Travel Technology - Idiot-Proof Desktop HD for backups

I need to get a USB HD (500G or 1T) to backup Mr. Tb's old Dell Dimension 4300S (WinXP Home SP2) and my Lenovo T61 (WinXP Pro).

PC has only USB 1 ports, so it won't be fast, but he doesn't have much to back up.

I've been looking at the Iomega Prestige 2.0 drive as it comes preformatted for NTFS and I have an eGo drive that I find very easy to use, but I've read mixed (user) reviews of this drive.

I don't want to have to install any HD software. If I decide to use backup software I'd rather choose my own.

Has anyone used the Iomega drive? Any other suggestions? Reliability and ease of use are more important to me than price.

First, you will find USB 1.0 or 1.1 extremely limiting for data back-up. Are you sure there isn't a 1394/Firewire port on the computer?

Second, USB drives are completely idiot-proof. You plug them in and the operating system does the job of connecting them. There are no drivers or special software required for any of them. Just plug them in, wait a few seconds and they'll show up under My Computer.

I've been looking at the Iomega Prestige 2.0 drive as it comes preformatted for NTFS and I have an eGo drive that I find very easy to use, but I've read mixed (user) reviews of this drive.

I don't want to have to install any HD software. If I decide to use backup software I'd rather choose my own.Iomega drives are always overpriced. I'd suggest looking at the Western Digital external drives instead.

As PTravel mentioned, it'll "just work" since you're using XP on both machines.

To increase the transfer speed, look for a USB 2.0 PCI add-in card. I would suggest getting one that has the NEC chipset and staying away from one with a Via chipset.

If you live near a Fry's, they have cards free after rebate all the time. The most you'd probably have to pay is $15.

If you're not near a Fry's, look here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=40000073&Description=USB%202%2E0%20card&bop=And&Order=PRICE

The MASSCOOL card near the top of that search is < $10 including shipping.

Make sure it's a USB 2.0 controller, and not a hub like this card (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815124049).

You might not think speed is important, but if the backup takes a long time to run, you probably won't want to do it as often.

I need to get a USB HD (500G or 1T) to backup Mr. Tb's old Dell Dimension 4300S (WinXP Home SP2) and my Lenovo T61 (WinXP Pro).

PC has only USB 1 ports, so it won't be fast, but he doesn't have much to back up.

I've been looking at the Iomega Prestige 2.0 drive as it comes preformatted for NTFS and I have an eGo drive that I find very easy to use, but I've read mixed (user) reviews of this drive.

I don't want to have to install any HD software. If I decide to use backup software I'd rather choose my own.

Has anyone used the Iomega drive? Any other suggestions? Reliability and ease of use are more important to me than price.

I've been testing this cable here:

http://www.clickfree.com/products_transformer.php

It goes between any USB drive and your PC, and offers install-free backups. Works surprisingly well actually.

First, you will find USB 1.0 or 1.1 extremely limiting for data back-up. Are you sure there isn't a 1394/Firewire port on the computer?

Mr. Tb bought the PC in 2002. It's pretty primitive (won't even tell you how little HD mem and RAM he has). On the other hand, he doesn't keep many important files, and probably won't back up very often anyway. I'm just trying to wean him off of floppies


Second, USB drives are completely idiot-proof. You plug them in and the operating system does the job of connecting them. There are no drivers or special software required for any of them. Just plug them in, wait a few seconds and they'll show up under My Computer.


Good. I've been backing up my laptop to a portable HD and also some files to a flash drive (unfortunately, bought the latter before I realized that I'd want to synch all my photo and music files between my two laptops), and it has been simple.

The T61 has always been unstable, and since I think I will probably have to do a reinstall some day, I also want to back-up to a non-travelling HD. Some of the HD manufacturers do mention software in their specs, and I just want to make sure that I don't need to use it.

I've been testing this cable here:

http://www.clickfree.com/products_transformer.php

It goes between any USB drive and your PC, and offers install-free backups. Works surprisingly well actually.

Thanks, Scott, I'll take a look at it.

Keep in mind that while external disk backup is certainly better than nothing, it doesn't protect your data against theft, fire or natural disaster - Just hardware failures.

You should consider supplementing it with something like this:

http://www.carbonite.com/

I'm afraid I'm too paranoid to put anything sensitive online.

I'm more a CD in the safe-deposit box type.

I'm afraid I'm too paranoid to put anything sensitive online.

I'm more a CD in the safe-deposit box type.

