|
Cheap External Hard DrivesChoosing the best deal on cheap external hard drives can be a little tricky. But there are a few things you can check to get the best value for your money. External hard drives come in two basic models, desktop and portable. OK, since most external hard drives are pretty reasonable to start with, the only way you're most likely to find a cheaper deal is in refurbished or used external hard drives. Probably not a good idea since many people use their external hard drives for backup chores and you would not want to take a chance with refurbished or used units. Cheap external hard drives can run as little as $50 for at least 250 Gigs and often twice that. The refurbished units can be found for around $38 to $45, which is not that much of a savings and the risk of failure is much higher than a new hard drive. As far as brands go, almost all of the hard drive manufacturers have been bought out or merged with the top five. Western Digital is the leader in consumer sales, Seagate in the industrial. Toshiba does well in the laptop and portables, Hitachi is also strong in the laptops and gaining ground in the consumer area, and Iomega is strong in the external desktop area. External hard drives offer a easy and fast way to add additional data storage capacity to any computer. Most are plug and play and don't require any setup. In fact the only real difference in most external hard drives is whether they are designed to be used as stationary desktop versions or carried from point to point. Many people take a portable external hard drive with them instead taking a laptop since they can put whatever data or software on the portable and access from any computer. Most portable models are approximately 3 X 5 inches and weigh less than 8 ounces. That's much smaller and lighter than any laptop and even most netbooks. The desktop versions of external hard drives usually cost a little less since they don't need to be shockproof or super small like the portable versions. And they don't have to be as compact since you won't be carrying it around. Most desktop models are around 7 X 5 inches and weight considerably more than 8 ounces (sometimes as much as 2 lbs). When it comes to price, cheap is a relative term. The cheaper models of external hard drives are going to have less capacity, that's about the only difference. So cheap external hard drives are going to run in the $50 to $75 range for a 250 to 500 Gig unit. The most popular size for an external hard drive these days is 1 TB (terabyte = 1000 Gigs). These 1 TB desktop models run about $80, so the smaller (in storage capacity, not physical size) and cheaper desktop external hard drives run around $60. Cost wise the better value is the larger drive but most people will never use all that space. Music and movie files can eat up space pretty fast but even then you would hard pressed to fill a terabyte external hard drive. The portable external hard drives usually cost more that the desktop models in the larger sizes. In the small sizes they are about the same. You can find a 250 to 320 Gig unit for as low as $50 or a 1 TB model for $120. So as the capacity size increases, so does the cost. We've listed the lowest priced models (read cheap) below that also have the best track record with users. Both the styles have a model for under $60, which is pretty cheap for external hard drives. Most Popular Cheap External Hard Drives For the Desktop The
Iomega Prestige 500 GB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive 34929 (Gray)
desktop external hard drive is the biggest seller. It's a big boy of
over 4 X 6 X 8 inches and it weighs about 3.1 lbs. You won't miss seeing
it on the desktop but it is designed well and buyers love the price of
$59 and 500 Gig capacity. You can learn more about specs and read
customer reviews here: Iomega Prestige 500 GB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive 34929 (Gray) The
Iomega Prestige 1 TB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive 34275 is
the same size and weight of the 500 gig but has twice the capacity.
Selling at $85 dollars and high recommended by users, it beats out all
other brands for price, performance, and capacity. It also has a nice looking burnished aluminum finish. You can learn more about specs and read
customer reviews here: Iomega Prestige 1 TB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive 34275 Most Popular Cheap External Hard Drives Portable Models The
Western Digital WD Elements 320 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive
WDBAAR3200ABK-NESN is the best selling and highly reviewed
portable cheap external hard drive. It's an ugly little almost square
black unit that sells for around $59. But most people love them for the
physical size, capacity, and the price. You can learn more here and read
the reviews: Iomega Prestige 500 GB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive 34929 (Gray) The
Seagate FreeAgent Go 500 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive ST905003FGA2E1-RK (Silver) is
the next size and most popular external hard drive. It runs about $79
and is 30% larger in capacity. It also looks a lot better and has some
style to the design, not that it makes it a better hard drive. You can learn more about specs and read
customer reviews here: Seagate FreeAgent Go 500 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive ST905003FGA2E1-RK (Silver) Software Included: Most of the software included with these drives is less than impressive. In fact the few complaints that any users made was about the included software. You can check our Backup Hard Drives web page to find some excellent free or very low cost backup software. Warranties: All of the hard drives external models come with at least a one year warranty, the Iomega models have 3 years. I don't pay too much attention to warranties on hard drives. Having made a claim once it was a long and difficult process and I got a refurbished hard drive after about 3 months of emails and calls.. The fact is that when you say cheap external hard drives, that may mean different things to different people. I would say that $60 is pretty cheap for a brand name external hard drive. Some may disagree but when it comes to hard drives and reliability, used or refurbished units for $15 less is not a good deal if they can't be trusted to keep your data safe. |
|
