External Hard Drive

[msminniemouse]

Can anyone recommend an external hard drive for PC? I have never backed up any of my data, and am having some computer problems and was thinking I should back up data in case I have to reinstall Vista.

 

[mrsv98]

We have a Seagate external drive and it is simple to use. It scomes with the software loaded so all you have to do is plug it in the usb port and follow the prompts. You can leave it plugged in the back up on schedule or back up then remove and store it. We have three computers, so I back them all up on one and then put it a fire-proof box. Ours is 250gb but I know there are 1tb drives now.

 

[nd5056]

My only advice is do not get Seagate lager then 500GB. The Seagate brand had some major problems with 1TB drives. Other brands like WD is fine.

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[msminniemouse]

Are there any particular model#'s for the Seagate or WD that you have or recommend?

 

[OK!]

My only advice is do not get Seagate lager then 500GB. The Seagate brand had some major problems with 1TB drives. Other brands like WD is fine.

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This. I had a 1.5 TB Seagate drive that suddenly died one night while I was asleep. I lost probably 90 GB of irreplaceable photos, not to mention my entire iTunes Library and all of the movies I'd ripped for my iPhone. Google "Seagate 1.5 TB hard drive failure" and sit back for an entertaining read of hundreds or thousands of stories like mine. Seagate's stance is that they'll replace the drive if it's under warranty; my response to them was, "Precisely what would give you the impression I would ever entrust ANY of my data to any POS you manufacture?" I don't want a new stupid drive; I want my photos back.

Oh, and letters to Seagate claim that there is no problem, simply because the percentage of failures is "too small," according to them. I guess I'm the idiot for thinking that any percentage of failure is too big.

Drives I HAVE had luck with are Western Digital and Simpletech, though I did also have a Simpletech drive fail. Thankfully, I'd already backed up most of it onto the %%#$$#@$ Seagate drive, so I at least had my stuff for an extra few months.

 

[bicker]

I've had bad experience with external hard drives. The drives themselves aren't the issue, but rather the enclosures themselves seem to fail pretty quickly after the warranty period runs out. (I then end up installing the drives as second hard drives inside the computer... I've had to do that twice now.)

 

[FireDancer]

I have had good experiences with Fantom Drives if you are looking for a pre-built solution. If you are looking to purchase a drive and enclosure separately I try to purchase WD drives and Coolmax enclosures.

When it comes to drives they are pretty much the same. As we get larger and larger we add more and more sectors that have a chance at failure and we move closer to the edge technologically speaking. There is a program called SpinRite that is very good at getting "dead" drives to work again. I use it often as as an I.T. professional it has saved a lot of data for me. As long as the drive isn't literally dead as in not spinning or the heads completely lose the ability to track it is pretty good at getting drives to work. You will have to attach the drive directly to a motherboard as it won't work through USB but that is why I have a spare box around with the ability to interact with SATA and EIDE drives.

The problem with external drives comes from heat generation. The drive in your PC has a lot of ventilation around it and in a good case it has a fan to help. In most laptops the ventilation isn't great but the drive also usually spins at 5400rpm instead of 7200rpm (or you get a SSD and don't worry about it). If the size of the external enclosure isn't an issue I would look at something either slightly larger with ventilation holes or, even better, something with a fan.

 

[CruiserMom]

Just wanted to offer you another option...We use an online backup service called Carbonite. It backs up whatever files you want backed up and stores them online. It works well for our office computers, you pay so much per year and you can schedule your computer to back up once, once a week, or as often as you want.

 

[FireDancer]

Just wanted to offer you another option...We use an online backup service called Carbonite. It backs up whatever files you want backed up and stores them online. It works well for our office computers, you pay so much per year and you can schedule your computer to back up once, once a week, or as often as you want.

I look at off-site backup as in addition to and not a replacement for a local backup. They serve different purposes and I would either use a local external drive in conjunction with an online service like Carbonite or Amazon S3 or have two external drives. One that stays locally and one that goes off site. The former is better as you can set an auto replication every night and you don't have to worry about how frequently you have to go get, backup, and return the second external drive. The later is better from a one time fixed cost perspective.

 

[Shutterbug]

I've had bad experience with external hard drives. The drives themselves aren't the issue, but rather the enclosures themselves seem to fail pretty quickly after the warranty period runs out.

This is usually the problem with most external drives.
I went this route for my external drive for my Mac Time Machine:
From Newegg, I bought one hard drive enclosure and then one WD 500mb internal hard drive.
This will let me swap out relatively easily other internal hard drives in the enclosure. Internal hard drives are less expensive than whole external hard drives.

As far is backing up data is concerned, ALWAYS have your data in at LEAST 2 places. I have most of my photos in 2 places. The real important stuff is also burned onto DVD data discs.

 

[sbell111]

I use two WD 1TB drives. Everything is backed up on both drives. If one dies, I'm still good. If the house burns down, the drives are on my list of things to grab. Off-site storage would be better, but this beats having to carry a bulky PC.

 

[FireDancer]

I use two WD 1TB drives. Everything is backed up on both drives. If one dies, I'm still good. If the house burns down, the drives are on my list of things to grab. Off-site storage would be better, but this beats having to carry a bulky PC.

Another option could be to take one of the two drives and keep it at work or a friend/family member's house. That way you have one drive there and one somewhere else in case of fire.

 

[sbell111]

Another option could be to take one of the two drives and keep it at work or a friend/family member's house. That way you have one drive there and one somewhere else in case of fire.

Unfortunately, I have the lazy gene.