USB External Drive worth the money ?

Night Hawk · 30 Jan 2010

I have to agree with clint even more on that about having things backed up in more then one place such as removable media as well as any external HDs. What if? the external drive fails?!

You see solely counting on just one form of backup still isn't being "Fully Prepared" for any total catastrophe! If the backup is somehow toast when going to use it after an internal drive fails? ut ohhhhh.....!!!

With anything too important to lose multiple forms of backups is actually taking the needed steps. Backups on external drives obviously helps! Data dvds hold more then cd-r dsks too as another option. Flash drives are pocket sized for carrying those few personal items around with you. You backup the backup!

noobvious · 30 Jan 2010

I actually just burned my photos to DVD last week, as a just-in-case precaution. It would take quite a few of them to burn my music though.

Night Hawk · 31 Jan 2010

Once you elect to burn data disks be sure to check the integrity of the burns afterwards. Even with repeat burns of the same files to disk I've seen some that couldn't be read when going to copy them back on the drive at a later date.

That's where you have to backup the backup made of the backup!

As for downloads typically freewares, trial versions, betas, updates I worry less about those since that's only a matter of relocating them again as well as the download time. That's where a good sized external drive would suppliment the two internal drives used where some of those files being stored are actually for other older builds and their hardwares. The portable drive holds all the files you can transfer to or backup from another system entirely.

thefabe · 04 Feb 2010

I'm not sure it is a must but I like to have my 3.5 external for backups. Then i also use a 2.5 to keep essential programs on and take with me to do virus removals and testing on other peoples computers. That is when I used to do that kinda thing. Plus to transfer music, pictures,videos or programs to their systems. Fabe

jimbo45 · 04 Feb 2010

Hi there
if you have a Blu Ray burner in your computer you can burn to BD-RE discs (re-writable) as these have a capacity of 25 - 50 GB each.

However I think even this solution is getting a bit dated since the costs of the empty media are almost per GB the same as an external USB disk drive.

I like to make more than one copy and different media too -- however with the speed and capacity of USB devices available consider having 2 or more USB disks -- those small "passport" self powered types are reasonably cheap and available with capacities of up to 500GB. 2 of these should give you enough backup to last a while and are VERY portable too.

Cheers
jimbo

Night Hawk · 04 Feb 2010

When going to upgrade one old XP case for someone to see the 7 Home Premium to go on I'll first download all drivers needed and place them on a 32gb flash drive. Once plugged into the old machine I'll proceed to backup the bare essentials like IE favorites and nuke the entire ide drive before replacing it with a new and larger sata model.

Later once a new build is seen for the same person then a larger external drive will likely be needed to back things up since 7 Pro will going onto that for the OS instead being that a new build will support the XP Mode and other things. I download here with a much faster connection over dial-up that person is on for checking the mail and web surfing only.