I'm looking to pick up an external harddrive, it's been a very long time since I paid any attention to the PC scene and honestly I was never that big into knowing the specifics of hardware.

My question is: What memory for an external harddrive would have the fastest read/write speed and best possible storage.

I really just need an "end all" here; not specifics - although I guess the extra knowledge couldn't hurt.

Thanks~ Dib from dib8rtown

I'd say that if you can score anything that has a seek time of less then 9ms, 16-32 mb data buffer and 7200 rpm(or more), you are in the upper echelon of hard drives.

People will say that the best option is to build your own because then you can chose the best data buffers and the best seek time.
I personally have found that a lot of the self made externals have a heating problem. Invest in a hard drive case with a fan if you do this.

Of course you may want one that has eSata as wlel as USB connection.

ok thanks eSata, I'm going to purchase one made, so I'll look for the specifics on the box. It's not actually for my - my girl friend just brought it up all of a sudden; so I really had no time to research much, I'll look into eSata, I'm reading up on Eeprom right now.

Thanks again.

Is there a recommended brand name, and I'm guessing the pricing works based on the storage capacity...

Also USB of course, it's like anything else - it comes down to what I'm looking for... I'm sure shes going to want one that's powered through USB and it's just me wanted to get her one with the fastest possible read/write speeds. V_V

I'm hoping I'm not overcomplicating anything here.

eSata seems like a specific portion of the whole hardware - I'll just hope it's mentioned on the box as well.

Look at the specs of the hard drive for price. RPM, buffer, seek time.... Size doesnt mean everything.

Also eSata works if you have a Sata port on your motherboard...most should have that by now. But USB is always nice to have since everyone has USB.

What I found works for me the best are hard drive with an RJ45 connection. Network cable...

I plug them in to my router and all 3 computers can access it at any time.

Brand wise is more personal preference, but I have a 750GB Western Digital My Book, and its pretty sweet. It has everything I need, and everything that has been listed in this thread as well

Ok thanks dissolute, that's more than enough info.

Yea I checked out a lot of them, if I see another harddrive it would be too soon.

She decided not to pick one up =.=# so that was a waste, but I believe she knows what to look or now. So all's well, thanks again guys.