I'm looking for an external hard drive to back up my user files.  I may even use this ext drive to do a complete back up using Acronis, Ghost or the like...  I have a 200GB drive in my laptop Vista OS) and about a dozen CD's I'd like to back up.  As they say, 2 is 1, 1 is none.  So a back up to my back ups seems about right.    I'm thinking somewhere in the 500GB to 1T range should do the trick.  I'd also prefer a simple plug-and-play installation that would make it easy to play my tunes and watch my movies.

I've been out of the "biz" for close to a decade and don't know what's hot and what's not.  School me if ya need to...  

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148433
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http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817729001
$111.98 when it's all said and done.  Given the prices of external hard drives and my experiences with their reliability(or lack thereof), that's $111.98 well spent.  I've owned my Acomdata+Barracuda setup for a few years...after repeated uses, massive file transfers, loaning it to friends so they could back up their systems and reformat or upgrade to a new rig, etc...it still runs great.



Just throw the HDD in the enclosure, plug the USB cable in, plug the ac cable in, and hit the power switch.  Whenever you're not using it, just flip the switch off.




 

I use a Western Digital laptop drive in USB enclosure.



In addition to using the drive to back up data, it's has Windows 7 and Mint 9 partitions in it.

In an emergency I can install the drive in my laptop and boot up.



I bought my back up drive on special from Amazon a year ago.

take your pick

Western Digital 1.5TB for $90

I have a Thermaltake eSATA/USB drive cradle where you just "hot swap" the drive in the top.  Takes both 3.5 inch drives and laptop drives.  Can hook up to an eSATA slot or a USB slot.  There is a huge difference in transfer speed there, but with USB it's compatible with pretty much any computer.





Then I have a variety of drives to choose from.  





The cradle was about $40.  The first SATA drive could be that cheap and still be over 200 gig.





One drawback though, it's a bit prone to dust or pet fur, and due to the fact the drives are "loose" I store it in a padded plastic container for travel.





But infinite storage is fun. ;)