Where's the best place to get an external hard drive?

[Notquitegrownup]

Need to install a new package via Windows Update and they are recommending that I back my system up first. I've been meaning to get an external hard drive, so I suppose this will make me do it.

Any suggestions or are PC World as good as it gets?

Thanks

you could always buy the bits from Amazon or Ebay for around half the price.

All you really need is the drive itself and the housing unit.

I'm far from being a tech geek, and I managed it

Oh, and a screwdriver

Dh, who likes a bargain, got his from Amazon but can't remember precisely which one but just looking on there now, the Western Digital is the best selling and is well reviewed by 315 people at £47.01.

PC World have good deals atm acording to DH - or he often uses a forum called 'Overclockers' where he says you would find one.

He is very much a geek about such matters

I just took a quick look at Maplin.co.uk, Comet.co.uk and Ebuyer.com (I'd generally expect PC World to cost a bit more in their store than online)

It depends a lot on how much you need to store.

Prices are from about 35 quid for 160 GB (Ebuyer QuickFind Code: 149252 ) to whatever you want to pay.

I remember seeing some which have software and claim it's a simple "press one button" on the drive to force a backup, but as stated earlier, it doesn't need a lot to DIY:-

Sumvision external case - QuickFind Code: 136250

Then choose an IDE/PATA (not SATA) Hard Drive with capacity depending on your budget.

If you DIY you could easily put different drives into use, eg keep a copy of all downloaded software on one drive, keep music backups on another, etc, etc. Some of the enclosures are big enough to put CD/DVD in, and those are really easy to use with different HDs.

I have about a dozen different HDs for backups - 40 GB, 80 GB, 160 GB and a 500 GB. Only plug in when backing up, so any virus etc cannot corrupt the external drive.

Currys (or it could have been comet) have just had a good deal on external hard drives.

Western Digital Elements - 640 GB - £50

That was 2 weeks ago. Not sure if they are still doing that deal, but it sounded good to me.