Extenal Storage Xmas Present Options

[Meyor]

My sister in law wants up to 3tb of storage for her family movies and pictures, I am not sure if I should get her a large external storage device or an external hard drive enclosure or some kind of network storage device. She works in the IT department of a university so tech expertise is not a big problem.

Basically, I want to know if I should just get her the 3tb Seagate Freeagent GoFlex desktop system or be more creative with her storage system. Any ideas or suggestions would be amazing, Budget is around $200.

Thanks in advance

[Isiolia]

I don't know that you have many other options for 3TB and still within your budget. The GoFlex is basically just an external drive with a modular interface - out of the box, could just as well be any other external HDD, there just aren't really many others yet.

Has she expressed an opinion about how she'd want to be using the storage? Do you know what she's currently using? Particular reason that it needs to be external?

IMO, you don't want to bet 3TB of data on a single drive. HDD failure is relatively common. Ideally, you want multiple copies of important data, split across multiple devices...and if it's really important, offsite copies to boot.
A home data repository like that, to me, ideally is more of a small file server, since that's more readily expandable. Unless you (or she) have an old(er) PC sitting around to use for that though, that'd be right out due to budget. A standalone NAS would likely be too. Even something like an eSATA RAID enclosure would likely not leave enough in the budget to get 3TB worth of storage - definitely not 3TB redundant - though you might be able to get that + a 2TB drive, and give her the possibility of putting a second 2TB drive in to mirror it.

If she is technically inclined though, then it's quite possible she has a more specific desire or opinion, so you might want to ask her.

[Meyor]

Thanks for the reply.

Currently she is using a 500gb Seagate Freeagent Go External, I think she just likes the idea of having a portable device. The storage does not have to be 3tb, I don't think they would ever take that many home movies, its just what she put on the list. Could you recommend an enclosure to look at? I like the idea of a raid setup for redundancy. The $200 budget is not hard and fast just what I was thinking about looking at the 3tb seagate.

Part of me wants to get her something cool and really useful but part of me just wants to play it safe and get the boring external drive. She is a computer nerd but also has a two year old and another coming in a month, so I know she doesn't have the time like I do browse newegg for ideas. I am pretty tech savvy but have not gotten into home server or large storage stuff so I really appreciate your help.

Any other ideas would be great, but I will start browsing on some enclosures and see what I can find.

Thanks again.

[Isiolia]

Could you recommend an enclosure to look at?

I could, but to be perfectly honest I don't have hands-on experience with any, so I'd just be going off of Newegg ratings or whatnot. I personally took the route of a home server when I got tired of just buying yet another drive when I ran low on space.

Part of me wants to get her something cool and really useful but part of me just wants to play it safe and get the boring external drive.

Yeah, that's partially what I was thinking too with saying to ask her - if you get her anything more than a basic drive, then any quirks or problems that might arise could come back to you. While a basic drive is not the ideal solution, if it doesn't work...then she'd most likely see it as the fault of the manufacturer, since all you did was give her a shrink-wrapped box. If, however, she agrees that something else would be preferable, then she'd likely be more inclined to work with it if an issue should arise.