Help for buying an External HDD

I am looking to buy a 1TB USB 3.0 external Hard Disk but I don't know anything about hard disks. I went to a local shop and he showed me Seagate Expansion Portable 1TB Hard disk for Rs. 6300. On the package was written "USB 3.0 upgradeable". Now what does this mean??
I mean, "upgradeable to USB 3.0" means we have to upgrade the hardware of the HDD and how am I supposed to do that?? Is there a kit or something for upgrading?? I asked the shopkeeper and he had no idea about it. He said there is a software available in the harddisk to upgrade(ofcourse I don't believe him).
The model he showed me was most probably this....
Seagate Expansion Portable 1 TB USB 3.0 Hard Drive

Also what are the other factors to consider while buying external HDD?? Any other suggestion??

Upgradable means that there is separate cable which one needs to buy(correct me if I am wrong) and that costs a lot.So there is no fun a buying that disk.
And the link which you have has a USB 3.0. There is no need to upgrade.The one which you saw must be having the same look.
One must go for USB 3.0 disks as their data transfer rate at USB 2.0 is more than the normal one.
And prefer to buy a Western Digital(WD) HDD.
And I hope you know that a 3.5" HDD requires a external power source, its the same HDD which coputers have.And 2.5" HDD are the ones which are there in the laptops and they don't require a external power source.So go for a 2.5" HDD only

W

you probably saw this:
ST910004EXA101-RK Seagate Expansion Portable 1TB Hard Drive | Seagate
if a hard disk packet mention "USB 3.0 upgradeable" then it is not usb 3.0.seagate go flex portable hard disks can be upgraded to usb 3 using this:
Seagate GoFlex Upg. Cable : USB 3.0 - www.deltapage.com
make sure packet mention usb 3 or better note model no.(e.g in above link Model ST910004EXA101-RK)& use google to confirm.

Thanks for the info........
And its ridiculous to buy a 2000 Rs. cable when we can buy a new 3.0 HDD for the same price online.

aroraanant said:
Upgradable means that there is separate cable which one needs to buy(correct me if I am wrong) and that costs a lot.So there is no fun a buying that disk.
And the link which you have has a USB 3.0. There is no need to upgrade.The one which you saw must be having the same look.
One must go for USB 3.0 disks as their data transfer rate at USB 2.0 is more than the normal one.
And prefer to buy a Western Digital(WD) HDD.
And I hope you know that a 3.5" HDD requires a external power source, its the same HDD which coputers have.And 2.5" HDD are the ones which are there in the laptops and they don't require a external power source.So go for a 2.5" HDD only

Thanks and Yes, I knew about the 3.5 inch HDDs.
Something wrong with Seagate HDDs?? Because WD HDDs are rare in the local market and I will have to look for it online.

WD Elements SE 1 TB USB 3.0 Hard Drive (Black)
And how is this HDD?? And why is it costly than WD My Passport SE 1TB?? I don't find much difference. Dimensions and weight are almost similar and the only difference is 3 years instead of 2years warranty.

^^warranty comes at a premium .buddy

W

i prefer seagate portable hard disks.reason is WD portable hard disks have the usb port soldered to the hard disk itself which means that if your connector gets damaged you can't simply open the case to take out the drive & connect it to other system as internal or use another casing to save your data even if your hard disk itself is fine.in other words in case of WD portable hdd,health of usb connector=health of hard disk.

acc to WD website My Passport Essential SE and WD Elements SE both have 3 yrs. warranty ;-)

Sujeet said:
^^warranty comes at a premium .buddy

+Compact form factor is always costlier..rule of thumb!

utkarsh73 said:
Something wrong with Seagate HDDs?? Because WD HDDs are rare in the local market and I will have to look for it online.

WD HDD hard to find, I think you are the first person saying that.
And I suggested WD HDD because they give onsite warranty and in case of seagate you have to take them at the service center(correct me if I m wrong)

WD Elements SE 1 TB USB 3.0 Hard Drive (Black)
And how is this HDD?? And why is it costly than WD My Passport SE 1TB?? I don't find much difference. Dimensions and weight are almost similar and the only difference is 3 years instead of 2years warranty.

It is not costlier than My passport SE,check and compare the prices again.

whitestar_999 said:
i prefer seagate portable hard disks.reason is WD portable hard disks have the usb port soldered to the hard disk itself which means that if your connector gets damaged you can't simply open the case to take out the drive & connect it to other system as internal or use another casing to save your data even if your hard disk itself is fine.in other words in case of WD portable hdd,health of usb connector=health of hard disk.

