Good, affordable external hard drive for desktop computer?

[hbenthow]

My current hard drive is showing some signs that it might soon need a replacement. This is it, by the way:

WD Elements 1 TB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive WDBAAU0010HBK-NESN

I'm looking for a suitable replacement that fits within my limited budget (preferably under $75). I will be using it heavily for storage, video editing, media playing, and all sorts of other tasks for a number of years, so it needs to be reliable and able to take a lot of usage for a long time. It will be hooked up to my desktop computer permanently until it shows signs that it needs to be retired. It needs to be 1 TB or larger. I considered buying the exact same drive that I currently have, but the only ones for sale now are used, which means that they are likely to have a lower lifespan than a new one. There are a whole bunch of portable drives for sale on Amazon, but I don't need the drive to be portable, and have heard that portable drives aren't as good for purposes such as mine. Keeping all of this in mind, are there any good drives that you could suggest?

[newpball]

I will be using it heavily for storage, video editing, media playing, and all sorts of other tasks for a number of years, so it needs to be reliable and able to take a lot of usage for a long time.

In that case I would advice to:

1. Buy an internal enterprise drive
2. Lower your reliability expectations and have a solid backup strategy

[hbenthow]

I will be using it heavily for storage, video editing, media playing, and all sorts of other tasks for a number of years, so it needs to be reliable and able to take a lot of usage for a long time.

In that case I would advice to:

1. Buy an internal enterprise drive
2. Lower your reliability expectations and have a solid backup strategy

I'll have to open up my computer again to make sure, but if I recall right, there's not enough room in the case for another internal drive.

[newpball]

I will be using it heavily for storage, video editing, media playing, and all sorts of other tasks for a number of years, so it needs to be reliable and able to take a lot of usage for a long time.

In that case I would advice to:

1. Buy an internal enterprise drive
2. Lower your reliability expectations and have a solid backup strategy

I'll have to open up my computer again to make sure, but if I recall right, there's not enough room in the case for another internal drive.

How many internal drives do you currently have and what are the specifications of the computer?

[hbenthow]

How many internal drives do you currently have and what are the specifications of the computer?

I have one internal hard drive (my C drive).

Here are my specs:

Operating System
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit SP1

CPU
AMD Athlon II X2 32 °C
Regor 45nm Technology

RAM
8.00GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 531MHz (7-7-7-20)

Motherboard
Hewlett-Packard 3047h (XU1 PROCESSOR) 30 °C

Graphics
ASUS VS229 (1920x1080@59Hz)
368MB ATI Radeon HD 4200 (HP)

Storage
931GB Hitachi HDS721010KLA330 SATA Disk Device (SATA) 40 °C
931GB Western Digital WD Ext HDD 1021 USB Device (USB)

Optical Drives
HL-DT-ST BD-RE WH14NS40 SATA CdRom Device

Audio
Realtek High Definition Audio

By the way, are refurbished drives as reliable/do they have as long a lifespan as new ones?

[newpball]

By the way, are refurbished drives as reliable/do they have as long a lifespan as new ones?

Let me put this a bit stronger: I would not put the words reliable and hard disk in the same sentence!

And that is especially true if you are going to use your disk for heavy video and image editing.

Your motherboard supports 4 SATA II connections so you easily add a drive (but you may need a bigger case). SATA II is fast enough to handle present day mechanical SATA III drives. Your motherboard does not support USB 3.0 which basically makes the external drive option for heavy video editing very problematic since USB 2.0 is pretty slow.

[hbenthow]

Let me put this a bit stronger: I would not put the words reliable and hard disk in the same sentence!

I'm aware that from a data loss standpoint, it's always important to backup because you never know for certain when a hard drive will go bad. But what I'm trying to ascertain is whether refurbished hard drives tend on average to have as long a lifespan as new ones.

[hbenthow]

I've checked in my computer case, and it turns out that I do have room for an internal hard drive. I found a new 1 TB internal enterprise drive with a 5-year warranty for $66.01 + $3.99 shipping on Amazon, so I think I'll get that. I might later buy an external drive for backup purposes.

Thank you for the advice.