I am quite an anime fan and I tend to rack up a few too many anime series without even realizing it. Unfortunately, one single series can take up to 10GB and my 80GB hard drive is simply inadequate. So how does a money-tight college student like me deal with such a predicament? Laptop upgrades can be rather painful and simply purchasing a bigger hard drive and replacing my old one seems to waste the original 80GB (not to mention all the annoying installation processes). My answer came in the form of an external hard drive.

A quick browse through Newegg and I saw that a typical 200GB external hard drive goes for $160. A good deal? Maybe to the common eye.

What’s a better option? Building an external hard-drive yourself! Now this is not as intimidating as it sounds. A 160GB external Western Digital hard drive will cost you $129.99 not including taxes and shipping whereas a 250GB Western Digital internal hard drive will only cost you $89.99 with free shipping! Fork over another $20 for a USB enclosure and you have yourself a nice external hard drive.

I now have myself a nice little 320GB Western Digital external hard drive for $160 (including taxes and shipping cost for both hard drive and enclosure). My friend got his 200GB Western Digital hard drive plus enclosure for a mere $80. Which one is more worth it? Well, you can do the math yourself. All you have to do is follow these directions and you’re all set.

Melissa Jiang
Intern