Really!!!
Thanks for the info BTW.

Thank you everyone for your suggestions. Finally I bought a WD My Passport SE 1 TB USB 3.0 HDD for Rs. 6500 from Reliance Digital, Ahmedabad.
And indeed, WD HDD are very difficult to find here. I went to total 4 shops and 3 of them did not had WD hard disk. Only one of them had but that was 500 GB. Then I went to croma store and those fools were selling 1TB version for Rs. 7500 and 500GB for 5500. Finally I got a good price for it in Reliance Digital. Even Flipkart is selling it for something Rs.6922.
*dl.dropbox.com/u/62898354/cover.JPG

*dl.dropbox.com/u/62898354/WD%20HDD.JPG

^I own it, its good and beautiful in design.

And yeah, Seagate penetration in Indian market is much higher than WD.

congrats. nice choice of colour but this one gets scratched really easily. i own a black one and its full of scratch.

^Yeah

dashing.sujay said:
^I own it, its good and beautiful in design.

And yeah, Seagate penetration in Indian market is much higher than WD.

Yeah, I liked the design very much. I copied few files and average speed was 19Mbps(USB 2.0 port). Its good I think.

Its slow, mine used to give upto 27MB/s. But normal should be at least near about 24MB/s.

Sam said:
congrats. nice choice of colour but this one gets scratched really easily. i own a black one and its full of scratch.

Well, the choice was between black and this silver so I chose this.
And when I touch it does not feels like it can be so easily scratched. Will see after few days.

dashing.sujay said:
Its slow, mine used to give upto 27MB/s. But normal should be at least near about 24MB/s.

It might be slow because the no. of files was very large. 12295 files for 30 GB.

Yeah, no of files directly affect speed.

^^Nice pick.Congrats!

Congrats dude,the color as well as the price are very nice...

@ utkarsh73 - congrats ;-)

BTW, if possible use HDtune to run a benchmark and post the results here.

Here is the result for HDtune benchmark.

*dl.dropbox.com/u/62898354/HDD%20Benchmark.JPG

Please tell me what you infer from this or how good is the result(I have no idea).

And one question, can we by any means create a partition of it and lock only that particular partition with password??

partiyion can be created directly using management console in windows 7

^ On ext HDD?

Speed is good Utkarsh.

Congrats utkarsh73 for 1TB HDD...
is the price reduced after the huge price increase in Harddisks (due to flood)?

dashing.sujay said:
^ On ext HDD?

Speed is good Utkarsh.

Now I m having some problem with my bluetooth and WiFi adapter. After I solve this I will look into this partitioning matter.

Zangetsu said:
Congrats utkarsh73 for 1TB HDD...
is the price reduced after the huge price increase in Harddisks (due to flood)?

Still the same price. And it will remain for this year to compensate the $35 bn. loss suffered by manufacturing industry in Thailand(I read it somewhere but don't remember where).
I remember it was october 2011 and WD USB 3.0 500GB HDD was on sale for Rs. 2500 in reliance digital, Kanpur. Now its for 4500.

dashing.sujay said:
^ On ext HDD?

Speed is good Utkarsh.

LOL.
i thought he asked about creating partition on standard HDD.
who creates Partition on ext HDD. :razz:

utkarsh73 said:
Still the same price. And it will remain for this year to compensate the $35 bn. loss suffered by manufacturing industry in Thailand(I read it somewhere but don't remember where).

Damn.
Thai people have made their mind to compensate for all their industrial and financial losses via HDD buisness only. WTH!!!

35BN$

I wonder if WD + Seagate in their complete lifetime of existence would have manged to reach that sales figure together.

Although i know estimated losses are not exclusive to other industries.

utkarsh73 said:
Here is the result for HDtune benchmark.

*dl.dropbox.com/u/62898354/HDD%20Benchmark.JPG

Please tell me what you infer from this or how good is the result(I have no idea).

you are using this external HDD on a mobo with USB 2.0 ports only - then the result is fine.

And one question, can we by any means create a partition of it and lock only that particular partition with password??

Use TrueCrypt ;-)

Sujeet said:
LOL.
i thought he asked about creating partition on standard HDD.
who creates Partition on ext HDD.

Sorry, I didn't knew that

(as I said in my 1st post). I heard many of my friends mentiioning this many times before so I thought we can partition it.

^^ for whatever the reason may be if you still want to partition the external HDD follow this link ;-)

How to Partition an External Hard Drive | eHow.com

^^lol...when i talked about doing it exactly the same way mr. sujay denied.

In my earlier post i referred to Mmc for partitoning.