Simplify your laptop buying
Community Newsletter: Q&A: External hard-drive buying advice and backing up data
- 8/8/08 10:24 AM
External Hard Drives are a must for me
by Very Graphic - 8/1/08 6:56 PM In reply to: External hard-drive buying advice and backing up data by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I too have a DELL and run XP. I have a 80G iPod with tons of music. I bought two external Calvary drives added to my peripherals on my system. I have a 500G to store my iTunes music, audiobooks and movies, and I have a 750G to use for my 3x a week Acronis back-ups. I look into so many different brands, and finally selected the Calvary, because they had a decent reputation and they are small in size.
Drobo
by joeyjoeyjoey - 8/1/08 7:05 PM In reply to: External hard-drive buying advice and backing up data by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
my advice is to get a drobo. Not only is it an external enclose it's does raid5-ish style writing so your data is always safe. If there is an issue with one of the 4 drives just replace the bad one (doesn't need to be the same make or size) and drovo will take care of rebuilding it for you.
The bare enclosure is about $500 and to it some drives and you're looking at around $1000 for 3TB (4TB - 1TB).
It's slot more than a mybook or any of those single drive solutions but honestly if data is important you'll actually find that the drobo is a bargin.
Consider an External Enclosure
by _miro_ - 8/1/08 7:09 PM In reply to: External hard-drive buying advice and backing up data by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
This will end up being more expensive, but I went through the same evaluation process several months ago and ended up getting an external hard drive enclosure instead of a retail external drive. Then you can buy an internal hard drive, which is typically cheaper for the same amount of space.
I spent about $30.00 for the enclosure and roughly another $100 for a white box 300GB hard drive. This was about a year ago, I'm sure prices have changed a lot.
Here's the enclosure I purchased (this isn't a specific endorsement, just an example):
http://www.thermaltake.com/product/Storage/35_Solutions/n0012us/n0012us.asp
For anyone not familiar with this type of setup, an enclosure is a casing for a normal hard drive that provides it's own power and connectivity (USB, eSata, etc.) to hook it to any system.
The biggest advantage(s) to this setup are if the enclosure fails, your drive/data is still accessible... you can move the hard drive into a computer or another enclosure if needed.
It's more work to initially set up an enclosure, but I get USB connectivity once the drive is installed, and can move the drive just like any external hard drive.
One of the biggest complaints I have heard from reviews of external drives are failures caused by overheating (usually when transferring a lot of data). You won't have this problem with an enclosure, most have built in fans (mine included) to help keep the drive at a normal operating temperature.
Also, I don't know if you are a Windows user, but I looked at several backup software solutions and ended up going with Microsoft's SyncToy, which is a free application. Synctoy is an extremely simple application that allows you set up any numbers of folder pairs to keep in sync with varying levels (echo, subscribe, contribute). You can schedule it to run as often as needed with Windows task scheduler. There are much more powerful backup solutions available, but this setup has worked extremely well for me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SyncToy
Another advantage to enclosures ...
by jimichan - 8/2/08 4:20 AM In reply to: Consider an External Enclosure by _miro_is that they allow you to upgrade your computer's hard drive easily. Just buy your new hard drive, put it in the enclosure, copy your existing HDD to it, then just swap them out.
redundancy and duplication...
by tech-wonk - 8/1/08 7:12 PM In reply to: External hard-drive buying advice and backing up data by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Everybody stresses that HD's fail which is true - but the are highly reliable and fail only rarely. And the odds of your data drive (on a laptop or desktop) and your backup external HD dying at the same time is so small that you don't need to be concerned. If the .000002% probability is too high for you - you should use several backup technologies simultaneously including: DVD, DAT tape, CD and online backup.