Then don't put anything 'sensitive' online - Put your pictures, videos and mp3 collection :)

The problem with this arguement is lots of people claim it, and then never put that DVD in their safe deposit box and cry when they lose everything...

Please consider the difference between "Portable" drives, and "External" drives.

Portable drives are powered only from the USB ports (though some also can use an external power supply, specifically SimpleTech). They use a split USB cable that provides data and power, and a second split-off USB cable that can be used with a second USB port if the drive doesn't power up correctly. I.e., the second cable is power only.

These portable drives use slow 2.5" disks, and my experience (with dozens) is that they are amazingly fragile, and they may be subject to heat issues.

External drives use a separate power brick, are likely to be faster, and are probably better engineered for heat and power issues.

Bottom line here: Don't use a "portable" drive unless it's absolutely essential, and in that case, consider them only for porting, not archiving, purposes. Any data you really want to preserve should be saved some other way.

Please consider the difference between "Portable" drives, and "External" drives.

Portable drives are powered only from the USB ports (though some also can use an external power supply, specifically SimpleTech). They use a split USB cable that provides data and power, and a second split-off USB cable that can be used with a second USB port if the drive doesn't power up correctly. I.e., the second cable is power only.

These portable drives use slow 2.5" disks, and my experience (with dozens) is that they are amazingly fragile, and they may be subject to heat issues.

External drives use a separate power brick, are likely to be faster, and are probably better engineered for heat and power issues.

Bottom line here: Don't use a "portable" drive unless it's absolutely essential, and in that case, consider them only for porting, not archiving, purposes. Any data you really want to preserve should be saved some other way.

I appreciate your comments and advice. At present, I have only portable drives (1 8G flash drive and 1 250G portable) that I bought for synching my US laptop with the computer I leave in Europe (don't want to travel with a laptop any more).

I now plan to get at least one true external drive for backing up the two computers (1 PC and 1 laptop) that live in the US. The US laptop has enough memory to backup the (much older) PC; unfortunately the reverse is not true.

I would not get any of the pre-packaged solutions that are available today. I just think they cost too much ad offer too little (IMHO). I would get a very good enclosure that has SATA II, Firewire 1 and 2 (also called 400 and 800) as well as USB. I would then purchase some size SATA hard drive to put in the enclosure, such as a Seagate 1 or 1.5TB drive (I use both). The best enclosures on the market go for $70 to $90, but others can be had for as little as $20. I prefer the high end since it gives me what I am looking for, besides I also like the metal case. The hard drives when on sale could be as little as $99 for 1TB or $129 for 1.5 (I actually purchased my last 1.5TB drive from newwegg for $119). It takes about 5 minutes to assemble this solution as it is just a matter of connecting the HD to the Sata cables in the encolsure putting 2 screws in and plugging the enclosure into power. Then select the cable you are going to use.
Now depending on what you are trying to do this is where things get interesting. If you are only trying to save user created data, and not programs and such things it is easy. I prefer to mafe a folder called DATA and always store everything I create there. I even force Outlook PST file to this folder as well as making it my default location for programs such as word excell and Powerpoint. By doing this I then only need to copy this one folder to the external drive. You could then even create a Mrs and Mr Data folder and be done with it.
Now for the really paranoid you get a utility program with Seagate or Maxtor drives that allows you to clone the original drive. This is handy since it copies the entire HD including MBR (Master Boot Record) to the new drive. This will allow you to copy everythin and it is pretty fast, I have copied a 300GB drive about 60% full in less than 1 hour. It is also handy if you are trying to upgrade a HD in say a notebook computer.
I do not have the adversion to 2.5 inch drives someone stated since these are standard notebook drives. I have done everything listed above with 2.5 inch drives also. But it all comes down to using a good enclosure and a good drive.
Like you I do not send anything over the net. Besides the security aspects (which I would overcome with encryption), the time required and size required for me would be too much. I do have a safe where I have a master hard drive stored, and all my hard drives have at least raid-5 protection and in some cases raid-1(morroring). Oh, and by the way the critical data is stored all every raid set so a complete failure of a raid group would not harm me.

swanscn, you have no idea how much I wish that I had the technical savvy to do that.

Unfortunately, I'll just have to do what I can manage to do.

If you can plug a appliance into a wall outlet, or charge your notebook you can do this. Actually the hardest part will be opening the packing material, so I will start after that is done.

At this point you have 2 things in from of you, item 1 A Sata Hard disk drive, and A Hard disk enclosure.

