External Hard Drive question

I finally found a reason to keep my external plugged in, when Win7 backup asked me what I wanted to save to it, and when. I already had Win7 backup images stored there for all seven home machines but thought I should get in the habit of backing up my selected files automatically on a schedule, when the computer is idle.

I liked this arrangement so well I programmed our other six networked home computers to backup their selected files (active folders used) and HDD images over the network to the same external plugged into my PC. It works fine and even sorts each into its own folder, and auto-detects the given machine's files and image over the network when I want to apply backups. (I tend to forget the point of the external is I can move it around!)

Just set it and forget it!

I leave my external HD plugged in but turned off.

I wonder how USB3 will impact on the portable storage device market, you can now get one or two compliant motherboards and NEC make a USB3 chipset on a PCiE card with a two port interface.

Not seen any storage devices as of right now.

My own experience: I am anal obsessive about backups, so have an ESATA Ext drive and it performs much faster with the ESATA cable than when using the optional USB port. Do NOT use both at the same time. In my Western Digital docs, they print that warning in bold letters: one or the other, but not both!

Secondly, if you have dual boot [like me] it is possible for Windows to confuse drive letters.

Avoid this:
1:Turn off computer, then turn off ESATA and reboot. The computer is 'looking' for that esata drive that was working when you shut down. Depending on your drive letters [with dual boot] windows can get confused and not find windows. [happened to me twice]

I have connnected\disconnected, turned on/off my ESATA drive while running with no problems.