external hard drive- what to buy?
 

My wife and I both have our own laptops that we use around the house via wireless router. As we are starting to get more pics of family I was thinking about purchasing a external hard drive to store the pics on. As I have looked at Best Buy, Circuit City and OfficeMax ads for various brands and types I'm confused on what to get? It looks like there are basically two different types, the larger units and then the smaller portable ones? And of course they range in size from 80 gig to 750 gig! So I'm thinking a 160-250 gig will do the job for us. So is there a preference on what type to get? I assume we would use USB for connection. Any preference on brands? Are these plug and play ? We both have Windows XP. Anything else I need to know?

you either get a usb hard drive, which is basically a box with a usb cable, you'de have to attach the box each time to the pc where you wanna copy stuff

or you get a nas box "network attached storage", basically a box with a network connection, and you plug it in the network, and each pc connects individually to the box, with either some software, or through built in protocols for networking


the latter is more expensive, the former is easier to set-up, should be plug and play

if you move external boxes around a lot, you do get more risk of damaging it
disks don't like movement, and they also prefer being powered up all the time vs start/stop



whatever you do , don't get Netgear's SC101 NAS solution, it's a pain in the ass, the software just looses the disk occasionally, not a problem if you are familiar with tinkering into the OS, but a pain in the ass no less

Larger ones. 3'5 in. 7200 RPM, USB is fine, I prefer to have FIreWire as an option but that's just me.

Seagate are good, quiet. Western Digital is hit or miss. Have seen issues with their "My Book" line. Maxtor has been good to me.

The smaller ones are laptop drives in a case. Unless you intend/need to bring the drive with you then ignore those, not as much bang for the buck.

I would not buy less than a 250 mb, typically I buy the largest available, 500 mb.

Since you are backing up laptops might want to consider a networked drive, NAS.

Something like this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822165076

Lets multiple users access simultaneously, no need to move it around, just stick it next to your router so it can be kept out of site.

I had a used 160gb hard-drive laying around and purchased a USB adapter cable w/power supply. Turns any regular ole' hard-drive into an external device. About $28 @ CDW.

That issue with the WD is probably just Mac quirkiness. My $100, 500gb WD works like a champ, but that is on a pc of course. At home, there is no need to spend extra for a nas. If you need net access to it, put it on the least used pc & set it to sharable.

I've been using one of these for a while, works great. Anything recent will be plug and play and simple to use.

http://www.buy.com/prod/cavalry-500gb-3-5-7200rpm-usb-2-0-external-hard-drive-with-one-touch/q/loc/101/205714260.html

If you have a Mac, multiply the price X your social security number.

The three WD My Book issues that I personally experienced were independent of the host OS. The hardware itself was faulty, specifically the controllers, bare drives I've never had any real issues with.

And just for clarification, the My Books were purchased for and hooked up to PC's in the office. FYI, When I need to recover a PC disc the first thing I do is hook it up to a Mac. One of the pleasant quirks is that in addition to their native formats they also read and write windows formatted discs.

Read the original post.

He has two laptops. No mention of an additional machine. Based on his question I infer his level of technical expertise is limited to plug and play. Don't think setting up windows sharing is within his skill set. Could be wrong, but that's how I read it.

FWIW the cheapest enclosed 500 drive at NewEgg is $110. For me the convenience and flexibility of a NAS like the Buffalo is worth the extra $60.

Advantages for network storage either stand alone or via a dedicated server are,
Always available
Shareable
Can be used for unattended auto back ups of both machines
Accessible from just about anywhere, office, vacation, etc.. via the web

Advantages of a NAS v dedicated server
Smaller footprint, stick it right next to your router
Energy conservation,
Generally Plug and Play, less admin required to set up/keep secure.
Less points of failure

Current external hard drive prices will fall fast with the introduction of USB 3 in mid 2008+-.
Fry's Electronics here has a 1TB/32MB buffer for $274 (current ad). I picked up a 320MB Seagate with USB2/firewall (cable included)/e-SATA for $99 and one with only USB2 for $70 over the holidays.
My advice-BIGGER the better! If you upgrade your camera to a higher megapixel or shoot more in RAW format OR new computer system and archive old slides and 35mm negatives ($99 5mp converter at Heartland America now),more than photos or start doing videos, you will need more space.

John _AZ

I have a laptop with Win XP. I bought a Lacie 500 GB external from Best Buy for $160. Works great and its a Porsche Design!

I build my own from prebuilt enclosures. Saves about 20 bucks. Takes about 5 minutes. I find the enclosures are smaller as well.

How about posting the following add'l info:
- age, brand, model and OpSys of each laptop
- any other computer involved now or in future?
- what ports are on each laptop - both have USB 2.0 right? anything else?
- what sort of files are you going to store? data? music? video?
- will the 2 laptops be suing this drive at the same location or time? never? you're sure it will be never?
- skill set or comfort level working with computers? with networks?

That will let people give you some good, targeted advice.

Just walked by the IT guy. He is staring at a 500 gb My Book.

Asked "what's up", he said, new drive but does not recognize.

Slapped it on my Mac, drive is unformatted. Formatted for him. Copied files back/forth.

Brought back to him, plugged into his XP box, Blue Screen. Me thinks a another bad controller.

Can an external usb hard rdive be made to work as a network hard drive?

I have 250g Buffalo HD and like the idea of having it be on my network, rather than having to connect to my laptop when I need to back up.

yes it can. Hook it up to a used PC (windows or Linux) and share it. Instant network drive


There are some boxes out there that will allow you to hook anything usb (like a camera, hard drive, thumb drive, etc) to and and turn it into a network device. They usually run around $100 +.

My copilot just bought a 250 gig USB drive and promptly moved all the good data to the external drive. Needed more room for downloading music you know! I asked him about backing up the data on the USB drive and he was not worried.

You can see where I am going with this.... 10 days after he purchased the drive it started making difficult noises and now the heads keep bouncing against the stops, and will not transfer any data. He's lost it all and now really perturbed at himself for not backing it up in TWO places.

Guys, CD's and DVD's are very cheap now. Burn a backup of everything (or put it on two separate hard drives) and save things from time to time.

Joe

I was waiting for someone to come up with a story like that.

I see it all the time....Can you fix my usb hard drive??? Did you back it up? Well, no, it was my backup. Ah, well your sol then aren't you?

Use DVD's, they dont hold as much but they dont go bad like a hard drive does.

I cheat. I use my old computer along with a USB or two to back things up, with DVD's on the side. When i get a new desktop its linked into the network in the office and used as backup storage for the new system. Once a week everything is copied to the old unit. That way you always have a fresh backup copy on the main desktop, the old one and same thing on a USB or two.

You are never going to lose 4-6 hard drives/systems at once, so your data is secure.

Just dont put your list of valuable items on your computer for insurance, not print it out and put it into a safe deposit bank and then have a fire. had that happen to a client once. Took everything in me to no laugh at his face. Poor guy lost everything, but was only worried about getting a list off of his computer.

Put things like this on a DVD/CD or a USB thumb drive and put it in a safe deposit box.

DVDs for backup? Surely you jest...I'm in the terrabyte land for data. A typical *small* video project will run around 100GB.

hard drives are cheap. I use two for backup, they mirror each other. Video projects get their own small (120-160gb) HD and stay on the shelf along with source tapes. You can also go RAID for a more robust setup. I like G-Tech stuff, but have a TON of Lacie drives. No difference in the price mac v. pc.