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External Hard Drives
Posted: Sat 06 Jan, 2007 15.06
by Aston
Hello fellow Metropoleans,
I was wondering what you guys know about external hard drives. I currently have a laptop with an 80gb drive and I want to back it up in case anything happens to my computer.
Anyway, I've been looking at this portable one, which as well as looking nice and sexy, has 120gb of storage just in case in need a little bit extra:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/o/ASIN/B000IAZ5 ... 60-9235603
How will this compare to it's ordinary equivilant? Here's a Western Digital 160gb one, it's just bigger and requires its own power (the advantage being that it's cheaper and you get more storage):
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Digital ... lectronics
Anyway, I'd appreciate any Metropol wisdom about this - I guess the compromise with the portable one is that it won't be as fast to transfer files to?
Posted: Sat 06 Jan, 2007 15.25
by Dr Lobster*
if i was you, i'd go for something like this:
http://www.misco.co.uk/productinformati ... 0Drive.htm
we use these at work for backups and they are fine, a lot cheaper than those stupid little portable things.
it will be heavier and it will need a power brick, but as it's a "backup" you're not going to be bringing everywhere anyway.
Posted: Sat 06 Jan, 2007 15.27
by DVB Cornwall
Bought this one last October - it's very good and has no difficulty in playing HD video 'live' from the remote drive ....
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Digital ... lectronics
Recommended.
Posted: Sat 06 Jan, 2007 17.12
by Aston
Thanks for that guys. I do see the advantage of going for the larger ones as in theory I'm using it as a back-up.
However, as I don't have a desk for my computer, one that's bigger and requires power might be a bit bulky.
I guess what I really wanted to know was the difference between the two performance wise. Sorry for not making that clear from the start...
Posted: Sat 06 Jan, 2007 23.54
by Nick Harvey
Just an odd thought about back-ups.
Whether you're using a compressing back-up program or just taking a copy of C:, it's always worth having room for TWO back-ups on the external drive and using them alternately, so when the machine falls over during this back-up, you've still got the previous one on the external drive to recover from.
Posted: Sun 07 Jan, 2007 00.09
by Dr Lobster*
the spindle speed is 7200 on the larger unit and 5400 on the smaller more portable drive.
in real terms, you notice it most with random access, how much depends on lots of things, again, if all you are using it for is a backup device speed isn't really going to be an issue - 60 gb of data will easily copy over in a couple of hours tops. (i backup 70gb of data to an external drive and it takes about 1 hr 15 minutes uncompressed).
again, if your use of this drive is just a backup, speed and size shouldn't be a problem as the whole point of it is to keep it and your laptop in seperate places, so if you're travelling with your backup drive the whole exercise is pointless, as if your laptop gets stolen, so does your backup etc.
i'd personally get the biggest (in terms of capacity) as you can afford.
Posted: Sun 07 Jan, 2007 10.55
by marksi
Maplin have a Seagate 160GB external drive on offer at £59.99, or 320GB for £89.99.
Posted: Sun 07 Jan, 2007 11.04
by Neil Jones
The do it yourself method:
One of these:
http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/120310 (£4, cheap and cheerful but it apparently does the job)
And then one of these (or any other IDE hard drive):
http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/97511 (£37.04 for a 120Gb drive)
Plus P&P. (Grand total of £46.31 for Super Saver Delivery on eBuyer with the above items)
Receive the items, put them together yourself, use.
Posted: Mon 15 Jan, 2007 23.44
by Aston
If you're interested, I opted for the first option - the portable 120GB option that doesn't require a power cable and looks rather snazzy.
It's yet to arrive, so fingers crossed it's a good'n
Posted: Tue 16 Jan, 2007 00.22
by cdd
By the way moderately related...
I use Windows 2000 Professional on my laptop, and have my user account (Administrator) protected with a password.
If my laptop got lost/stolen, could anyone access the data on it?
I haven't protected it any way other than having it behind my Windows protected account.
Posted: Tue 16 Jan, 2007 01.02
by Chris
Yes, they simply have to whip out the HD, connect it to another machine and take ownership of the files. Job done.
Unless you use EFS though. Then it becomes a bit harder.