First and foremost, I disagree with the gentleman that said it mattered what type of hard drive manufacturer you decide to opt for.
Western Digital drives use Seagate drives, and the only thing you're actually paying for is the name, so, you'll end up paying an extra 50 to 80 dollars just because you opted to go with a name brand rather than the lesser known names like LACI or Razor, both of which use Seagate drives in their enclosures. In fact, the biggest consideration when purchasing an external drive is what type of enclosure you'd like to get, either a self powered one, which means forget about plugging it into a USB 1.0 port, or an enclosure that utilizes an outside power source like an AC Adapter. The second consideration is the type of interface you want to choose. For the price the gentleman stated of 160 dollars, you'll end up paying for a 1 TB drive from Western Digital and you'll have to end up with a USB connection, when, for the same price, you can shop around, not go with a name brand drive, and get one with a higher seek time and RPM, multiple interfaces like network connectivity, which means you'll be able to access it across the board on all of your computers connected to the same network independently of a second computer, or firewire and SCSI interfaces. Either way, don't flush money down the toilet going for a name brand when the enclosure is more apt to fail than the drive, assuming no accidents happen. I just purchased a rugged 2.5 terabyte drive which can be dropped from a height of three to four feet and it won't get damaged. It cost me all of 110 dollars at Best Buy, and it's a LACI drive, which, as I mentioned, uses Seagate drives inside their enclosures. Speaking of the drive I purchased, . I just remembered another consideration you may want to consider, especially if you're going to be sitting this drive on an unstable surface that rocks just from the typing action of your keyboard. Get a drive/enclosure that doesn't require it stand up on it's end, and must lay down on it's side. I don't want to tell you the number of horror stories I've heard of people who've bumped their desks with their hips, *I mean, we are blind after all*, and then hear a clunk when their hard drives tip over, then they're surprised that they can't access their drives and it's ticking like a time bomb. Smiles. Either way, I would seriously not recommend you get a name brand drive like Western Digital, and pick yourself up a more economical drive that is loaded with features and not branding, I can almost guarantee you won't be disappointed. Scorpio For answers to frequently asked questions about this list visit: http://www.jaws-users.com/help/
