Good External Hard Drive

  • Thread starter Thread starter Rachel
  • Start date Start date
Rachel,

Here's my vote.

Get a good WD drive, at least 320g,($55) and a Vantec (SATA, USB, or IDE)
external drive enclosure ($37).
Click to expand...


As I said, yes, you can easily buy both components and install the
drive in the enclosure yourself. But your $92 price is more than her
$75.99 one, and for a smaller drive.

Download and use Casper 5.0 to clone your
"C" drive.
Click to expand...


Although I have never personally used Casper, I've heard good things
about it, and it's probably fine to use for that purpose. But two
points:

1. since the drive will almost certainly come with cloning software,
downloading anything else is not needed.

2. Rachel wants to have an external drive not to replace her C: drive,
so she clearly doesn't want to clone the C: drive to it.
 
Ken Blake said:
2. Rachel wants to have an external drive not to replace her C: drive,
so she clearly doesn't want to clone the C: drive to it.
Click to expand...

"Anna" - the Champion (one and only) of Casper could easily come up
with 300 lines as to why she should want to.

None of which would make much sense to the vast majority of users
here, however.
 
I think what does make sense to many users is to have a reliable means of
ensuring that their valuable files AND their apps (many of which the source
is long gone) are preserved. I can't think of a better way of doing this
than having a 100% reliable means of cloning one's "C" drive and Casper 5.0
does that quickly, reliably and simply.

Perhaps that is not what Rachel is looking for but it sure works for me and
gives me a great deal of security knowing that I will always have a complete
backup of everything including the operating system.

================================================
Ken Blake said:
2. Rachel wants to have an external drive not to replace her C: drive,
so she clearly doesn't want to clone the C: drive to it.
Click to expand...

"Anna" - the Champion (one and only) of Casper could easily come up
with 300 lines as to why she should want to.

None of which would make much sense to the vast majority of users
here, however.
 
bobster said:
I think what does make sense to many users is to have a reliable means of
ensuring that their valuable files AND their apps (many of which the source
is long gone) are preserved. I can't think of a better way of doing this
than having a 100% reliable means of cloning one's "C" drive and Casper 5.0
does that quickly, reliably and simply.

Perhaps that is not what Rachel is looking for but it sure works for me and
gives me a great deal of security knowing that I will always have a complete
backup of everything including the operating system.
Click to expand...

I have Acronis True Image 2009 (have used ATI since ver. 8) and I also
have Casper 5.0. I use both daily... but for different reasons.

I use ATI to make backups of my entire "C" drive in case something
gets so screwed up that the only way to fix it is to reinstall, or
restore from backup - the latter being the best scenario. I have
several full backups going back 45 days. My most recent full backup
was made 10 days ago and I've made incremental backups every day since
then.

Why do I use Casper? I use it ONLY to clone my "C" drive to another
internal drive that I can instantly use if my "C" drive totally dies.
I like Casper's ability to update the clone faster than the time it
takes to do a full clone with ATI. If I didn't have that extra
internal drive to use for that purpose, I would have no need of
Casper.

I believe Acronis True Image is the best backup choice for 99% if
computer users.
 
Mike, As the old song goes, "different strokes for different folks"

My needs for backup are pretty simple. I have only 35 ghz of stuff on my
"C" drive which is a 320ghz WD SATA3 unit. The removable drive in the
Vantec external enclosure is identical and I update it weekly, or more often
if I have made any significant changes to "C". As I said, this fulfills my
needs nicely.

I also have a third 320ghz HD drive in the second HD bay of my computer.
When I decided to try IE8, I cloned my then existing "C" drive -- which had
a fast, reliable, smooth running IE7 browser -- to it in order to have a
"safe" backup, as I had read many horror stories of all the problems people
were having with IE8. As it turned out IE8 has worked beautifully for me so
it is my prime and I now have it cloned to my Vantec external enclosure
drive.

