Hard Drives > From 300 GB to 450 GB Hard Drives > 180 GBP to 220 GBP

Advantages: Fast, Reliable and Easy to Use
Disadvantages: Slightly louder than other external hard drives

...grumble is that it is slightly louder than its more expensive counter parts, but if you can save over £100 purely by putting up with a few whirring noises, then this is the drive for you! I will certainly be considering Western Digital for my next computer related purchases. ... Read review

Advantages: Quiet, Quick, Reliable, USB 2.0, Stand Upright/On Side
Disadvantages: NONE!

Seagate have always been a favourite of mine for computer components especially hard drives and their hard drives never cease to amaze me, especially the external 300gb. It starts at the click of the blue button on front, and its not too bright so you could leave it on all night in a dark room to no distraction. The stand comes with it for upright standing or sideways (you can stack these little puppies!) It has firewire, USB 2.0 and both are ...
...me almost no time to copy a 600mb file from one hard drive to this one. It is one of the quietest hard drives i have, (i have a few external) and it is perfect really. For myself, it has never broken down, stopped working, cut out, lost any data to the contrary. it runs constantly for some days maybe even upto a week and it's great. No problems, overheating. You name it, it hasn't got it... Good Low Price if you shop around, quiet, reliable. What ... Read review

Advantages: Fast, quiet, Plug and Play
Disadvantages: Supplied 'back-up' software could be better.

...files and folders to the Maxtor and nothing else is required. If your needs are more demanding, back-up software is supplied, or if you search the Downloads section at the Apple site, simpler alternatives are available - some Freeware. Personally, I found the supplied back-up software unnecessarily complicated and don't use it, but it's worth trying before exploring another route, if for no other reason than you've paid for it and your opinion may ...
...a button can be pressed on the front of the drive and it automatically backs-up to your requirements - install the provided software to use this feature. HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH? 300GB is loads of space to kick around in and some might say overkill. However, in these times of digital photography, home movies, music and software downloads, I'd disagree. Memories can't be replaced and (in my opinion) digital memories are more vulnerable. An extra copy ... Read review

Advantages: USB 2.0 and Firewire
Disadvantages: Not the lightest thing around 1.5kg

First of all this HDD id like to say this is a very good HDD but it not to good if your planning to carry it around it ways around 1.5kg and then there's the power cable, the drive is big too 13.6 cm x 6.5 cm x 21.7 cm, so not very portable. The HDD capacity is 300GB but actually is slightly less around 285GB. The HDD use USB 2 and Firewire (6 pin) using the USB cable data transfer is very fast about 450mbs with a good USB card and the same goes ...
...The average seek time is around 9ms. The internal buffer size is 16mb with really makes this HDD very fast at reading and writhing. It has a standard spindle speed of 7200rpm. The installation is extremely simple just plug and play and it does jut that well with XP it does. This is great value for money as long as you intend to leave it at home. ... Read review

Advantages: Fast with large files, quiet fast with small files, quiet, doesn't struggle with large files.
Disadvantages: May need defragging alot.

I have this drive pre installed in my computer and the first thing i realised was that it was extremely FAST; i had tested the drive on a hard drive benchmarking program called 'HDTach'. This is as on my HP'm7635', using this drive i got a burst speed of 210 MB/s and a average read rate of 70MB/s; both are extremely fast. I also realised that this drive was extremely quiet; being installed in my media cennter PC it wasn't exactly a suprise though. ...
...the context of everyday computng this hard drive is very fast, windows loads up very quickly. You can force large files down the hard drive and it wont struggle; though i still recommend that you defragmentate the drive on a regular basis for optimal speed. To expand on my statement of what fast is, i mean to say that the drive is able to handle copying of large files such as movies very quickly. The drive is also fast in seeking files from a random ... Read review