So I need an external hard drive and I don't want to spend a crap load of money. I've been looking at some westin ones at Newegg.com but I'm not sure how to tell if I'm looking at a good one. The reviews on most of the external drives seem to be mixed. Some people love them, others hate them.

Does anyone have a decent size/price one they can recommend that has some longevity?

Thanks!

What are you planning to use it for? It's purpose will effect how much space you need which will impact the final price.

If you're just backing up a few topless cell phone pics you can probably get away with a really cheap USB memory stick. But if you're backing up all of the raw footage for your "never to be released" sex tape you'll probably need something a bit larger.

From what I see here at work I would def suggest an enclosure with a fan. Ive seen too many without fan just die. Also Im sure some of us could just buy a nice drive and put it in a nice enclosure for cheaper than you can get it in the stores..... I would say 500GB would be a good starting place. Maxtor, Western Digital are going to be your top players. I would not recommend IOMagic.

Basically I have a 40GB hard drive on my lap top and right now 38GB is being used by music files. I kind of want the external hard drive to be the place I rip CDs to and stuff so that I can leave the hard drive in the computer open for other stuff.

LaCie is what I have. They recommended it at school. So it may be overkill for your needs. But mine is great.

What kind of inputs does your laptop have? Do you have USB 2.0 or Firewire 400/800?

Only USB 2.0

I wish I had firewire. I had a huge issue trying to edit a video for a class last semester because I couldn't hook the camera up to my laptop to get the video off because I didn't have a firewire connection.

Manda ended up getting a drive that supported both USB and firewire so she could use it at home (USB) and at school (firewire). Is that something you'd need?

No. Maybe sometime in the future but that would be after I got a new computer and got a video camera (I had been using my parents). So at this point, nothing I own has firewire or requires it.

Here is one that I am looking at Western Digital.

Also, in my original when I said "westin" i meant western digital. I like to invent product names.

I looked around and I can't find any better deals for you. I think the one you picked looks like a good choice.