I want to add a external hard drive. But after looking at several different sites I am concerned with their reliability. Main use to be storage for wifes pictures. If drives cannot be trusted not good. Lose pics live in dog house. Do they make reliable external hard drives!

Howdy cyclone and welcome to PCHF.. The make very good and reliable externals.. The ones I use and have had no problem with for 2 years is this one

Newegg.com - Western Digital My Book Essential WDG1U5000N 500GB 7200 RPM USB 2.0 External Hard Drive - Retail

You can buy smaller sizes but I love the My books, Maxtor are the externals you do not want to buy.. If you want you can make your own as I did that as well

Newegg.com - Eagle Consus T-Series ET-CSTU2-BK 3.5" USB2.0 to IDE External Enclosure - Retail Case
Newegg.com - Western Digital Caviar SE WD800JB 80GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache IDE Ultra ATA100 Hard Drive - OEM Hard drive or any other Western Digital or Segate IDE or SATA 150 will do

Hi!

To just store pictures most external HDD will do. If you want to be sure you can take a external from a known brand like Maxtor, Seagate or Western Digital...

Robin

I've read very good things about Western Digital Drives on other sites as well. Wern't they bought out by Seagate sometime ago?

That was Maxtor... That is why it is not a good time to buy Maxtor.. Until everything goes through

What do you mean Merlin?
I thought Maxtor was already aquired by Seagate some time ago?
Anyway, I don't have any problems with Maxtor internal HDDs. They're also just a fraction cheaper than Seagate and WD.

Robin