Need an External Hard Drive

[Keverian FireCry]

I don't care how big the thing is or how aesthetically pleasing it is. I need a secured drive that is cheap and reliable. If those two things can't cooexist then I'll shell out some cash. Security and longevity are the most important aspects for the external. If I hadn't lost my job I'd have an easier time with this, but securing personal files has taken a backseat to food and rent.

Thanks.

[Fairweather Pure]

I like my 1T Simpledrive the best. My other 2 do not have power switches and so I have to unplug them when not in use. It's a PITA. The Simple was 250$ a little over a year ago. It's got to be cheap as hell now.

[Fash]

What exactly do you mean by security?

[Winnow]

Encrypt the entire drive with TruCrypt (free) and you're set. Great program. I prefer making large 100GB encrypted folders but whatever you like doing and depends on your needs.

[Keverian FireCry]

Ah...I guess I'm look more for resilience than security. For instance, if there's an external out there that could survive a nuclear blast or another Katrina then that's what I'd love to have.

[valryte]

As for resilience/security, well if someone breaks into your house and steals the external drive or your house burns down, well no external drive is going to do you much good. I recommend you look into getting Jungle Disk ($20 bucks) and getting an S3 account and just backup your important files off site. If you pay Jungle Disk like $1 a month, they'll enable some additional features like a web interface. Amazon charges like 15 cents a month per gig so its extremely cheap.

[miir]

As for resilience/security, well if someone breaks into your house and steals the external drive or your house burns down, well no external drive is going to do you much good. I recommend you look into getting Jungle Disk ($20 bucks) and getting an S3 account and just backup your important files off site. If you pay Jungle Disk like $1 a month, they'll enable some additional features like a web interface. Amazon charges like 15 cents a month per gig so its extremely cheap.

[Keverian FireCry]

Bump. JungleDisk has worked well for me, though I just got a pretty sweet external HD from my dad for Christmas.

My parents apparently remembered talking to me about this several months ago, so I was surprised to recieve an 'ioSafe Solo' for Xmas.

It's a 500gb HD which is encased in a 'safe', which is fireproof up to 1500degrees for up to 30minutes and can be submerged in 10 feet of water for up to three days- this has been tested by many reviewers w/ 100% data recovery. It can also be bolted down to protect from thieves.

That's exactly the kind of thing I was looking for in the original post. Again, JungleDisk is awesome and probably the best option(along with other such systems), but this little thing is pretty damned cool.

[Aabidano]

I've got a DLink DNS-323 network drive with 2-500Gb disks in it set up in a mirror config. I usually pull one of the disks and stash it separately when I go out of town for more than a day or two.

I've had it about a year and a half pretty happy with it so far.

Financial data goes on a microdrive, it goes on vacation with me.

I need to look into something offsite, will have to look into jungle disk and amazon.