Best Buy Summary:

Desktop Drive Recommendations

For the most “bang for your buck” go with the LaCie D2 Quadra series. Why? Capacity – up to 2 TB, reliability – a “cheap” drive that crashes is then pretty costly, and connectivity – aside from the ever-present USB 2.0, the drives have Firewire 400 & 800 plus eSata . What this means is you can have an external drive as fast as an internal one. And what this really means is an external hard drive cheap; where cheap means the best value out there.

Often, the external hard drives that do well in laboratory tests turn out to be lemons in the real world as the owner reviews on Amazon and other sites show. The D2 Quadra drives have managed to satisfy both the experts and consumers with their reliability. Remember, the cost of the drive is more that price alone. If it quits working, it’s a waste of money (not to mention the hassle of data-recovery). If it fails to work with emerging technology like eSata, it’s a waste of money too. The D2 Quadra drives are available in 500 gigabyte, 1 TB, 1.5 TB, and 2 terabyte capacities.

Portable Drive Recommendations

If you don’t need the large capacity that the desktop drives offer you might consider a portable drive. They’re cheaper to buy, but remember your cost per gigabyte is higher. Another advantage is they don’t need an external power source like the desktop drive do.

If you use a PC, consider the Seagate FreeAgent Go. Customer critiques give it kudos for reliability. In addition, it has plenty of storage for the price: it’s available in 250 GB, 320 GB, 500 GB, 640 GB, 750GB and 1TB sizes. Just remember that the included backup software is for Windows only.

For Macintosh users Seagate has the FreeAgent Go for Mac with mac formatted drives and OS X compatible backup software. USB 2.0 only drives are available in 320GB, 500GB and 640GB sizes. You can add Firewire connectivity as well as USB 2.0 with the FreeAgent Go Pro for Mac in 320GB and 500GB sizes.

If you’re looking for the easiest possible backup in a portable drive try the Clickfree . It automatically backs up your key files every time you plug it in. And it’s one of the few drives that can be used on a PC or a Mac. You can see them on Amazon

LaCie now offers their multiple connectivity options in a portable, the LaCie Rugged eSata. And, unlike it’s desktop cousins (above), no external power brick is needed as the Rugged is fully powered by the eSata cable.

Other popular portables include Western Digital’s My Passport series and the Iomaga eGo line, although they tend to cost more per gigabyte than the Seagate FreeAgent Go.

Network Drives

If you have multiple computers on a LAN that you want to backup, and presuming you don’t want to build your own server, you might consider Western Digital My Book World Edition in 1 TB and 2 TB sizes. There is also the World Edition II in 2 TB and 4 TB capacities. The difference? You can open the case and replace the hard disks in the Edition II drives, which is certainly a handy feature.

You can make any external drive not just a network drive but a multimedia NAS with Pogoplug E02 Multimedia Sharing Device! You can access and share content through the internet and stream music photos and videos to other computers or your iPhone, Blackberry or Droid! Read the reviews here.

What about USB 3.0?

Some USB 3.0 products are starting to appear, but eSata on computers and peripherals is available now. Tom’s Hardware (www.tomshardware.com) has more on availablity at www.tomshardware.com/reviews/usb-3.0-superspeed,2306-4.html.

USB 3 products that are out now include : the Western Digital has the My Book 3 desktop drive in 1 TB and 2 TB capacities and Seagate‘s  BlackArmor PS110, a small portable drive with a PC card targeted for laptops which was announced on January 10, 2010 at the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas.

External Hard Drives Cheap -est! Build your own

If you have an extra hard drive floating around, then your cheapest option is to just buy an enclosure for it. But beware, my experience with them is they fail after a while. Cyberguys and Geeks.com both have a great selection.

Here’s a video on how to to do it:

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