need external hard drive advice........

[Jay]

I'm in the market for an external hard drive. I have a 250 GB book drive on another system and the two computers are are networked. I'd like to add a 500GB, or 1TB external drive to my computer, via USB V2. I'm not nearly concerned about blazing speed as I am dependability, and at least a 1 yr warranty. This drive will be primarily used for daily back-up, and should come with decent back-up software. The software should be able to handle full, and differential back-ups, and must overwrite every third back-up.

Suggestions would be appreciated........ hands on recommendations preferred.

Thanks, Jay

 

[Scutter01]

I picked up a Buffalo 500GB USB drive a few months ago for about $75. It's a decent drive and comes with Memeo Autobackup. It's more like mirroring software, but it can save multiple copies, so it's sort of a hybrid between backups and mirroring. The software can be purchased on its own from Memeo.

 

[mdmccull]

I use "Bounce Back Express" it came with an older seagate drive I have. It will scan and overwrite modified files and copies new files to the backup drive. It also gives me pretty good control of the backup schedule however I use it manually.

 

[IndianasFinest]

This is not my area of expertise however I would like to add my opinion. Last year I bought a Western Digital 250gb external to store music,pictures,movies etc. I went to use it the other day, and it is dead. Light comes on, disc is spinning, but none of my computers even recgonize it being hooked to the usb. Really pissed me off since there was so much stuff on it. I won't call WD junk, but WTF it wasn't even a year old ! Anyway just my 2 cents !

 

[fireball168]

My Maxtor "OneTouch 4 Plus" 500g I purchased in August has already **** the bed.

The Maxtor support website is full of similar problems on these drives. I can't get anybody from Maxtor to respond to my inquiries to try to get it taken care of.

Purchased from Circuit City, but can't find my receipt - so it would appear I'm pretty well SOL.

 

[quiggly]

Usually when a drive dies, where it still spins, it is not the drive itself but the interface on the drive.

A lot of times you can swap the drive itself onto another interface and it will work.

 

[IndianasFinest]

I don't mean to hi-jack, but quigglly wtf does that mean in laymans terms ?

 

[Scutter01]

I don't mean to hi-jack, but quigglly wtf does that mean in laymans terms ?

On an external hard drive, the unit is made up of a regular hard drive (like you would install in your computer) in a plastic enclosure that contains a circuit board and interface. Sometimes, it's the enclosure that fails and not the hard drive inside it. In that case, you can take the hard drive out and put it into a new enclosure (which you can buy at Fry's, for example, for around $40).

The hard drive itself is made up of spinning platters and a circuit board. If the hard drive fails, it's sometimes possible to remove the platters and insert them into another hard drive case. This can only be done by professionals using a cleanroom.

 

[quiggly]

Sorry about that. Was in a hurry.
Scutter has it. If you take the casing apart you can get the hard drive itself and salvage it.

 

[quiggly]

Here is a post that may have more explanation for you.

Laptop Data Recovery - Recovering Laptop Hard Drive Files With A USB Shell

 

[peal1]

Same thing happened to my WD drive but of course out of warranty. I had all of my music on there - over 10k songs - and lost it all. I don't know what to do as it would be a fortune to replace everything and now have a hard time trusting a hard drive. Obviously I should have had it all backed up, but expected it to be more reliable until I could get it done.

This is not my area of expertise however I would like to add my opinion. Last year I bought a Western Digital 250gb external to store music,pictures,movies etc. I went to use it the other day, and it is dead. Light comes on, disc is spinning, but none of my computers even recgonize it being hooked to the usb. Really pissed me off since there was so much stuff on it. I won't call WD junk, but WTF it wasn't even a year old ! Anyway just my 2 cents !

 

[Scutter01]

Backups!

Backups backups backups!

I'm sorry, but if you lose your only copy of important data, I don't have a lot of sympathy for you.

 

[Jay]

I'll figure something out........ thanks