Iain Denby Posted August 27, 2005 Share Posted August 27, 2005 I'm sick of dealing with CDs and DVDs for my backups. It's time to purchase an external USB Hard Drive. Can anyone recommend and good reliable one, probably 160gb? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lievenstandaert Posted August 27, 2005 Share Posted August 27, 2005 just make sure you get something that is designed as a mobile HD. The low-cost external cases with a normal HD are no good, they need an extra transfo besides the USB-connection - which makes them a lot less mobile) The good mobile HD get their power through the USB-cable. (they're designed to use less power) That way you only need to carry your drive, everyone has a usb-cable... -L Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scarp8 Posted August 27, 2005 Share Posted August 27, 2005 Actually, I just hooked up a Maxtor OneTouch II this morning for backups. You can specify when to do the backups (daily and time) and what directories (or the entire computer if you want). I'm currently only going to backup my project directories. Everything else can be replaced or restored. I talked to a bunch of friends before I bought it and every one of them had good things to say. -Dave http://www.got3d.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Mottle Posted August 27, 2005 Share Posted August 27, 2005 I'd been buying the generic external drive USB cases. The kind that can hold anything that would normally fit into a drive bay and I've had nothing but problems. I've owned 3 of them now and every one has either died or killed the drive. These ones are the kind that have a seperate power supply and fan built into the case. I do need to get something else, so any other sugestions would be great to know about. Will check into that Maxtor drive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iain Denby Posted August 27, 2005 Author Share Posted August 27, 2005 Thanks guys. Oh well, for good or bad, Ive just ordered this one. http://www.usbtech.co.uk/catalog/product_info.php/products_id/196 Please don't tell me I've just bought a lemon! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4DM Posted August 27, 2005 Share Posted August 27, 2005 Hey, Iain, I'm sure it'll work fine, but why d'you buy such an ugly bloody thing? Take a look at these for example : http://www.lacie.com/products/range.htm?id=10033 They also do some slick mobile ones designed by Porsche. Form over function any day, that's me Cheers, D. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iain Denby Posted August 27, 2005 Author Share Posted August 27, 2005 Hey, Iain, I'm sure it'll work fine, but why d'you buy such an ugly bloody thing? Take a look at these for example : http://www.lacie.com/products/range.htm?id=10033 They also do some slick mobile ones designed by Porsche. Form over function any day, that's me Cheers, D. Yeah, since I've ordered it and continued to look around, you're right...bloody ugly. Oh well, as long as it works. Do you use one? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mbr Posted August 27, 2005 Share Posted August 27, 2005 I'll second the Maxtor. I've got a 300gig one and an older 200gig one - no problems. The new ones actually look pretty good! Unlike Lacie, they come as both USB 2 and Firewire (my old workstation has a Firewire card, but no USB2, so it works out really well). Fast and reliable. If you keep an eye on http://www.techbargains.com you can get some screamin' deals! I saved about 30-40% by getting one with a coupon from Buy.com. Can't recall, but somewhere in the $200-250 - not bad for 300 gigs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luckytohaveher Posted August 28, 2005 Share Posted August 28, 2005 I would recommed a removable drive bay and regular hard drive. The USB seriously hinders bandwidth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4DM Posted August 28, 2005 Share Posted August 28, 2005 Iain, needless to say, I use a....LaCie Desktop Firewire Drive !! I would say one thing though, in all seriousness. All hard drives will die. One day. Even the cute ones. So don't make that your only back up, or archive. Apart from keeping stuff on the main computer HD, personally I back up incremental WIPs on the Firewire (and then dump most of them when the job's done) and also save completed project folders onto DVD once I have a disc's worth. Which reminds me, I havent done that for quite a few weeks. I'll be off for a burn then... Cheers, D. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iain Denby Posted August 28, 2005 Author Share Posted August 28, 2005 Iain, needless to say, I use a....LaCie Desktop Firewire Drive !! So don't make that your only back up, or archive. Sure, but when that happens, you still have the original files on your computer HD. You just buy another and copy across again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbarc Posted August 29, 2005 Share Posted August 29, 2005 Sure, but when that happens, you still have the original files on your computer HD. You just buy another and copy across again. Would this be the backup for projects only or for your entire system? