Tír Na HiFi

I am looking for recommendations for an external Hard Drive based on your own experience. I am using a PC, operating system = Windows XP. I will probably want a 1 TB capacity and, as I am no techie, it has to be idiot proof (plug in and play). The overriding factor is reliability however. I have done a bit of research and I am a bit concerned that the failure rate seems to be about 10% with these things. Any suggestions?

No hard drive is 100% reliable, it's their nature I'm afraid. Even the chip ones aren't beyond a blip. The ones in Easons are as good as any, Seagate if memmory serves. If you absolutely have to ensure you don't lose the dats then buy a second one and back up to that like an obcessive compulsive.

Ah, very topical here tonight... the hdd in my main pc just died. Curses!

However luckily all my data is backed up TG. Big pain to have to reinstall all the software though.

Anyway how is this relevant? Well no matter what hdd you buy it will die at some point. So I would buy 2 external terabyte drives at the best price of different makes. Then plug both of them in and use something like goodsync to manage the back ups.

Then you are never dependent on just one.

Fran

Thanks guys. I had actually planned to buy two but I actually had not thought of buying two different makes. That is good advice!