I know that as artists, we all have high resolution graphics on our computers which can at any time, hinder the performance of our computers. I know mine's been on snails ville lately because of that. But then I finally broke down and considered getting a thumb drive to store my stuff on. But as it turns out the thumb drive was more money than I was hoping to spend, plus the representative at Dell told me I could get something a lot better for thirty dollars less. Here's the deal, A maxtor one touch 2 external usb hard drive is under a hundred and forty bucks, but the cost isn't everything the performance is, and know something? I'm really satisfied with the performance. And with the same amount of money it takes to buy a thumb drive, of the highest setting, I was able to score my drive, and a usb hub with a few dollars left over. Imagine that? I really am happy about this because now I don't have to reach into my pockets and purchase a brand new computer. I have two computers in one for less money.

Whoa. External usb hard drive, you say? That could be useful in the future, like possibly when I run out of room for pictures and sound recordings on this laptop. I'ma look for one. Thanks!

~IJ

Meh. Thumb drives are convenient for portin' things around, but I mostly use a FireWire external HD for storage.

Wait. We're talking about the book-size things you stick into your computer, right? Not the little five-fruit-flavors clip-on flash drives. I've got one of those.

~IJ

Ian Jay
Whoa. External usb hard drive, you say? That could be useful in the future, like possibly when I run out of room for pictures and sound recordings on this laptop. I'ma look for one. Thanks!

~IJ

I just Happen to have an USB hard drive now. :D

Ian Jay
Wait. We're talking about the book-size things you stick into your computer, right?

Yep, that's what they're talking about ^_^
But external.
Firewire is faster…
And internal drives are cheaper if you have the room and the confidence to install them.

But External hard drives with USB conectivity are a great option for portability since most computers have mutiple USB ports these days. Great for back-up!

i use 2 maxtor usb external harddrives and back up all my work there. i know if my comp ever decides to shut down i can easily transfer files from my external hardrive to a new computer. i learn my lesson last time my comp shut completely down and i lost a lot of pics and working material that i will never get back.

Chuck and I use a 500MB thumb drive (Lexar Jump Drive, as it's called) for the comic. He draws and scans the pages, then gives them to me for coloring. It works out really well, because:
1. We were using CDs and FTP sites before this. That was a pain.
2. The thumb drive is small and portable, so I can take it wherever I go (it's on my keychain.) You can't fit a hard drive in your pocket. People will stare. :shock:
3. It was only about $30, so I don't know why you say it's expensive. You can even get a 1G thumbdrive for about that price now.
4. It's great to transport files from home to work (and to other peoples' computers).

I am considering a USB external HD, though. For my personal stuff at home. It's a great way to back everything up if you need to re-format your HD. :wink:

.: SpANG! :.

i use my mp3 player for image transports :D 524 mb

I have a thumb drive that holds sd cards. It's pretty handy. My brother has an hardrive case, so he can use any hardrive originally intended to be internall externally through usb. It's awsome.

I'm finding this maxtor drive a real gem also. It backs up all my artwork and I can keep my computer free for other things. It even works a lot faster since I moved my graphics to the external drive. And instead of just five hundred mb's I got about another whole computer's worth of hard drive space. I have a Dell 8250 dimension desktop that already came with 2.6gigahertz of storrage space, then I added another gz and now another one, with the external hard drive. But Dell is offering great deals on software. just go to www.dell.com and you'll find everything you need. or you could just go to www.maxtor.com to buy the product direct from the company. When you go to the website, they even have an easy registration page, where you can register your product. So much easier than registering the spyware software. The only thing that took me along time was plugging in all the wires. I had to scrunch behind my computer to set it up. Other than that installation was real easy.

I'd suggest upgrading your internal drives, You can get big 100gig+ drives for not too much these days.

This is almost looking like a spam add for Dell and Maxtor… :lol:
But we know you're not a spammer Sandy, so don't worry :D

ozoneocean
I'd suggest upgrading your internal drives, You can get big 100gig+ drives for not too much these days.

I'd totally get a new internal drive… but I've got a laptop, which means it's a PITA to install. :(

Then you need:

gigatwo
My brother has an hardrive case, so he can use any hardrive originally intended to be internall externally through usb.

^^

Ohh interesting Ozone.. External and Internal. Hmmmm…… Interesting indeed.

I bought a 250gb external USB HD a couple of months back since my laptop HD was pretty much full. I’m really happy with it, and they aren’t hard to carry around, if you ever need to do so. It actually fits quite nicely in my laptop bag.