Step1) The Enclusure is usally help in place by 2 screws on one end locate the screws and remove them.
Step 2) The cover will then slide off, you will then see 2 connectors, one is power and one is interface. They are keyed so they can not be put on wrong.
Step 3) Connect the hard drive to thes connectors, there is only one possible way for this to be done.
Step 4) Using supplied screws attach the HD to the enclusure. After connecting the cable the HD will be sitting on a drive tray. The tray has holes in the side for screws, line the hols up with the holes for screws in the HD (one will do, I usually skip this step).
Step 5)Slide the cover back on and screw back together.
Step 6) Attach power cable and Firewaire cable to enclosure.
Step 7) Plug enclosure into power source connect Firewire cable to computer, please note this can be done while the computer is running.

At this time Windows will tell you it found new hardware and will tell you it is ready for use. You now have a new HD on your system. Honestly you may need to format the drive and create a partition, if you need to know how that is done let me know I will provide easy instructions. Or you could just use the CD that came with the HD, if you get a Seagate or Maxtor the utilities are very good.

You can do this, my instructions make it seem harder that it actually is.

You're very kind. I'll save these instructions.

Not quite on topic, but perhaps germane.....

I'm dealing with a similar issue: two computers and wanting to share and backup data. However, I'm using ethernet for DSL, printer and the two computers through a Linksys workgroup switch. This makes NAS (Network accessed storage) a logical choice. As I've researched, a NAS storage appliance with a single hard drive would work. However, to "future-proof" the job, I'm looking at a NAS enclosure with RAID and a couple of hard drives. RAID allows the NAS hard drives to coordinate in a number of different ways, including total redundancy.

Not quite on topic, but perhaps germane.....

I'm dealing with a similar issue: two computers and wanting to share and backup data. However, I'm using ethernet for DSL, printer and the two computers through a Linksys workgroup switch. This makes NAS (Network accessed storage) a logical choice. As I've researched, a NAS storage appliance with a single hard drive would work. However, to "future-proof" the job, I'm looking at a NAS enclosure with RAID and a couple of hard drives. RAID allows the NAS hard drives to coordinate in a number of different ways, including total redundancy.You might want to take a look at this:

http://thinclientforum.com/nas.htm

Right now, I'm running two Raid-1 arrays of 1 terabyte each on a single thin client. The drives run at 3.0 gbps (SATA) and the thin client has a gigabit NIC, making the whole thing fly on my LAN. Total cost for the four eSATA drives was around $500, the thin client another $250 and $180 for eSATA PCIe card. The system also runs my FTP server, so I can access everything on the two 1-terabyte RAID arrays remotely on the internet, as well as through standard Windows file sharing. I could also have set the system in other configurations, e.g. 4 terabytes of striped storage, etc. However, I wanted the extra security of having all my data fully mirrored, so I configured it as 2 terabytes in two separate RAID 1 arrays.

$900 for a versatile, fully-programmable, fully-configurable RAID array ain't bad.

PT.....thanks for the post. I'm starting to grok :rolleyes: this. You have two NAS enclosures with a couple of 1TB hard drives in each (arrays). A thin client controls these arrays and also works as a FTP server so you can access data on the internets.

Maybe this Visionman (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3151150&CatId=207)unit does the same thing?

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I'm looking at this D-Link (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3952307&CatId=207) enclosure and would add a couple $70 hard drives. Looks like it would have FTP also.

That D-link unit is Sata 2, not Sata 3. 3 is 3.0gbps.

JP
PT.....thanks for the post. I'm starting to grok :rolleyes: this. You have two NAS enclosures with a couple of 1TB hard drives in each (arrays). A thin client controls these arrays and also works as a FTP server so you can access data on the internets.

Maybe this Visionman (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3151150&CatId=207)unit does the same thing?

---------------------------

I'm looking at this D-Link (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3952307&CatId=207) enclosure and would add a couple $70 hard drives. Looks like it would have FTP also.

That D-link unit is Sata 2, not Sata 3. 3 is 3.0gbps.

JP

Nope. It's SATA2, though from the mediocre to poor reviews, I'd still avoid it.

SATA1 = SATA I = SATA/150 = SATA 1.5Gb/s = 150 MB/s transfer speed
SATA2 = SATA II = SATA/300 = SATA 3.0Gb/s = 300 MB/s transfer speed
SATA3 = SATA III = SATA/600 = SATA 6.0Gb/s = a proposed standard with no currently produced hard drives (at least from major manufactureres WD, Maxtor, Seagate, Hitachi, Fujitsu, Samsung)

FWIW, here's one more approach . . . .

