Cheap external HD recommendations?

[dvandom]

Okay, so after the debacle I made of my backups (I lost 8 months of stuff due to some stupidity I hope to avoid repeating), I've started using Time Machine. The HD I got on sale at Walmart the other day should last me a while, so I can take my time with Part Two of my plan.

"Part two" is to get a second HD so that I can swap between them for Time Machine. Once Ghidorah1 (the one in use now) fills up, I trade in the other drive. When it fills up, erase Ghidorah1 and switch it in. That way, I don't have to worry about trying to delete to make space on the active drive, plus if either drive fails catastrophically I have at worst a relatively recent image on the other drive.

Ghidorah1 is 320G, and the initial run of Time Machine took 55G, so given the default "fresh full run every month" setting I should have at least a couple of months before I need Ghidorah2. 320G is fine, I'm looking for a good price on a decent quality second drive, but since I know nothing about HDs I figured I'd solicit advice on brands to seek or avoid, and if anyone knew any good deals out there right now. (I do watch Woot, but they tend to have internal HDs, and once you factor in the cost of a housing the bargain isn't so good anymore.) Slender is good, too, I've got Ghidorah1 tucked away between two things, it's not much more than a centimeter thick.

Comments

Media Play probably has these

[drewdederer.livejournal.com]

Little book-sized (maybe 1" wide 6" tall 4" front-to-back) self-contained (with fans etc inside the case) USB drives. I got a 1TB one for just over 100 bucks a couple years ago. I think they have 2TB sizes now and lower increments saving you 20 bucks for halving the size each time. I use it as my general dump drive, but you could get fancier.

Re: Media Play probably has these

[dvandom.livejournal.com]

The one I got at Walmart is about half an inch thick, only 320GB but that's six times the size of my used-space right now anyway. I'm a little leery of getting too large of a drive, because part of my Cunning Plan involves swapping drives every few months so that in case of a drive failure I lose no more than a few months. A very large drive would tempt me to leave it in place for a longer time.

Also, no Media Play here. Hastings has a similar function, but their prices for computer stuff aren't competitive with places like Best Buy or Staples.