External Hard Drive Recommendations?

[nintendodork]

Hey everyone.  I'm looking for a quality external HD.  I would like to have 1TB of space, and a small size.  I was looking at my local Wal-Mart, and they've got one kind of model for just under $100, but it's pretty big in physical size.  The small physical size is kind of important, since I'm going to mainly be using it for handling *ahem* media on my Wii.  I don't know exactly what to search for, since I don't know the exact size of small hard drives, nor do I know a good brand to search for, so I'm open to recommendations.

This is about the size I would like.  Something that you can put in your pocket.

[JC]

I don't have anything with that much space, but I've got a Toshiba and Maxtor. They do what they're supposed to.

[133MHz]

It seems that 1 TB 2.5" hard drives haven't reached commonplace status yet (correct me if I'm wrong please - I've been a little behind the times recently) so they might be a little hard to find. You can always build your own, though. Get a 2.5" USB enclosure and a 1TB 2.5" internal hard drive, put them together and presto! Instant external HDD.

[nintendodork]

I'm going to RadioShack tomorrow to see what I find.  Wal-Mart had the model I like on display, but they weren't selling any of them.

[133MHz]

Do you really need to fit it in your pocket? If you'll be lugging around your Wii console I don't see the problem with carrying a 3.5" external drive for your media backups. Well, to be fair, two power supplies (one for the Wii and one for the drive) could be rather annoying.

[nintendodork]

Yeah, I really don't want to have to carry around another power supply.  I think I'm going to get THIS one next time I go to Best Buy.

[FamicomFreak]

Get the portable ones called myhome something. Those are great and are USB powered!

[nintendodork]

So I went to Best Buy today and got the one I wanted.  Now, I don't want to make a separate thread for this, but how do I split the single primary partition into two?  I need to make one partition NTFS, and the other WBFS.  I read about Partition Magic, but I don't think the trial version works well (if at all).

Edit* Disregard that.  I tried asking around on MSN, people either knew how, but it was an extremely complicated way (ROGLES ) or they didn't know at all other than software.  It was so simple, I don't see how anyone I talked to didn't know about it.  Computer Management --> Disk Management --> Right click on the external HD --> Shrink Volume --> Shrink it down to whatever you want, then the remaining space goes into a new partition, which is ready to format.

[JC]

Anyone know if it's possible to set or change the letter for an external hard drive. Normally when I put my drive in it's "(G:)" but now it won't show as anything but "(I:)." I need it as G.

[UglyJoe]

I'll assume you're using XP.  Plug in the drive.  Go to the Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management -> Storage -> Disk Management.  Right click on the drive letter you want to change and choose "Change Drive Letter and Paths...".  It's pretty self-explanatory from there on out.

[JC]

Thanks. I was so frustrated.

[NintendoNerds]

Hey everyone.  I'm looking for a quality external HD.  I would like to have 1TB of space, and a small size.  I was looking at my local Wal-Mart, and they've got one kind of model for just under $100, but it's pretty big in physical size.  The small physical size is kind of important, since I'm going to mainly be using it for handling *ahem* media on my Wii.  I don't know exactly what to search for, since I don't know the exact size of small hard drives, nor do I know a good brand to search for, so I'm open to recommendations.

I know you already purchased one, nintendork but I did find a 1TB, 2.5" Western Digital for $149 on newegg.com. I'm even thinking about getting one now.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136477

[Jedi Master Baiter]

I can't recommend SimpleTech, because my brother has one, & it seems he can't use it anymore because the drivers have been discontinued.

Big fail.

[nintendodork]

When I got mine at Best Buy, I saw the WD one too, and really couldn't tell a difference, so I Googled it, and ended up shelling out the extra $10 for the Seagate one because it came with a 3-year warranty.  I've not had any problems at all with it so far, and I've got easily over 300GB of crap on there, so it works well.   One of my friends has one like the one you linked, and they haven't had any problems with it either, and they've had it for about a year and a half, so whichever one is a good decision.

[erik4867]

http://www.squidoo.com/western-digital-my-passport-essential-se-1-tb-ultra-portable-external-hard-drive
So I went to Best Buy today and got the one I wanted.  Now, I don't want to make a separate thread for this, but how do I split the single primary partition into two?  I need to make one partition NTFS, and the other WBFS.  I read about Partition Magic, but I don't think the trial version works well (if at all).

Edit* Disregard that.  I tried asking around on MSN, people either knew how, but it was an extremely complicated way (ROGLES Tongue) or they didn't know at all other than software.  It was so simple, I don't see how anyone I talked to didn't know about it.  Computer Management --> Disk Management --> Right click on the external HD --> Shrink Volume --> Shrink it down to whatever you want, then the remaining space goes into a new partition, which is ready to format.