

link to Amazon.


I have quite a few of these deployed for backup drives and they work very well. Cheap too.
And I agree that prices should be much better later next week.

a reply to: MisterSpock

ETA: But your idea is fine, I did that with a cheaper laptop I bought, SSD made a big difference performance wise.

SSD can spruce up just about anything.

My Xbox OneS was rendering a little slow in some games.... So I put all the games I play most on there and they boot super quick now and load smoother as well.

originally posted by: CriticalStinker
a reply to: MisterSpock

ETA: But your idea is fine, I did that with a cheaper laptop I bought, SSD made a big difference performance wise.

SSD can spruce up just about anything.

That's what I thought too. So i took an old SSD I had laying around and tried to install it in the wife.....she wasn't too happy about it.

It definitely had a negative impact on performance.

originally posted by:



CosmicAwakening
Hey all. I am going to get a 1 tb external and my budget is about 50 bucks. Now, for about the same price, I can get a regular bare HD, and then my own enclosure. This seems to make more sense as prying apart the factory build drives can be a pain if it even supports replacing the drive inside of it. What would you do? I was looking at these.

Seagate Backup Plus Slim

Toshiba Canvio

Or buy the drive and case separate. This lets me choose the drive and case. What would you go with?

I have 2 Toshiba 1 T's external drives...I toss them into my pocket, case, bag...off they go anywhere I do