Transportable HDD recommendations or warnings

[Ben Scott]

On 11/7/06, Ted Roche <tedroche at tedroche.com> wrote:
> I see the local big boxes have regular promotions for Western
> Digitals, Seagates, Maxtors and SimpleTechs.  Any recommendations
> pro- or con- or are these pretty much commodity items?

  From what I've seen, they're pretty much commodity items.  They're
universally the same on the inside: A standard 3.5-inch, 1/3-height
HDD like you'd find in any desktop PC, plus a PCB with a USB-to-IDE
bridge chip and some power electronics.

  Some do use 2.5-inch laptop-style drives.  I've heard at least one
person say those are more likely to wear out sooner, and they're
almost always more expensive, so you're probably best avoiding those.

  There is some differentiation in "value added" Windoze backup
software and such included with some drives, but for your purposes
that's moot.

  I'd go with whatever's cheapest (but don't forget to factor
warranty, etc., into the cost/benefit ratio).

-- Ben