My thinking is that you always have two copies - if one fails you replace the bad drive and start backing up again. I do recommend that you keep the backup HD unplugged when not in use since a lightening strike will blow everything out including your coffeemaker! But if the lightning hits your house and it burns to the ground - the only safe backup is online. But if a meteor impacts the servers hosting your backup data and the resulting earthquake causes your house to slide into a sink hole full of molten lava - you need to be prepared to kiss your data goodbye. There is no completely fail safe backup. But statistically - having your data in two places is safe enough for all but national secrets or pictures of your boss at the xmas party.
Ohh!!
by Pacu102 - 8/1/08 7:31 PM In reply to: redundancy and duplication... by tech-wonkOMG, I have taken more than 40,000 pictures and have them stored on my WD portable external hard drive, but those pictures are my life and now hard drives aren't safe? What should I do? If it cracks I'll definately go into depression!!
Avoid WD MyBook like the plague!!!
by RippyT - 8/1/08 8:14 PM In reply to: redundancy and duplication... by tech-wonk>>And the odds of your data drive (on a laptop or desktop) and your backup external HD dying at the same time is so small that you don't need to be concerned.
How about within a month of each other? I had a data killing Windows system crash followed by a external HD crash in that span. Sadly, I only managed to restore a small fraction of my important data (several years of hard work) when the external HD—which I was using for both backup and extra storage—crashed. It was the dreaded "clicks of death". What does that mean? It means the R/W head is toast, and you are looking at paying $1G or more worth of data recovery.
The external hard drive? WD MyBook Premium 500G, a complete and utter piece of garbage and destroyer of data. It failed on me after only about ten months of usage. Any hard drive which fails in under a year's time is disgraceful.
At least I have company in my misery. Just Google the words "Western Digital" followed by any of these words or phrases: "sucks", "failure", "crash", "clicks of death", etc. You'll be amazed how many people are now in Data-Loss Hell thanks to these expensive doorstops.
Add to this that WD customer service is not just terrible, but pretty much non-existence. And the warranty? Worthless. Only lasts a year, and they give you back a rebuilt drive, as opposed to a new one. They don't seem to give a damn about your lost data, either. Want your data recovered without voiding the warranty? You have to use one of their "approved data recovery partners". Prepare to shell out big bucks, some of it which is kicked back to WD no doubt.
I will never buy another WD product as long as I live. If you want to avoid aggravation and the high cost of data recovery, I'd advise you all not to as well. I simply don't like their products, nor the way they do business. For those of you who wish to continue to stick with WD, I wish you all luck. You're gonna need it.
I'm done with WD. I'm done with external hard drives. Too many bad experiences; my own plus other's I know. Now I buy internal drives—Hitachi has served me well so far—put them in external enclosures, and cool them all with external fans. And I back up EVERYTHING now; the real important stuff twice.
Answers for Ben
by Ari Britt - 8/1/08 7:51 PM In reply to: External hard-drive buying advice and backing up data by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I have western digital and calvary,and have used others. much prefer calvary, it doesn't come loaded with loads of useless programs you'll never use and mine has esata connect so it's darn fast.
one should never worry about a hard drive crashing if one backs up to dvd as well I use mine mainly for dvd type concerts I record from t.v or download from bit torrent sites, and occasionally the odd c.d or webcast, it isn't too important to me if one crashes, so I don't lose any sleep over it, technology is not crash proof, get over it, only external hd's that've ever crashed on me were western digital, but that was a long long time ago.
If you do buy a 1T HD make sure that's what it is and not two 500G in one or it'll get very hot and unstable.
External Backup: Drive = Seagate & Enclosure = Apricorn
by StevenFuhrman - 8/1/08 8:38 PM In reply to: External hard-drive buying advice and backing up data by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
As Lee says, everyone will have their opinion, and here is mine.
I found it interesting while going through the comments in this forum that everyone else seems to think that just because a company can make a good drive that they can also make a good enclosure!
Seagate is my favorite drive manufacturer at this time (although I recently decided to try out a Samsung HD103UJ 1TB as my primary drive on my PC based on reviews), but just because they make quiet and reliable drives does NOT mean that they know much about enclosures. Sure, the FreeAgent is "interesting" and has a monolithic glow to it, but what's so special about their enclosures? Nothing.
