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.

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/Produc...nd&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.

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'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.

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



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.

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.

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.

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.

Here is what I would do and have done
 

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.

It is really easy 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.