tonycondon
Gastons CRO (Chief Dinner Reservation Officer)
I've got 3 computers, all pretty old, and each computer has stuff on it that i want. I need a USB external hard drive or something like that. what do you recommend?
I've got 3 computers, all pretty old, and each computer has stuff on it that i want. I need a USB external hard drive or something like that. what do you recommend?
Tony, go to newegg and buy an ANTEC or competitive Hard Drive case/interface, powersupply in one box. Put the HD's from each, in one of them each.
Here's a current version: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...5&cm_re=harddrive_case-_-17-993-035-_-Product
and for 3.5" drives: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...re=harddrive_enclosure-_-17-366-004-_-Product
About $20 apiece.
Then the old computers continue to exist as an outboard HD plugged into whatever is your main computer these days.
I have four of them (ANTECs).
Dave, for that price I seriously hope it was a 1TB drive or larger! And that should be large enough to back up all of Tony's other drives! USB Flash drives, even the 4GB - 32GB variety, would probably be sufficient to back up his photos, etc.As others have said, replicate the data on multiple drives. The only problem is making sure that you keep the latest version of each of the files!Tony: I just got a 1GB external hard drive at Fry's here locally for around $100 bucks. They had larger ones for just a bit more. Almost have to have one at that cost.
Best,
Dave
The 500 GB drive was put in the enclosure, formatted and tested, and is on it's way to you today. Be sure to turn it off when not in use so that it doesn't get too hot - the case doesn't have a fan. It will do just fine for your data transfer or occasional backup needs.
Thanks for posting this--I need to do the same thing. Had a hard drive destroyed in a lightening storm once and lost most of my photos. It cost about $350 to salvage about 1/3 of our photos. And now i have videos, too.
I've wondered about the online data backup services. Two main questions come to mind. One, is the company still going to be around when I need to do a restoration? And two, what precautions do they take with the security of the data, since it's likely to contain sensitive information such as tax returns, company financials, health information, and the like. Is it automatically encrypted as it is stored, or could some nefarious employee go mining through their media and get all this information?To hedge against that risk, I would suggest using a remote online backup service. Consumer grade services are available at very low cost. It just runs in the background and keeps a copy of your designated drives at a remote data center.
If you have a ligthning strike, your external drive may be toast as well.
Only if it's actually in use at the time. And who doesn't have a surge supressor nowadays?To hedge against that risk, I would suggest using a remote online backup service. Consumer grade services are available at very low cost. It just runs in the background and keeps a copy of your designated drives at a remote data center.
If you have a ligthning strike, your external drive may be toast as well.
And two, what precautions do they take with the security of the data, since it's likely to contain sensitive information such as tax returns, company financials, health information, and the like. Is it automatically encrypted as it is stored, or could some nefarious employee go mining through their media and get all this information?