What are some of the best external hardrives for PC computers?

Western Digital, Maxtor and Seagate are all top notch brands, but even the no-name stuff is really solid these days. I usually go for storage space and compare the brands. If it's only an extra couple of bucks to get the name brand then I'll grab it, but if the price difference is big I always go cheap and I've never had a problem.

External hard drives usually come in either USB or Firewire. You may have both on your computer, but you almost definitely have USB so if you're not sure which outputs you have, opt for USB.

There are a wide variety of sizes, shapes and colours and none of that really matters...but as a general rule of thumb, the smaller the physical dimensions of the drive, the more expensive it is. I'm not talking about storage space, just about the size of the actual object.

As far as storage space goes, the smallest I can see out there now is 160 gigabytes. Just to put that in perspective, let's assume an average mp3 song is 5 megabytes. That would mean you could fit more than 30,000 mp3 songs on a 160 gigabyte drive.

Hope that helps!

Brandwise I would probably go for a Western Digital or a Lacie (powered). I've had both and they've done a very good job. I also have a purely USB powered Seagate which cops an absolute flogging and that's going just fine.

WD and Seagate are the best-that's my opinion. But Seagate is a little bit better,they have 60 Months warranty and WD only 12 mo.

Oh! if you have room you should get a 3.5 inch one-cheaper than the 2.5 inch-per GB.