For me, I trust my drives in Apricorn enclosures (I'm only referring to the 3.5" type here; 2.5" enclosures are different for comparison here). The reason that I love Apricorn enclosures is due to their ventilation. Unlike many other enclosures (Seagate, Western Digital, IOmega, etc.) the Apricorn enclosures have a slim fan at the bottom of the drive that draws air in from the front bottom of the case, cools the electronics, and pushes the heated air out the top front of the case.
Anyone familiar with electronics and hard drives knows that HEAT kills these components more than anything else (except maybe dropping them while they are on). In a nut shell, if you can keep the drives cool, they last a whole lot longer than if you don't.
As someone with 9 Apricorn EZ Bus enclosures (surrounding mostly Seagate drives) connected to his main PC, I can honestly say that I'm more likely to replace my drives due to paranoia or lack of space than I am due to failure.
As someone who does IT work for a living, I've seen a lot of people with failed external drives (Maxtor & Edge Tech immediately come to mind) and the only failures I can recall on Apricorn drives have been due to defective external power supplies to the enclosure. Not to worry, though, as they know they had problems with these things and will replace them free of charge just for the asking.
On the topic of backup software, I agree with the person who pointed out Acronis True Image 11. It's a great piece of software and if you use the right strategy, you can't go wrong with it. However, if you're okay with doing your backups manually (as opposed to on a schedule), you can just use the Apricorn EZ Gig software that comes bundled with the drive enclosure because it is nothing more than a re-skinned copy of Acronis True Image 10 (one version older than the retail, stripped of this functionality).
Build you own Extermal HD
by I_W - 8/1/08 9:09 PM In reply to: External hard-drive buying advice and backing up data by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I am late responding so perhaps nobody will read this.
I have browsed but certainly NOT read all the posts.
I would take the advice of others about getting a GOOD QUALITY and well ventilated external enclosure.
Then I'd get a large Seagate HD which will have a 5 year warranty.
I have that combination in an external SATA enclosure.
I found when I put together my external drive I ended up with a BETTER VENTILATED ENCLOSURE and a drive with a FIVE year warranty than what I could buy already made with only a ONE year warranty. And I saved quite a bit on the cost.
If you have a failure, it's easy to remove the drive and RMA it.
If you are a "belt and suspender" person, make two independent ones and back up to each of them. It's unlikely that the main computer and two external drives will fail at the same time.
Getting a new reliable hard drive
by pepsilluver - 8/1/08 10:24 PM In reply to: External hard-drive buying advice and backing up data by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Here is my take on it. I have had and burned thru 4 external hard drives. What I have found is 1st you need the hard drive enclosure to have a 2 speed fan. Turn on the hard drive when you need to but leave it off if you do not need what is on it, right now. I went into ebay and bought a 500 GB hard drive from a lady named egoodz, this is the hard drive in the case I got:
http://cgi.ebay.com/EXTERNAL-USB-2-0-NAS-LAN-SEAGATE-500GB-32MB-HARD-DRIVE_W0QQitemZ380051031715QQihZ025QQcategoryZ106273QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItem
Yes on ebay, but she is very good and she is also very fast. You can get them anywhere though. This is doing awesomely. Not saying it is for you, but it is awesome. What I got was a :
Black Metal Gear Box External NAS Ethernet (LAN) & USB2.0 Hard Drive + Seagate 500GB 32MB 7200RPM
USB 2.0 cable & Ethernet Cable
AC adapter
Software Driver CD
Manual
Key Features:
This is a perfect solution for your desktop or laptop (PC & MAC), if you need extra storage capacity for your Data, Music, Video, Games and more. You can use it as simple as just drag and drop the data between your local hard drive to this USB/Network external hard drive. Use this portable hard drive for backup, data sharing, data transferring between your office and home's computer. Easy plug-n-play connect via USB or Network interface supporting transfer rate up to 480mpbs(USB2.0)! You have no excuse for not buying an external hard drive today! Easy to set-up (no network experience needed)!!
