Cicer: 0 Technology: 64,372

[cicer]

So I just got a tax-refund check. Unexpected money, yay! Of course, it could go into savings, but what I really want to do is buy shiny tech goodies.

So! A question to those of you in possesion of external harddrives! I am thinking of getting one. Do you have any recommendations of particular products I should look at? Any you've used and really liked? Any I should definitely stay away from? I don't need a huge amount of space. I see there are some out there with, like, 300 GB, and I would never ever fill that much up. But I would like to be able to clear some of the junk off my PC and back up my files. Thoughts?

Also, I think I might be ready to cave and buy and Ipod. No, I've never had one. Yes, I am more behind-the-times than your grandmother. You don't want to know how long it took me to move from VHS to DVD. I am currently eyeing this one. It's awfully pretty.

In further Me vs. Technology news, my laptop has decided it won't create zipped files anymore. I don't know why. I installed WinRar a while back, and haven't tried to zip anything since, but apparantly the computer will no longer zip stuff now. I tried uninstalling WinRar, reinstalling it, and using other downloadable stuff, but nothing works. I think the compact.exe thingy is broken. Sigh. I have no idea how to fix this, so all my file-zipping may have to be done from my desktop from now on, unless someone out there has a brilliant idea.

Comments

[vom-marlowe.livejournal.com]

I've been looking at external harddrives, too. My brother told me to stay away from some knockoff brand named Asian Electronics, but other than that, I have no clue.

On the WinRar front: this happened to me. You may have already tried this, but in case not, right click on the folder you want to compress, choose "Add to archive", then, when the WinRar dialog box pops up, choose "zip" instead of "rar" as file type. It's a button option. I can get it to compress to zips that way, but no other combo of clicking will work. Arrrrrrrgh.

Oh man, this is not my day. XD NOW WITH WORKING HTML!

[cicer.livejournal.com]

Ooo. I don't think I tried that. I never really got the hang of WinRar, though. I just use it to open rar files. Guess I'll have to get more familar with it. I'll definitely try that, though! Thanks!

Also, got volumes 2 and 3 of Sex Pistols up for you, and I'm working on 4 and 5!

Re: Oh man, this is not my day. XD NOW WITH WORKING HTML!

[vom-marlowe.livejournal.com]

Well, I only figured it out because I had a pressing deadline and had to send files asap or die trying, lol. I'm not really very happy with WinRar, but it seems to have taken over all compressing tasks on my computer and I can't get it to stop. Arrrrrgh.

And yay! Volumes downloading now! You rock like a rocking thing! Yay! This completely made my day.

[hungry-worm.livejournal.com]

Personally I'd make sure to read online reviews of the external drive I want to buy and look for the noise level. It may be something that only irks me, but I find it disturbing when the harddrive spins too loud. I still haven't bought myself one yet, though, mostly because I use my old white iPod as external drive (I've got 20 GB on it and with enabled disk use, 70% of the space are backup files etc.)

[cicer.livejournal.com]

Oh, wow, that's a really good idea. I'm uber noise sensitive and really bugged by persistent low-grade noises, so that could be a deal-breaker for me. Thanks for mentioning that!

[kintail.livejournal.com]

About iPods: I got my Very First MP3 Player back in February as a birthday gift, so you're not much behind me. It's a first generation Nano, 1 GB space, and black, and Tav told me he got it from the Apple.com site's own refurbished products section for about the price of a new-generation Shuffle, with free shipping. Much savings, and since it's from Apple.com, it still comes with a warranty!

So, when Tav's first mp3 player (RCA brand) died last month, I asked him what he wanted and then went to Apple.com's refurb site, too, and bought him a new-generation Shuffle for about 60% of the regular price, except I had also to pay about $10 shipping (to Canada) because it didn't even cost enough to qualify for free shipping. Still a great deal over anywhere else, though.

The only annoying thing is that Apple.com doesn't want to work in Firefox for me, so I have to use IExplorer to shop there.

[kintail.livejournal.com]

(PS. nekonexus below is my Tav, he has to research things like that for his work so I sent him the link to your post. ~_^)

[cicer.livejournal.com]

Oooh, shiny! I see those refubished ones are a good $50 less than new stuff. Iiiinteresting. Thanks for pointing that out to me, I'll take a look at it. :)

[nekonexus.livejournal.com]

Western Digital has a great line of external drives (http://westerndigital.com/en/products/index.asp?cat=5) -- from the one terabyte (yes, 1000gig), to pocket sized 20 or 30GB drives. Their "MyBook" line is designed to look kind of like books, so you can stand them neatly on a shelf and not have it looking like a clunky hard drive.

Also, check the PC/laptop you'll be connecting it to for USB 2.0 ports. While all USB 2.0 is backwards compatible with USB 1.1, having the 2.0 will make it much much faster to transfer files.

[nekonexus.livejournal.com]

PS - always buy twice as much as you think you'll need, or the biggest you can afford, whichever comes first. Guaranteed that once you have it, you'll find things to store on it. ^_~

[cicer.livejournal.com]

First time in my life I've ever heard the term terabyte! I didn't even know there was such a measurement. Thanks for pointing this out. Those products look nice, and they aren't too expensive. I'll definitely give them a closer look.

And thanks for the tips! I caught myself earlier thinking about how I don't really need more than 7 gigs or so, because that's what my personal files total up to, before I remembered that if I had the space I'd definitely want to download and store video files and such. Plus, if I had more space I could get more music and, and, and...Heh. I'm absolutely sure I'd have no problem finding more things to store! Oh dear. ;)

[ymfaery]

What price range are you looking at? I've seen 500GB external drives on sale for $140 or less, and if I wasn't trying to save money for a new digital camera I'd have bought one by now. ^_^a

[cicer.livejournal.com]

I'd prefer something cheaper. Under $100, I think. Also, 500GB is just way too much space for me. I could back up all my files several times over and still have room! XD I like the Western Digital ones Tav pointed out though. There's a 160GB one for just $80, which is pretty good. Also, it's cute, and we all know that's an important factor! Which ones are you looking at?

[ymfaery]

One of the MyBook things he mentioned; that was the $140 for 500GB that I was looking at.

160GB is okay, but if you want to seriously download video files and the like, you'd run out of room in about 2-3 months, I think. XD (Unless you burn them to disk and erase them from your hard drive.) And I think there might be 250GB drives for under $100 when they're on sale, and for decent brand name ones at that. You should shop around and see what's out there. :D

[cicer.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I don't really download video files much, so I don't think I need that much space. Of course, if I had one of these, I might start! XD But even then I could just burn stuff to disks, since that's what I usually do. So I think I'd be all right with 160GB, but I'll have to think about it. I'm definitely going to wait a bit and see if things go on sale, though, since I'm in no rush to buy one. :) So far it looks like Best Buy and Wal-Mart have the best prices on Western Digital stuff, though...

[dusk-eyed.livejournal.com]

I have two external hard drives. I prefer the Maxtor version.