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iain Denby Posted August 29, 2005 Author Share Posted August 29, 2005 Would this be the backup for projects only or for your entire system? No, just projects, libraries, data etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted August 30, 2005 Share Posted August 30, 2005 I used to have a generic brand external, onto which I copy my data folders daily (or several times a day when really cranking). I filled it up, so it's on the shelf now. I bought the Lacia Porsche external, connected by FireWire. It is doing just fine, when I fill it up I will put it on a shelf with the other and buy another one. They are cheap. Of course I sometimes burn CDs or DVDs of projects I believe to be truly completed (often wrong), but for day-to-day backing up, I rely upon that external drive. I use ones that need a transformer, not powered via the USB cable. I don't need the portability and the power is plugged into a UPS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iain Denby Posted August 30, 2005 Author Share Posted August 30, 2005 I used to have a generic brand external, onto which I copy my data folders daily (or several times a day when really cranking). I filled it up, so it's on the shelf now. I bought the Lacia Porsche external, connected by FireWire. It is doing just fine, when I fill it up I will put it on a shelf with the other and buy another one. They are cheap. Of course I sometimes burn CDs or DVDs of projects I believe to be truly completed (often wrong), but for day-to-day backing up, I rely upon that external drive. I use ones that need a transformer, not powered via the USB cable. I don't need the portability and the power is plugged into a UPS. That's exactly how I intend to use mine. But do we still need to bother with CDs/DVDs? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted August 30, 2005 Share Posted August 30, 2005 But do we still need to bother with CDs/DVDs? Absolutely, yes! I don't make 'em as often as I should, but I still make them. Every storage medium is falable, so having multiple forms of backup is vital. To be honest, one of them should be off-site. I haven't done that yet, so I'm tempting fate. If my house burns down, as some do, I'ld have nothing left except what's on my website. In times past I had always figured that if I had to run and could only save one thing (besides my family, of course) I would grab my portfolio, since that is how I would get new work in the future. Now its a hard-drive or pile of DVDs. But its not just about the past work, its about your continuing ability to get new work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noise Posted August 30, 2005 Share Posted August 30, 2005 About a year ago, the only backup I had was an external maxtor. Ironically, I decided to get another - just incase, good job - shortly after the Maxtor died without warning. Had that gone, I would have lost 75 % of all my work, completely ! Now, I have 3 external hard drives and archived DVDs. The hard drives get backed up once a day, week and month using a program that works away in the background. n Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iain Denby Posted August 30, 2005 Author Share Posted August 30, 2005 Had that gone, I would have lost 75 % of all my work, completely ! n Surely only the copies on your external HD. The originals would still be on your PC. Or have I missed something? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Knourek Posted August 30, 2005 Share Posted August 30, 2005 As a general rule I dont like the external drives as I have found them to be quite inefficient in being able to cool the drives properly which drastically decreases the drives life. Ive had so many of thoes crap out on me over the years I finally had it with them and ended up building a cheap older AMD PC, put a gigabit NIC in it and started adding drives as I needed and it has been working flawlessly for over a year now with 5 mirror raids in it P.S. Promise EIDE and SATA, PCI Raid cards are quite reliable and cheep. Ive been using them for a few years without 1 return. -dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bcampbell Posted September 5, 2005 Share Posted September 5, 2005 I use 2 Western Digital USB2 drives on a daily rotation. And just to prove that it works I recently recovered a W23k server in 2.5 hours after the internal drives failed. I believe that w2k will use a USB1 driver in directory services restore mode so firewire probably has an advantage over USB 2.0. BTW - I do not touch Maxtor drives - I have had so many failures this year all Maxtors IDE and SATA. I have found that old DVD backups give CRC errors after a few years of storage. If you do the maths - say DDS4 including tape replacement cycles of 6 months - and of course a tape loader for spanned sets as most of us need lots of GB's backed up - external backup drives with a 1 - 2 year replacement cycle make so much more sense for me! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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