The convenience of network-attached storage to homes and small business, giving you a central location for your data and letting you share that data across the network.
Front LED status indicator display and built-in 2 speeds adjustable Blue LEDs cooling fan of this case, give you extra benefit to cool down your hard drive and save your data .
get a few smaller HDD
by jason.heng - 8/1/08 10:31 PM In reply to: External hard-drive buying advice and backing up data by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I had a few HDD, from 100GB to 320GB, Some I use as back up, some as a back up2. and I keep different things in different HDD. I have pic, MP3, work related stuff, movies.
I perfer to have small HDD than big storage, at least they will not fail me at the same time. Imagine if you have 2x 500GB ( as back up and back up2) , 1 fail...1 to go..
but if I have different HDD...1 fail..many more to go. haha...just my pure 2cents.
eSATA -- Not USB!
by valleydesign - 8/1/08 10:47 PM In reply to: External hard-drive buying advice and backing up data by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
1. Amazing how much people are pushing USB drives here. USB tops out at 480mbps. But SATA is 3.0gbps. And eSata is simply an external version of internal SATA. What is means is that your external drive performs as well as the best internal drive. And if you're copying 100gb+ at a time, it makes a difference. Many/most eSATA drives have USB interfaces as well, anyway. So don't limit yourself to USB only, just to save $10.
2. Don't get less than 750gb. A Samsung F1 with 32mb cache is available for $99 these days. Crazy cheap. The bang for the buck is hard to beat.
3. Don't keep anything important on your C drive. Always have a D partition (and/or others) that everything important lives on. C should only be for programs that you can easily reinstall again. Your C drive is your most likely to fail/get corrupted, so keep important things on other partitions that you will focus your backups on.
4. With a big backup drive, you can keep multiple versions. I backup daily, but instead of overwriting yesterday's, I save by the current day's date. Then I'll have the last 3-4 days' worth of backups available to refer to (in case something was deleted/infected/corrupted and you didn't find out right away).
5. It's been suggested not to back up a hard drive with another hard drive. I don't know what's more reliable (or convenient) than a hard drive. The chance of one failing is miniscule. The chance of two failing at the same time (an internal and external) is astronomical.
6. Raid is a good idea but perhaps a little overkill (in capability and price). However, it's another reason to only go with SATA drives -- they can always be configured to a Raid later.
7. Always use a UPS/battery backup.
8. Don't worry about "wearing out" your internal drive. Chances are that you'll outgrow it long before it fails.
External hard drive backups
by lt2211 - 8/1/08 10:58 PM In reply to: eSATA -- Not USB! by valleydesign""5. It's been suggested not to back up a hard drive with another hard drive. I don't know what's more reliable (or convenient) than a hard drive. The chance of one failing is minuscule. The chance of two failing at the same time (an internal and external) is astronomical.""
Absolutely agree!!!. So many scare tactic comments, leading folks to believe they must make CD/DVD backups, is totally misleading. The time it takes to backup to a DVD, compared to two SATA drives, is considerable. Unless your talking life and death data, two SATA drives will work just fine.
External hard drive backups
by Fatboy71 - 8/2/08 12:11 AM In reply to: External hard drive backups by lt2211I have got to agree, even having the computers internal hard drive which will contain all the programs etc OS, and then having an external hard drive with all that backed up on is going to mean that if one drive fails you will have another backup to fall back on. That is the setup I use on my computer.
I would never consider backing up on to CD/DVD as I find that it is not the most stable storage media. I backed up some pictures to a CD once and around 2 years after doing so I could no longer read the disc, even though the disc was in mint condition.
I know now that Floppy discs are no good for anything has files etc have increased in size by a massive amount, but I found the humble floppy disc to be a far more reliable storage media than either CD or DVD.
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