Using a computer to take notes in grad school?

[timuralp]

As a former wedding photographer with somewhere around 14-16TB worth of drives on various RAIDs, I really only trust WD and Samsung. Seagates are great if you're storing things that aren't important since their price point is great for the consumer market. Toshiba--haven't heard much from them nor have I ever bought their products.

WD Black and Blue drives are a bit more expensive, but I've been really happy with their performance and stability over the years.

The whole point of RAID is to use cheap disks, but that wasn't your point. I would just think if you had RAID setup, then the cheapest disks would be the ones you go for -- sorry about the tangent.

currently, i own a western digital. it's been 3+ years, and still running strong, hasn't crashed on me even once. but brands such as seagate, toshiba, samsung are pretty good too. if you want a very robust hd, search for solid state drives - very expensive for little memory, but super fast speed.

Personally, I'd go for any drive in the < $40 range as the backup drive. I disagree with the SSD recommendation as the backup drive doesn't need to be fast and the price/GB is too high. If there is a desktop computer available, the it may be worthwhile to get 2 drives, have them mirror each other, and backup to that machine.

[ktel]

There are way too many equations and diagrams in my course notes to make typing up notes useful for me. I also find handwriting helps me to remember the subject matter better than typing. For that reason I also hand-write all the summary notes I make when I study for exams. Color-coded with different pens.

[mnturk]

For those who are looking to use an iPad to take notes, my boyfriend got one & is using it with a case that includes a bluetooth keyboard to make typing easier. He also uses iAnnotate, which allows him to write equations etc directly on the screen and he can still type in notes. It works really well with slide shows if your professor posts them before class. He uses Evernote to sync the information to his desktop so he can go over the notes later.