External Hard Drive

[Arnwulf]

So I need a large capacity drive to store all my pictures, music, and movies. I've been using a 650 gb external drive for about 6 months, but it is starting to fail hardware tests and I'm afraid it's about to die. Is an external hard drive a bad idea for this kind of use? I access it regularly to listen to music/watch movies, but I was under the impression that the external drive was perfect for my purposes.

[Pikarya]

Nothing wrong with an external. I use two on a regular basis (One for Wii, other for 1TB Storage on the go). Brand matters, you pay what you get. Getting a $5.00 dollar enclosure on Newegg isn't even comparable to a reputable $30.00+ one.

[Minions]

Most externals (at least the big desktop drive versions) put up with a lot of abuse. They get knocked over and such, which leads them to die rather quickly. That's the only real qualm with externals is you need to be careful with them, and they are more easily exposed. That said, they have the same life of any other drive really.