External HDs

[jrbick]

Curious what everyone thinks about external hard drives. I've been thinking lately that it might make sense to get one since I run an eMachine desktop that seems like it's on it's last legs. I'm not one to just go get a new comp until absolutely necessary.

So I'm wondering:

1.) w/ the external HD, do you literally back up your entire HD as it is on the CPU? i.e. I could just load it onto a new computer and have instant use of applications, etc.

2.) what is a good price for an external HD?

3.) what brand is recommended?

TIA

[send_the_msg]

you can buy drives that will easily be able to back up everything on your boot drive, but it's best to just backup documents, as programs are easy to reinstall on a new system. as far as brands go, check out newegg.com and read customer reviews there. that's pretty much the best place on the internet to buy computer parts.

[cwsiggy]

I am very happy with my Seagate external 160gb and this brand gets mentioned over and over as one of the better ones. Some actually get internal drives and put them in external enclosure boxes, but I was too lazy.

With regards to #1, you can back up everything, but a RAID configuration that mirrors your drives (RAID1?) would be the route that you'd want to go if that was your intentions rather than an external HDD. Of course, you would need a RAID ready motherboard to do this with.

If you did back up entire programs on the extrenal HDD and then tried to run them on a new machine they will not work. When a program is installed it make entries into the computers registry. Those entries would be absent on a different computer that the programs were not originally installed on.

Another option you have is the program made by Symantec called Norton Ghost, or its equivelant made by someone else. Ghost can create an image of your drive, which in an emergency can be "ghosted" onto a new hard drive. This is one way that your applications would work on a new pc, but this image would have be put onto the drive you boot from and would have to erase anything else on that drive. Using this on your old PC would get you up an running again provided the only thing that changed was the HDD, otherwise you might run into issues with driver conflicts from the old machine's drivers still on the HDD if it was put into a new system.

With regards to #3, Seagate offers a five year warranty on their drives, two more years than most manufacturers, and still price them comptetively. If you were willing to go internal, check out their 160GB drives, which last time I looked were priced very nicely on Newegg.com.

Alternately the cheapest thing to do would be to backup your data files onto a CD-R.

[smoore]

I like my LaCie external HDD. It may have come with backup software, I don't remember... I have it hooked up to a l00nix machine so windows software is worthless for my situation.

I recommend only backing up documents, PT database, HUD configuration, poker site notes, quake configuration, etc.

oh yeah, and porn. gotta back up the porn.

[jrbick]

[ QUOTE ]
With regards to #1, you can back up everything, but a RAID configuration that mirrors your drives (RAID1?) would be the route that you'd want to go if that was your intentions rather than an external HDD. Of course, you would need a RAID ready motherboard to do this with.

If you did back up entire programs on the extrenal HDD and then tried to run them on a new machine they will not work. When a program is installed it make entries into the computers registry. Those entries would be absent on a different computer that the programs were not originally installed on.

Another option you have is the program made by Symantec called Norton Ghost, or its equivelant made by someone else. Ghost can create an image of your drive, which in an emergency can be "ghosted" onto a new hard drive. This is one way that your applications would work on a new pc, but this image would have be put onto the drive you boot from and would have to erase anything else on that drive. Using this on your old PC would get you up an running again provided the only thing that changed was the HDD, otherwise you might run into issues with driver conflicts from the old machine's drivers still on the HDD if it was put into a new system.

With regards to #3, Seagate offers a five year warranty on their drives, two more years than most manufacturers, and still price them comptetively. If you were willing to go internal, check out their 160GB drives, which last time I looked were priced very nicely on Newegg.com.

Alternately the cheapest thing to do would be to backup your data files onto a CD-R.

[/ QUOTE ]


VERY helpful response...TYVM... so an external HD is going to function the same way backing things up on a CD would. However, the external HDD is convenient, obviously holds a lot more (so backing up iTunes, pictures, and my PT db would be ideal for this, right?).

[smoore]

The best thing about it is the lack of interaction. You set up the software and basically forget about it.

[jrbick]

[ QUOTE ]
The best thing about it is the lack of interaction. You set up the software and basically forget about it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ahhh... convenience factor. I am a sucker for convenience factor. Looks like I'm buying one.

[Guthrie]

Buy two. After a couple of weeks, put one in your safe deposit box and plug in the other one. Rinse. Repeat.

[testaaja]

Well I would not buy a external hd but I would buy an adapter that puts an IDE hd into your USB. Hell it is so much cheaper etc etc. And remember NEVER buy maxtor.. They just get broken.