External HDD

[Ed H]

I'm thinking of adding an external HDD as a redundant back-up system. I'm
not up to the likes/dislikes of these and would like some opinions. I'd
expect that they are slower than an internal HDD but are they okay? Can I
format them to NTFS? Are they basically reliable?

Thanks.

 

[Max Burke]

Ed H scribbled:

I'm thinking of adding an external HDD as a redundant back-up system.
I'm not up to the likes/dislikes of these and would like some
opinions. I'd expect that they are slower than an internal HDD but
are they okay? Can I format them to NTFS? Are they basically reliable?

Just set one up myself three days ago. I'm using a Seagate Barracuda 7200rm
120Gb drive with 8Mb drive cache, (equals the total storage of my 2 internal
drives) in a generic ICT external IDE to USB2 drive case.

I had to add a USB 2 PCI card (only have USB 1.1 on the MB) to get high
speed performance, but it's running great except for one problem.

If I dont use the 'safely remove hardware' option when shutting down or
rebooting the computer the system events log records error messages that
XP/NTFS could not complete the write caching process to the NTFS index files
for the drive, which can corupt NTFS on the drive.
I'm currently looking for ways to automate the 'safely remove hardware'
requirement when I shut down or reboot the computer.

As to the performance of the drive with my daily and full backups of the
internal drives it's only slightly slower than doing a backup from one
internal drive to the other (which is what I was doing previously)
Setting it up, partitioning, and formatting the drive took less than an hour
to do, and it's passed all the testing so far, like defragging, running the
XP disk maintenance tools, etc....

 

[M]

I have had problem with external USB 2 drives not always being detected with
Windows when my PC boots. I know use an external Firewire drive which is
much more reliable. I would recommend that you spend a bit more and get one
with both USB 2 and Firewire. The read and write speeds may well be slower
than an internal drive but its fast enough for everything I use it for
including movie playback so I don't think that speed is a big issue.

 

[Edward W. Thompson]

The short answerto all your questions is yes. The comment concerning
recognition or lack of recognition of USB drives at boot up is, I
believe, related to a particular machine, I have been using an
external usb drive now for well over a year (WINXP Pro) and have not
experienced a single problem.

A Combo drive might have advantages depending upon your planned usage
(mine is a combo drive) but you pay a premium (about 25%) and unless
you require both firewire and usb it probably is simply not worth it.

As far as transfer speed is concerned there is virtually nothing to
choose between USB2 and firewire, certainly not for all practical
purposes.

 

[Icarus]

If your machine supports USB 2 i strongly reccomend getting an external
drive/ disk caddy with USB2 rather than firewire. I have a firewire drive
myself and have had problems with the drive crashing. I have done a lot of
reasearch about it to try and solve the problem. Some sources blame windows
xp and other blame faulty firmware used in firewire chips.

 

[M]

Any suggestions how to troubleshoot USB drives not being always detected
when Windows boots? I have two external containers that I can't reliably
use of this problem. The USB 2 ports on my PC work reliably with everything
else including my ADSL modem. I have tried using different USB ports,
different cables and the problem continued even after Windows was
reinstalled. All ideas appreciated!

 

[Dr. Indera]

i also had a problem with an external usb drive not being detected on a
regular basis. i called the vendor and because the year warranty wasn't up,
they sent me a new one, which works just fine.

--
Indera
* * * * * * * * * *
Don't just live life.
Live life well.


: I have had problem with external USB 2 drives not always being detected
with
: Windows when my PC boots. I know use an external Firewire drive which is
: much more reliable. I would recommend that you spend a bit more and get
one
: with both USB 2 and Firewire. The read and write speeds may well be
slower
: than an internal drive but its fast enough for everything I use it for
: including movie playback so I don't think that speed is a big issue.
: : > I'm thinking of adding an external HDD as a redundant back-up system.
I'm
: > not up to the likes/dislikes of these and would like some opinions. I'd
: > expect that they are slower than an internal HDD but are they okay? Can
I
: > format them to NTFS? Are they basically reliable?
: >
: > Thanks.
: > --
: > Ed H
: > Dell Dimension 4550, WinXP Professional SP1
: > 60 Gig. HD, 512 DDR, Pentium IV 2.40 GHz.
: >
: >
: >
:
: