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Any recommendation for a TCB friendly portable hard drive? All I need is to use this as an external drive to store data, songs, photo etc. I want to able to see it from my computer simply labeled as another drive. I do not want it to has any preinstalled proprietory firmware etc.. A 500GB to 1TB is what I needed. USB3 is not a must but welcomed for future upgrade.
Costco had some for decent prices last time I was in there, but act fast if you see a good price. Harddrive prices are rising fast and are not expected to come down for a while. My old PC went up in smoke last week so I picked up an external case at CompUSA in Plano on Monday for $20 that can accept the drive from my old computer, allowing me to recover the data. It plugs in via USB and shows up as a USB drive on my new PC with no software installation. This may be an option for you if you find that you can get an internal drive for significantly less than one that is already set up for external use.
I've had the best luck with the Western Digital drives, BUT you have to disable the crapware. Never been a big deal for me in the past because I used to do this sort of thing for a living and I'd disable the "feature" on a number of drives at a time.
That said, if there's anything out there in the "portable" category that provides an OPTION for external power, I'd recommend it. I've encountered a lot of laptops that are barely able to power external drives.
I have a 500G Seagate that's been problem free. It had some software on it that wanted to install so I just formatted the drive and now the comp sees it as a removable drive.
I'm with TC, WD is a pretty safe bet. Just be mindfull of the recent rise of HDD prices due to the floods in Asia. Most HDD's have gone up 75-150% over the last 3 months.
Another reason to buy Seagate. Any products behind that name should be dry.
Also look at a NAS I have one an the world headquarters (1 tb) and I can access it anywhere I am just plug it into a router and when in the office it just shows up as another drive & can be accessed from the web anywhere and anytime.
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/pro...armor_nas_110/
FWIW, I bought a 750GB Toshiba portable at Fry's a while back for $100. It's been flawless, came with a 3 year factory warranty, and doesn't require any external power. Haven't priced them lately, though.
I have a USB attached Seagate I bought around 6-7 years ago. I run an unattended backup to it every Saturday morning. It's been solid so far.
I have a WD Passport that is USB-powered and very compact. Great for backup or when I need to bring a bunch of pictures/video somewhere. Mine is almost 2 yrs old and was $79 for 500gb at Costco.
Noodle around on the Seagate site, my dad sends me an email of "specials" they are offering which are OK. I got an Iomega 500g at fry's and been very pleased with it. no preloaded software, just a big arse drive to stash stuff.