Where are the cheapest external hard drives sold?

Personally build your own! ie. buy external case and hard drive and put them together

If not check out some of the mac stores that support this site. They might do you a deal!

I just got a 250GB LaCie from Streetwise for $339. I didn't search exhaustively but that seems pretty cheap to me.

Go to a computer market/fair and get a case and a hard drive and put it together yourself. You'll save a tonne of money especially if you can bargain. It's very easy to put together, I was a bit unsure actually very unsure when I bought mine but it turned out to be super easy.
If you're in Sydney check out computer market at North Rocks Westfield on Sundays, you can usually get a good deal there.

It's a lot cheaper to build a drive with a 3.5" HDD and case.
The downside is that you'll probably need to run the 3.5" drive off an AC adapter - this can make the final size quite large. Might not be small enough if you want to carry it around with a 12" laptop.

2.5" drives in ext. cases can usually be powered directly from FW or USB. They're also a lot smaller, but they're more expensive and currently max out at around 80gb.

Decide what's important to you - that will determine the size and type of HDD you use. Then have a look for a nice enclosure - FW or USB2 depending on your needs.
Finally, see if you can find a pre-built ext drive with similar specs cheaper - you might get lucky and find one on sale somewhere.

120GB now I believe

The Lacie drives don't seem any more pricey than the DIY option, though, mind you, somewhere there's probably a Chinese computer shop that sells the parts for sod-all profit that might be a few $$ cheaper.

Th majority of external 3.5" HDDs including the Lacie ones will require an external hdd. I'm not sure about firewire but from the top of my head, USB ports supply 500mA @ 5v. Meaning... in theory, if you had a HDD that drew less than that you "could" run it from USB. A quick glance at a seagate 40gb hdd sitting here says it's rated fro 720mA @ 5v. I think I remember my 200gb HDD being something over 1A. So I think you'll be out of luck to find a HDD that can be powered from USB.

Laptop HDDs (2.5") obviously draw a lot less power. But the down side is they are obscenly expensive and slower.

Personally, I would (and did) just go a 3.5" external case which can be picked up for less than $100. and a 3.5" hdd of your choice. It will end up being bigger and cheaper. The lacie's look cool, but everwhere I looked they were a lot more expensive.

And stick to firewire unless you absolutely need to use USB2.0. why.

the money saved is marginal. really depends on how much you want to pay for the convenience factor of buying one pre-made or building one yourself.

really? I didn't know that 3.5'' external drives use a power adapter.

I don't want to build and i'm looking for 80-160gigs powered only by USB.

no PATA drive will run off 5v 500ma, you will need a 12v rail and a 5v rail.
so basicly that means no way in hell you be able to run a a PATA 40 pin drive off a usb port power, only way is a 2.5' laptop drive.

yes, building it yourself can be very fun, but it usually won't save you much money, if any. However, you do get control over what components go into it...

I did one myself, check it out at http://www.livejournal.com/users/theholyma...029.html#cutid1

It's a two drive, half terrabyte, firewire 800 setup, it was fun to do but cost the same amount as if i'd bought a Lacie Bigdisk with the same specs.

Be warned, there are some large pics on there...

I've got an ibook, its great, but the hard drive is waaayyy too small. I enquired about installing another hard drive, but it looks like it could cost up to $500. I have read about taking out the original hard drive and replacing it with another larger one, but it sounds like I'll loose my warranty. I spoke to the guy at the apple store, and he pretty much said, go external, it'll be much easier and cheaper.

I want to get one that will run off the bus, so that I don't have use a power adapter.

Am I better to buy a complete drive, or buy a case and then find a hard drive that will fit it.

Also, should I buy a 3.5" or a 2.5". I like the idea of getting a small 2.5" drive, but then for the same money i could get a 3.5" drive almost twice the size.

If anyone has any suggestions, experiences or opinions on this please speak up.

If I was to install another hard drive, would it be worth while to get an enclosure put my current hard drive in so I can get all my data back?

Also, should I get a just firewire, just USB 2.0 or a dual drive?

Can I boot off a USB drive like i can off a firewire drive?

Sorry about the long post, any info would be greatly appreciated.

If you want one that will run of USB or firewire then your only choice is 2.5" laptop hdds. The downside of not having a power adapter is they are smaller in size (GBs), far more expensive, slower, etc

I am not aware of a 3.5" external that would run off just the computer. However, I do know there are plenty of 2.5" drives that can run off the computer without another power source.

I would strongly recommend Firewire, it just seems faster for me. However, if you dealing with PCs a lot and the chances of them having Firewire is still slim, then USB 2.0 is the way to go.