External hard drives

[NES_Rules]

I'm shopping for an external hard drive so I would like some input on deciding on what I want. 
I'll mostly be using it store the thousands of scans I've taken and I will also be using it to transfer the screenshots from my old PC with the video capture card to my laptop so I can submit them to the site.  I'll have other stuff as well, but it will pretty much be my RFG hard drive

Anyway, I've looked around and decided I want at least 250GB for under $100.  I looked at Circuit City, Best Buy, Office Max, and Staples.  And these are what I found;
 Seagate 250GB FreeAgent - $100 - 60 month parts warranty.  4.8/5 customer review
 Western Digital 320GB My Book Essential Edition 2.0 External Hard Drive - $100 - 1 year parts warranty
 Western Digital My Book Essential Edition 250GB External Hard Drive - $90 - 1 year parts warranty & 1 year labor warranty. 4.6/5 customer review
 I/O Magic GigaBank 320GB External Hard Drive - $90 - 1 year parts warranty & 1 year labor warranty. 3.9/5 customer review.

Those were all from Circuit City but other stores had them, they were just more expensive.  I was leaning towards the I/O Magic, but some of the customer reviews sound awful.  Looks like there's a 30% chance of getting one that doesn't work right. 

[BadEnoughDude]

Western Digital My Book Essential Edition 250GB External Hard Drive - $90 - 1 year parts warranty & 1 year labor warranty. 4.6/5 customer review

I have the 500GB version of this one that I use with my new laptop, and so far I have loved it. Easy to set up, and it has a handy auto on/off feature. It also looks cool

[St0rmTK421]

I don't think anything can beat my 250GB I got from Microcenter for $30 after rebates.  It was $120 and had $90 worth of rebates.  Granted they were mail-in, but I ended up getting them eventually.  Hard drives can be had for cheap, you just have to find the sales and be looking at the right time.

Mine is BeyondMicro brand.  Never heard of them, but I've had it for several months so far and no problems yet.

[NES_Rules]

I'm noticing now that some of these say that Windows 2000 is the minimum system requirement, while others don't say anything about it all.  Do you think they're still compatible with 98 and they just say that because MS doesn't support 98 anymore or will it not work at all with 98?

[James]

Is Windows 98 FAT32 formatted? If so, that's probably why they say Win2000 or after because 2000, XP, Vista and all in between use NTFS formatting. FAT32 only allows file sizes up to 4GB but NTFS is unlimitted. I don't know about external hard drives but when you get a new internal one it comes unformatted and you can choose either FAT32 or NTFS in Windows. Some external hard drives are probably preformatted.

[Tan]

I'm noticing now that some of these say that Windows 2000 is the minimum system requirement, while others don't say anything about it all.  Do you think they're still compatible with 98 and they just say that because MS doesn't support 98 anymore or will it not work at all with 98?

Aside from the formatting compatibility, Win98 and 98SE are notorious for horrible USB support and poor USB peripheral drivers.

[The Metamorphosing Leon]

I don't think anything can beat my 250GB I got from Microcenter for $30 after rebates.  It was $120 and had $90 worth of rebates.  Granted they were mail-in, but I ended up getting them eventually.  Hard drives can be had for cheap, you just have to find the sales and be looking at the right time.

Mine is BeyondMicro brand.  Never heard of them, but I've had it for several months so far and no problems yet.

I got the same deal except mine is a Buffalo.

[phoenix1967]

On a side note, is it possible to use a stand alone hard drive with the xbox 360? Just wondering if movies could be downloaded to it from XBLA.

[James]

On a side note, is it possible to use a stand alone hard drive with the xbox 360? Just wondering if movies could be downloaded to it from XBLA.

The Xbox 360 is compatible with FAT32 external hard drives but only for playing media files from. i.e. music stored on the external hard drive can be played on the console. But You can't download XBLA content to it.

[JWKobayashi]

The Xbox 360 is compatible with FAT32 external hard drives but only for playing media files from. i.e. music stored on the external hard drive can be played on the console. But You can't download XBLA content to it.

Which sucks. I don't see what the big deal is for them, other than the revenue lost from the obscenely priced 120 GB hard drive add-on.

[NES_Rules]

I decided on the Seagate 250GB FreeAgent.  When I ordered, it was actually $20 less than it what it was before  

I'm tracking it with the FedEx thing and Google Maps now.  It's really going out of the way to get here.  It started in Marion, IL then went the opposite direction to  Earth City, MO then went to Grove City, OH where it could have gone easily to my house from there within a couple hours, but no, it went to Martinsburg, WV.  I wonder where it will go tomorrow.