What I really like about Casper 5.0 is the ability to toss things around
quickly among the 3 drives without fear of losing anything. I had
previously purchased ATI 2009 from Amazon and returned it because I found it
not very user friendly - certainly not when compared with Casper, IMHO. As
always,YMMV.

As I said, different strokes.............

==========================================================

bobster said:
I think what does make sense to many users is to have a reliable means of
ensuring that their valuable files AND their apps (many of which the source
is long gone) are preserved. I can't think of a better way of doing this
than having a 100% reliable means of cloning one's "C" drive and Casper 5.0
does that quickly, reliably and simply.

Perhaps that is not what Rachel is looking for but it sure works for me and
gives me a great deal of security knowing that I will always have a
complete
backup of everything including the operating system.
Click to expand...

I have Acronis True Image 2009 (have used ATI since ver. 8) and I also
have Casper 5.0. I use both daily... but for different reasons.

I use ATI to make backups of my entire "C" drive in case something
gets so screwed up that the only way to fix it is to reinstall, or
restore from backup - the latter being the best scenario. I have
several full backups going back 45 days. My most recent full backup
was made 10 days ago and I've made incremental backups every day since
then.

Why do I use Casper? I use it ONLY to clone my "C" drive to another
internal drive that I can instantly use if my "C" drive totally dies.
I like Casper's ability to update the clone faster than the time it
takes to do a full clone with ATI. If I didn't have that extra
internal drive to use for that purpose, I would have no need of
Casper.

I believe Acronis True Image is the best backup choice for 99% if
computer users.
 
Thank you so much for that bit of information. I am looking primairaly to
back up itunes tv shows
 
Well at the moment I'm looking to back up files from my iTunes music and TV
shows but this is definitely something to think about for future
possibilities. Never hurts to be careful!

Thank you for the wide range of options
 
This is exactly why I like coming here. Everyone has such different ways and
options I'm not just stuck using one that someone is selling and *telling* me
is the best. You guys have used various products that I can hear what you
have been able to use it for and the purpose and I can get all the info I
need to make the best choice for what I need.

So thank you everyone for all the valuable responses to help find the one
most suited to my needs. Let the research begin! LOL

PS...if you think of anything else, don't hesistate to post. I'm going to be
checking out all my options before I buy anything. So if I've missed
something, it's not too late lol

Thanks again everyone
 
The date and time was Tuesday, June 30, 2009 6:50:07 AM, and on a whim,
Unknown pounded out on the keyboard:
Here is a tip for you. Find out what brand of HD is used in your computer.
Then purchase that brand. The reason is that a reputable computer
manufacturer
would only use a reliable HD in their computers. To not do so would only
cost them
money and create a bad reputation.
My computer uses a Seagate. I've had Seagate for the past 13 years and
haven't had
a single problem yet. I naturally bought a Seagate external drive.
Click to expand...

In the past, Seagate drives were always slower than many other drives,
so I didn't use them. Now that they absorbed Maxtor, I'm leery that the
problems Maxtor drives had will find its way into the Seagate drives...

I purchased a Seagate 1.5TB for backing up video, but it's only plugged
in until the backup is complete. I'm still not convinced they're as
reliable as other drives.


Terry R.
 
Of course, I'm only one individual and HD's fail. However, having contact
with my group of friends and relatives
not one of us has ever experienced a Seagate failure.
My backup drive, a Seagate, is only turned on during backup.
 
Rachel said:
I have a Dell XPS 400 Desktop running Windows XP and am looking for a
decent
external hard drive. I found this one on Dell and want to know if anyone
knows if this would work well with my system.

It's a: Iomega 500GB USB 2.0 Prestige Desktop External Hard Drive
The link is below. Before I pay I want to make sure it's worth it so any
advice would be great. Especially if anyone knows how good this item is.
Click to expand...

No one can tell you until you've tried it yourself.
The name is trustworthy to my knowledge.

Harry.
 
I use LaCie "bricks", and they've proved reliable over several
years. Another datum in your collection.
 
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