I need to blow $300 on TigerDirect.com, and would appreciate any advice ya'll can give me. The 3 items I want (in order of importance) are:

-an external hard drive with at least 100GB. I am more concerned with a fast connection and read/write time to the harddrive, then having a gob of storage.

-A DVD burner. I currently don't have any slots open on my machine, so I would have to yank out a CDrom drive. Not a big deal, but I know they have external ones too. I don't know anything about performance/price differences. I could go either way. I would like to be able to also duplicate DVDs, not sure if that is standard or if you need special hardware.

-A headset with built in microphone for online gaming. I couldn't find their category easily, so here is a link if anyone wants it.


I appreciate your help!

You left out 2 pieces of info. 1) What you need them for. 2) What you have at the moment.

Anyway, ill go ahead and tell you what i think anyway.

Personally this is the order i'd go for.

1. External HDD.
2. DVD Burner.
3. Headset.

Justification:

1. I hate backing up with DVD's when i format. I adore the idea of copy and pasting everything into an external HD and then simply slapping it back on when i have a fresh install of windows.

2. My DVD burner is rather crap at the moment.

3. Dont give any use for a gaming headset.

Eh... well...
1. to store stuff, to burn DVD's, and to talk online during games;
2. nothing, nothing, nothing.

Also, that is the same order I put my preference in.

I thought so too. Me and you are so alike, we should go get married.

rofl....

anyway....hey Pig, why not get an external drive caddy, then get a normal HD and DVD burner? That way you could swap out what you have in the caddy (HD or burner, depending on need) and not have to worry about yanking out your old CD-ROM.

anyway, far as specific opinions...

DVD-burner: as far as I'm concerned, it doesn't matter. They either work or don't work. Just go for a cheap one. If you're going to spend more, go for a Sony...I'm impressed with their burners.

Drive enclosure: Doesn't really matter. Make sure it support USB 2.0 and/or firewire if you have firewire on your computer. It's all about transfer speeds here. Of course, you'll also need to buy a normal hard drive. The advantage of an enclosure is that internal drivers are much cheaper than external ones. So once you buy the enclosure, you could go splurge on 2-3 drives and swap em out as you want to.

External Drive: If you opt for a real external drive, you won't get alot of storage space for your $$$. I was looking at one myself. Still, it's probably more ruggedized than an internal drive in a drive enclosure. Transfer speeds are most important...USB 2.0 or firewire.

NAS: The third option...network attached storage. Same effect as an external drive, but ethernet connected. I think it's even more expensive, but it gives you a universal storage area for your whole network...which means something if you have 4 computers like me. Anyway, just thought I'd mention it since you may have missed that option. Fry's had a tereabyte NAS for sale. Course it was like $600, but still, I'd love to have a terabyte.

headphones: I don't think it matters. Get something comfortable. I got a free one with my guild wars collector's edition that's pretty nice. Looks like this one, but not so ugly.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... 49&CatId=0

Anyway, I'd recommend against the huge ass ones...you'll be wearing this for extended periods and don't need something that'll break your neck.

At any rate, those're my opinions.

#1 Buy at Newegg.com. Its a bit cheaper.

#2 DvD burner. I use a brand called "Lite-on" very cheap and rocks solid performance, never had one break.

#3 If you going to buy "any" type hard drive device I seriously suggest Seagate. Even for the external storage. Ive seen to many people lose data and bad drives go out on maxtors and WD and Hitachis and IBM.

#4 Plantronics make good headphones that can take a beating. At the game center I used to help run they survived angry CS 1.6 kids who got made cause they got pwned.

Oh and Pig. You mentioned software for duplicating DVD's.

Here: http://www.dvdshrink.org/what.html

Its free, easy and the download is ~1MB. Oh and it does work. I tried it with Jason X.

yea, DVDShrink is great stuff. That's what I use.

I hear from a friend of mine that AnyDVD is good, too, but that's not free.

I normally shop at newegg, but this is a gift certificate. I will check out this enclosure stuff, and the ethernet stuff. The whole point is to have a central place to store the files with enough room that I don't have to worry about overloading it. Sounds like the network deal would be great for that, but I wil l have to look at price. My computers are all older. What is required to upgrade your computer to use USB 2.0?

either a new motherboard or a USB 2.0 expansion card. The latter is probably pretty cheap.

here:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... =3&Recs=10

I ended up getting a 300GB Seagate HD with a Vantec NexStar caddy.


I also got a comfy looking logitech headset, Lite-on DVD Burner, a bunch of DVD media, and a 6 port USB 2.0/Firewire PCI card.

Thank you for the advice!

@ the HD.

cool design on that box

Excellent choices.