I back up three computers. My home desktop, my travel/client-site laptop, and Mrs. Cache's laptop.

I have two Western Digital Passport drives and have installed the freeware version of "SyncBack" from w w w . 2 b r i g h t s p a r k s . c o m on each system.

SyncBack does an intelligent backup . . . it only copies those files that need to be copied which means that your USB 1.x will be less of a problem. You can configure it to backup (one way) or "synchronize" (two way).

Why two external drives? Offsite storage! Don't think any of the other posters mentioned this -- depending on the nature of the data that you're worrying about, it may be appropriate to include "offsite" in your back up scheme. The WD Passports are small enough to fit in your safe deposit box (or your office desk or where ever). You do your backup, remove the drive; take it to your offsite location and exchange it for the "other" one.

FWIW, here's one more approach . . . .

I back up three computers. My home desktop, my travel/client-site laptop, and Mrs. Cache's laptop.

I have two Western Digital Passport drives and have installed the freeware version of "SyncBack" from w w w . 2 b r i g h t s p a r k s . c o m on each system.

SyncBack does an intelligent backup . . . it only copies those files that need to be copied which means that your USB 1.x will be less of a problem. You can configure it to backup (one way) or "synchronize" (two way).

Why two external drives? Offsite storage! Don't think any of the other posters mentioned this -- depending on the nature of the data that you're worrying about, it may be appropriate to include "offsite" in your back up scheme. The WD Passports are small enough to fit in your safe deposit box (or your office desk or where ever). You do your backup, remove the drive; take it to your offsite location and exchange it for the "other" one.

That's an interesting idea. I'm certainly going to continue to use my eGo to synchronize my US and Euro laptops.

I should relate our experiences. We've just been away for 3 months. We have 3 backups - a spare PC with a large hard drive which acts as our file server and is also the backup for our hard drives, an external Lacie hard drive which was stored in a bank vault, and DVD backups. Critical items are also stored with other people off-site, both on optical media and on other PCs.

When we returned the file server refused to boot up and we had to install the hard drive in another PC - it took several hours of work over 2 days to finally get it to boot up. We went to the bank vault and collected the hard drive there, and it doesn't start up. (Google suggests that this is now a known problem with this particular Lacie external hard drive, and it seems that no-one has recovered data from one).

It was a bit worrying for a while and we are now looking for a better option.

Audrey

I need to get a USB HD (500G or 1T) to backup Mr. ........
Has anyone used the Iomega drive? Any other suggestions? Reliability and ease of use are more important to me than price.

On my desk I have 3 Iomega USB external drives (80GB; 250GB and 500GB) which I switch back and forth among several computers. I have not encountered reliability issues. I do have an intermittent problem when the 500GB drive (which I know for sure not the disk's problem) is connected to Vista. Vista (sometimes) does not see it at all :mad: But it is seen at all times by my XP. Go figure. I do like Iomega products which go on sale from time to time. Buy it then.

I am thinking of getting their RAID when I need to expand storage (due to growing volumes of RAW & JPG files)

On my desk I have 3 Iomega USB external drives (80GB; 250GB and 500GB) which I switch back and forth among several computers. I have not encountered reliability issues. I do have an intermittent problem when the 500GB drive (which I know for sure not the disk's problem) is connected to Vista. Vista (sometimes) does not see it at all :mad: But it is seen at all times by my XP. Go figure. I do like Iomega products which go on sale from time to time. Buy it then.

I am thinking of getting their RAID when I need to expand storage (due to growing volumes of RAW & JPG files)

I like the eGo I have (250G) a lot, which is why I started looking at their external drives. I run XP on all 3 machines and have never had any problem with it's being seen (I have that problem occasionally with a Kingston 8G flash drive).

The only problem I've had with the Iomega drive is that once or twice I couldn't get it to shut down w/o shutting down the laptop. At least one time I think it was because I had been deleting some files on the eGo and they'd been sent to the PC's recycle bin. I've since adjusted my settings for the E-drive, so hope not to have that problem in the future.

I'll look for a sale. I saw a good price for an Iomega drive on Amazon, but it was described as formatted for a Mac. I want one that's preformatted for NTFS.

...We went to the bank vault and collected the hard drive there, and it doesn't start up.
My experience has been that Iomega drives are most reliable. Lacie, Simpletech, some of the others, seem to be more into aesthetics than reliability.

Hard disks need to be run frequently, but three months of non-use should not have been a problem. When I've had disks that won't start up in the past, repeated power cycling has occasionally gotten them to work.