external hard drive/storage

[tonycondon]

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?

 

[RJM62]

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?

Three computers?

If they're networked (or even sharing an Internet connection through a router; they don't actually need to be on a real "network"), then I suggest a RAIDed NAS enclosure with two decent drives in a RAID 1 (Mirrored) array.

I like Seagate, Samsung, and Western Dig drives.

Two reasons for the RAIDed NAS suggestion:

1. External drives fail, too, so RAID is a bit of extra insurance; and

2. By connecting the backup device by TCP/IP, you're more likely to actually do the backups because you don't have to connect the external drive every time you want to do one. It's just... there.

-Rich

 

[Dave Siciliano]

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

 

[weilke]

If you have a couple of computers to back up, one of the networked boxes may be useful (NAS). They cost a bit more, the convenience to just use them as a storage server directly hooked up to the network makes up for it. Also, if you hook an external drive to one of your PCs and it croaks, you have a harder time getting at the data.

EMC markets networked drives under the 'iomega storcenter' brand. I have a 4TB for an off-site backup application, but for household use you can get the smaller 1TB box that retails for $300 or so and you won't ever run out of storage space There are plenty of others (e.g. Zyxel) that offer similar functionality. These things are packaged with the consumer in mind, setup is pretty simple through a web interface.

 

[tonycondon]

the computers are not networked. only one is ever on the internet at the same time as i do not have wireless and only one wire coming out of my router.

i'm not looking for a bulletproof backup i'm more looking for a single place to put all the photos, documents, etc. that i've got spread out between three machines. I also need a simple solution unless Jesse wants to be getting a bunch of phone calls and he doesn't want that. To me, a simple solution is a 1GB or better portable drive with a USB plug on it. That's the sort of thing i'm looking for recommendations for.

 

[TMetzinger]

Tony,

Send me a snail mail address. I've got a 500 GB EIDE disk and a USB enclosure for it just sitting here doing me no good. I'll be happy to pass it on to you.

 

[SCCutler]

I love this place!

 

[fgcason]

I have a 1.5Tb IOmega USB drive. $130 from newegg.com a few months ago.
It swallowed both of my other drives like they were nothing. The thing is frigging huge.

 

[bbchien]

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).

 

[shywon]

If all you need is a 1 gig drive, buy a couple of flash drives for about 20 bucks each.....or go with something like a 1 tb external drive for about 150 and just clone each hd into a different sector. I know flash drives fail, but if you have 2 or 3 exact drives you should be fine.

 

[RJM62]

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).

The Antec enclosures are indeed outstanding, like pretty much anything else Antec makes. I have NEVER had a failure or problem of any sort with any of them.

-Rich

 

[gprellwitz]

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

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!

 

[TMetzinger]

Tony,

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.

If you want something alive all the time - I've had really good results from Buffalo LinkStation NAS units - you can get them fairly cheaply, and they work fine as a Microsoft/Apple/FTP file server. They have fans and can run non-stop.

 

[Palmpilot]

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.

Regarding the temperature issue, if it will fit in the enclosure, there are removable drive racks that have built in fans. I once had a hard disk go bad, and after putting it in such a rack it became bootable again and I was able to retrieve everything.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicat...slc.asp?MfrId=1464&Nav=|c:285|&Sort=0&Recs=10

 

[David7700]

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.

The computer I use at home for photos has two hard drives--one is supposed to be a back-up, but it always says it's full. Paperwork from when I bought it says the drives are 250GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s Hard Drive (7200RPM)--it is a Dell XPS210. So I guess I need to get one of these external drives.

 

[weilke]

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.

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.

 

[gprellwitz]

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.

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?

 

[TMetzinger]

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?

The idea behind these portable USB drives are for temporary usage like backups. They're supposed to be offline most of the time

 

[weilke]

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?

If someone wants my tax returns, they'll just impersonate me and order a copy from the IRS, it's remarkably easy.

Yes, those are valid concerns. I just figure that nobody is actually interested in my 20 year old thesis work or the pictures of my kids.

 

[EdFred]

I bought a 1TB Maxtor with a Cat-5 connection. Sits on the network just like a file server.