My wonderful company, feeling the crunch of bandwidth issues due to uncontrolled company-wide access to streaming sites like YouTube, has for the first time ever started to load all sorts of filters onto the internet. Among other things, it killed my access to the Rhapsody service, which I used to use to listen to music when I was doing more mundane tasks at work. I'm not happy about this, but there's little I can do. Thus, it's time to start thinking about the most efficient way to get large volumes of music at my disposal while at work.

My work PC's hard drive is not large enough to load it with MP3s, so I'm thinking alternatives, like a small, portable external hard drive with a USB 2.0 connection. Does anyone else use this kind of thing to keep a lot of music accessible to them at all times? If so, what size hard drive do you use and what brands have you had good/bad experiences with? I've been pricing 60GB externals for under $100.00. Any advice or assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Here's a 250GB external for the same price:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822136022

Hank...thanks for the feedback, but I was thinking more in terms of something more portable and probably something that gets its power via the USB port as opposed to an AC adapter. I am trying to keep an open mind though. Any other ideas?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822136059

Hank...are these drives that you have experience with? If so, how did you find their performance for the kind of thing that I want to use them for?

I'm in the same boat as you and am looking at a US Modular Dragon Drive.

Not these specific drives, no. But I do have a USB2-to-IDE enclosure that I've run video off of. The USB2-to-IDE bridge is pretty straightforward circuitry, and the hard disk inside is the same as you'd use on any PC. It would have hundreds of times the transfer speed that you need for audio. For what you're describing, "performance" is a non-issue. Capacity, durability and convenience are the issues, and the latter two are going to be pretty much the same no matter what you get, among 2.5" external drives.

So if you've settled on 2.5" USB self-powered, then within that category, I'd rate it strictly on cost per GB.

Y'know guys, there's something called an iPod. Familiar with it? I believe they still come with hard drives as large 80 GB, holds 20,000 mp3 songs, works with a computer, reasonably portable. Just a thought.

I was gonna suggest that, too, but Walter said he was looking at spending about $100.

Yeah, if you can afford ~$350, go for the 80Gb iPod. By a long ways, the best way to go.

Actually...I'd love to even do this in the $60-70 range, but I'll have to see how much space that buys me. I'm not a big fan of the iPod though, or any MP3 player for that matter. I'd rather get the hard drive space and leave it at that.

I'm liking something like the idea of the US Modular Dragon Drive.

This one has an integrated cable, so you don't have to lug one around...I have one (the FireWire version) and it ROCKS!!!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822161010

Wow...thanks RoyalScam...after rebate, this one comes out to about $90, which isn't that bad for 80GB. You're right too...the integrated cable is a definite selling point. I'll have to price this around and see if I can do any better than the newegg site.

FWIW, Walter, I've ordered from Newegg several times and have always been happy with them. Great prices, fast shipping, etc.

Ask anybody in the tech sector. Newegg is teh $#!+. I've probably built my last four PCs buying parts only from them.