Hard Drive Reviews and Buying Guide:

Without a working hard drive your computer would fail to work, so you need a quality product. A computer hard drive stores things like your operating system, all your data and music files, and any programs you run. I have a 250 GB hard drive on my desktop computer and have barely touched the surface in terms of disk usage. I probably won't need another hard drive anytime soon, but you do hear stories of peoples hard drives failing which means all the information is lost (most likely). There are internal hard drives that attach to your motherboard or interface card and external hard drives that connect to your computer but are external and not built into the original PC or laptop. Many computer owners are switching over to external hard drives for their storage needs since they are so versatile and convenient. You can literally take gigabytes of data and files with your anywhere and let your friends or co-workers get instant access to them. External hard drives are more expensive than internal drives, but we feel they are worth the extra money. Internal hard drives are offered as PATA (Parallel Advanced Technology Attachment) or IDE drives and SATA (Serial ATA). Experts say SATA drives are better since they are easier to connect and have a newer interface. The future is towards SATA drives while PATA drives won't be supported on newer motherboards. Large capacity drives are great, but prices are dropping fast on these types so concentrate more on performance from your drive to get the best deal. Most hard drives will perform just fine doing basic business apps and running music files or video movies. For most people a 500 GB hard drive is more than ample to store your video, music, and data files for years to come. If you know you are a music fanatic or movie buff, then perhaps a larger drive will be necessary as you gather more files onto your hard drive. Speed of hard drives is crucial to some and only slightly important to others. You can find most hard drives that run at a rotational speed of 7200 RPM (revolutions per minute). The 10,000 RPM internal SATA 3.5 inch drives are on the market, but they are focused to niche users right now. The external hard drives tend to be a little slower in speed and at this time offer 4200-rpm, 5400-rpm, and 7200-rpm models. Some basic words of advice on buying a new hard drive are: always buy more capacity than you think you will need, if you are planning on buying a second internal hard drive for your PC make sure there is internal space for it, try to buy a hard drive that will match the interface speed for the best compatablity, external drives are best used for backing up data and not as a main storage source. CNET and Storagereview.com are 2 other sites with feedback on the newest hard drives (both internal and external) with consumer opinions as well. We found a few online forums with technical support for those with hard drive problems and issues at Tek-tips.com and Hardforum.com. Both sites have online tips and troubleshooting caveats that are very helpful. The top hard drive manufacturers are Hitachi, Western Digital, Maxtor, Samsung, Seagate, Iomega, Fantom, Beyond Micro, LaCie, and Fujitsu. Expect to pay $100 or more for a 500 GB hard drive and up to $400 for the newest terabyte hard drives. We have tried to supply the top rated and best selling hard drives in different categories as of Summer 2007 down below.

2008-2009 UPDATE: Well as expected, the newest batch of hard drives offers more storage space at even lower prices. The most popular size drives at the moment are in the 320GB to 500GB range -- they currently sell for $75-$100. We recommend you stick with the leaders in consumer hard drives -- the Western Digital My Book (and My Passport) family, the Seagate FreeAgent, LaCie (for Macintosh), and perhaps Iomega. When it comes to protecting my PC data, I want to stick with the drive manufacturers I can trust. To be honest, if I am going out to buy a new external drive today, I am going to only look at the 1TB (terabyte = 1000 GB) models. In terms of price, we are talking about $135 to $200. You will find a few 2TB models out there, but I can't justify the $150-$200 premium over the 1TB models you'd have to pay. So plan on getting 500GB at a minimum, and if you have the extra $50, get the 1TB model. So here goes.. RECOMMENDED: for PC users go with the Western Digital My Book Essential 1TB (around $150) or, for Macintosh people, the LaCie Quadra 1 TB drive (all LaCie products here). They come with all the cables you need - just plug them into the wall, set them on your desk, and plug into your computer via a USB or Fireware connector and turn on the power -- that's it. You'll now see a new drive letter (like D: or E:) when you go to My Computer, and you can start creating folders and storing files there. These can be connected to desktop or laptops.

Top Ranked Internal Hard Drives:

Terabyte Hard Drive:

Portable Hard Drive:

Best USB Flash Hard Drive - Thumb Drives:

A portable hard drive like those mentioned from Western Digital above are great for carrying over 100 GB's of data around like a wallet. Imagine something even smaller (about the size of your index finder) that will store 2-16 GB's and easily connects to any PC. Kingston, SanDisk, PNY, Kanguru, Lexar and Corsair. Again, here is the up to the minute list of best-selling USB flash drives at Amazon. The 4GB Data Traveler USB 2.0 Flash Drive from Kingston prices out at roughly $40 and users say it's reliable and a very cheap solution to carrying around files in your pocket. Other consumers mention that transfer times are "pretty fast" and copying is "easy". Floppy disks are all but gone on computers these days and USB flash drives are sure to only get bigger capacities for even cheaper prices going forward. RECOMMENDED: Our pick for the best USB flash drive, though, is the Corsair Flash Voyager -- with rebates, we were able to pick up 16GB versions for less than $30 at the end of 2008. These little drives are all coated in rubber and are incredibly durable, not to mention fast. The 8GB version is only $20 as we speak. View the selection and deals from Corsair here.

Hard Drive Recovery Software: