Thinking about an external hard drive--advice?

15 years ago

I need to start backing up my photos (about 1600 so far, and I haven't even started my project of scanning family photos) and music and a handful of documents.

What are some factors I should consider in looking at external units? I know it's wise to go for as much storage space as I can afford, but there's such a thing as overkill, right? It's just hard to know what you MIGHT need down the line...

I've been reading some reviews on Amazon and am kind of amazed that some units are really cumbersome to use--like requiring many steps to back something up--or else really, really, really slow. But there must be some that truly fit the definition of "user-friendly," right? (Uh... right?)

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Comments (5)

ravencajun Zone 8b TX
15 years ago
I use seagate FreeAgent PRO fairly straight forward easy to use plugs into usb port has a power supply of it's own you plug in, has an on off switch. comes with tools built in and a backup program you can use which will do auto backups.
there is a difference between the free agent and the free agent pro so be sure on any you read all the info on them. I did a LOT of research on the various brands before I chose the seagate free agent pro, it had the best reviews and best features for my needs. Plus I got it on sale which is nice.
It is formatted for NTFS some are formatted Fat32 so you may want to look at that, you can always reformat of course. I use it on my XP machines so NTFS was what I wanted.
jemdandy
15 years ago
I use a Western Digital 80 Gb, external hard drive w/ USB2 conection. This drive has its own power source and does not swamp the USB port. (Most USB ports are protected from shorting. If a device pulls too much current from the port, it shuts down and a re-boot is required to get the port running again. I have a 120 Gb Passport drive for my laptop and the inrush of the drive motor will shut down the port. A "Y" connector is required so that the disc drive can pull power from 2 ports.)

To back up my importnt data files, I do not use a "backup" utility that uses data compression and put a group of files into a file set. This harks back to tape drives and limited storge space. I simply copy my important data files using the same folder (directory) structure as on the parent drive. Now, the back up copies are readily available by a simple drag and drop operation.

For example, you may have financial data that changes daily. Its simple matter to periodically write copies of the current files to the back up space.
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luis_pr
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When I went shopping for a unit at Best Buy, I noticed that most of the external drives were for hundreds of GB. The biggest may have been 1 or 2 Terabytes. I found my Western Digital 500GB (looks like a book) easy to install. Just plug it into the back of the PC & into an outlet or power supply unit. I did not use the software that came with it (for back up purposes). Instead, I installed Acronis True Image Home 2009 (recommended here). I back up the whole drive and then incremetally back up files that have changed.
buyorsell888
15 years ago
I have an external drive which was sold to me by the local computer shop where I bought my computer and it has PC Clone EX Lite software which totally sucks. The instructions are written in broken English and no matter how many times I've formatted it and followed all the instructions the one touch back up does not work. I have to drag and drop from Windows Explorer.

I did just read about a new DVD that has software that finds all the pictures on your computer and copies them for back up. I found them at Office Max for $10.00 it was a five or six pack. I can't remember. I didn't buy them though. It just ticks me off that I spent a hundred bucks on an external drive and it is difficult to use.
owbist
15 years ago
If you currently have your 1600 photos in folders suitable then there should be no issue with a simple 'copy and paste' operation to get them on an external drive.

1600 photos at 2 megs each should even go on one DVD. What size on average are your photos?

Sorting photos into suitable folders can be a pain. I had 9000 on here and whittled those down to 6000 but I do believe I am back up there again. It takes time to go through deleting and sorting.

Thinking about an external hard drive--advice?

Comments (5)

ravencajun Zone 8b TX

jemdandy

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