Mobile rack or external HD enclosure?

[Cliff Couser]

Looking for a cheap backup, as well as a share drive with the wife's Mac.

I was thinking an external Firewire enclosure at first, but now considering a mobile rack of some sorts.

For the mobile rack...are there any racks which you can switch ON/OFF with a button? I'd rather not mess with the lock-key system as normally found for these drives.

also, since this drive, external or mobile rack, will be used for backup only...I really don't need it to be on 24-7, hence the power switch request.

Thanks for any suggestions!

 

[Linuxtim]

Hi
I use a cheap ide drive and an internal caddy (or mobile rack). It is the cheapest way I found to backup (well, off line storage for me). I now have 4 300Gb hdds all with offline data on that I can drop into my PC (but I have to reboot).

The firewire enclosures cost about £25 in the uk, I just pick up 4 internal caddys for £28. And 300Gb drives are now £80 here. So the cost is not so much (I'm a cheapskate). And I have given lots of mates the spare "bays" so we can share data easily too (normally linux distros that at 3Gb a pop dont really fit on a memory stick).

If you are sharing files between macs then I think you'd have to stay Fat32 for a file system. This can be a problem as XP has a 32Gb fat32 limit (so just format it in a mac and then windows should read it). I think Macs have a limit of 137Gb for fat32 as well (I bought a 250Gb firewire drive that did not work with OSX 10.2)

You could look at a Lacie or DLink NAS box - just check you have Mac support (not that may do).

Hope that helps

L

 

[ziscwg]

I had a mobile rack and it was ok. If I wanted it offline, I had to make sure the key was off. If I ever got a virus or worm, (I have a teenage son who tries to install whatever) I don't want the drive compramised. However, if it's offline, it can be removed or can fall out. I have done this going to a lan party.

I now have a usb2 external. I like it much better. I keep it off until I'm doing backups.