external or internal Hard Drive for backups?

[jesteadt]

I keep thinking about adding a hard drive for making backups of my data. Internal would be cheaper and faster, but external might have a better "survivability" chance in a power spike or related disaster? But an external could be moved to a laptop where internal is restricted to desktops, and I think the next system I buy would be a laptop. Not sure what to do. Price for 250GB was around $85 for internal vs $125 for external. But I've heard mixed reviews on the reliability of the externals too. Curious to see what you folks would suggest.

Thanks,
jesteadt

[Rofl-Mic-Lofl]

I'd really say it's kinda dependant on what type of storage is on there. If it's pretty important I'd have internal and external. If it's just media or something, internal.

[jesteadt]

Well, it's not really media (videos?) as much, but I do have some of that. It's more like normal stuff. Email, documents, digital pictures, normal stuff. I guess an external would have a lot of advantages over internal. Are there any models out there to recommend for less than $150? I'm looking for 200-300GB capacity, usb required, firewire optional. I saw a couple LaCie models in my price range, and a Maxtor or two. I saw some Seagate models, but reviews said they were slow. Any suggestions?

[burningrave101]

Well, it's not really media (videos?) as much, but I do have some of that. It's more like normal stuff. Email, documents, digital pictures, normal stuff. I guess an external would have a lot of advantages over internal. Are there any models out there to recommend for less than $150? I'm looking for 200-300GB capacity, usb required, firewire optional. I saw a couple LaCie models in my price range, and a Maxtor or two. I saw some Seagate models, but reviews said they were slow. Any suggestions?

I suggest you buy an internal hard drive to get the 3-5 year warranty and put it in an external enclosure. You can put together a combo probably cheaper then you can find an external hard drive that normally only carries a 1 year warranty. I would go with Seagate or Western Digital.

[IanG]

If you don't want to back up mp3s and videos, a 1gig thumbdrive might be a better choice. No moving parts, and if you only back use it once a week to back up, will last a lot longer than a HD. It's also a lot easier to grab when the house is on fire ;)

If you want to go external, you can build your own using an enclosure and a regular drive. Enclosures start at about $30, and you can find your own deal on a hard drive. You'll be fine with any brand of drive - the USB connection is going to limit the drive, so even a 2mb cache drive is adequate.

http://www.hardfolding.com/ftag1.php/mem/474.png (http://www.hardfolding.com?go=38&id=474&tm=33)

[GlobalFear]

Take a 3.5 internal hdd and shove it in an enclosure. Backup files and dissconnect from pc. If possible keep in fireproof safe.

[jesteadt]

If you don't want to back up mp3s and videos, a 1gig thumbdrive might be a better choice. No moving parts, and if you only back use it once a week to back up, will last a lot longer than a HD. It's also a lot easier to grab when the house is on fire ;)

If you want to go external, you can build your own using an enclosure and a regular drive. Enclosures start at about $30, and you can find your own deal on a hard drive. You'll be fine with any brand of drive - the USB connection is going to limit the drive, so even a 2mb cache drive is adequate.

Well, I might not NEED to backup mp3s and videos, but it would be nice. However, I do need to backup photos, which is much bigger than a 1GB thumb drive. So no luck there.

I've looked into external enclosures, but I can't tell one brand from the next, and I'm sure there's got to be significant differences between the adapters, built in chips, etc. Any suggestions on brands as far as enclosures?

[DCookSta]

I haven't seen many combinations of drive + enclosures that don't work. I think you should be OK buying almost any moderately priced hard drive enclosure made for that size drive, they aren't all that different. You're basically looking at a USB2 or Firewire hookup for the computer.

[jesteadt]

Hmm... I found this one that looks pretty decent:

AMS VENUS DS-2316CBK 3.5" USB + IEEE 1394 Black External Enclosure - Retail
Newegg link (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817145657)

Probably pair it up with a nice quiet samsung 250GB drive. I'm just concerned about there being some external enclosures that give better transfer rates than others, but maybe they're all the same. Let me know what you think.

[DCookSta]

That looks like an pretty good enclosure, especially with the fan sitting right under the drive like that...There are some less expensive enclosures, but this looks like you have all the connections you'll ever need.

looks like a keeper.

[IanG]

afaik, theres only a few bridge chips in use in any enclosures, and they all perform pretty much the same. I think the oxford chipset is supposed to be the best, and I think that's the only one that does USB + firewire as well, so that enclosure should be just fine. Having a fan is nice and can help prolong the life of the drive.

http://www.hardfolding.com/ftag1.php/mem/474.png (http://www.hardfolding.com?go=38&id=474&tm=33)