NAS or External?

[modi123]

I am looking to start backing up my data at home. I looked at NAS setups and then I am looking at just external harddrive shells. Is there any particular reason to have one or the other?

I am running a single PC that's off at night (sorry, no folding while I sleep).

Second question, I have two HD's on my PC a 120gig and a 40gig. If I have a spare 35 gig or so laying around would that be sufficient to backup up my data (a complete image is not needed)?

Third, the backup software (or windows scheduler task) - do those normally verify checksums to see if it needs to transfer the file to the back up or are they just glorified "drag/copy from drive a to drive b'?

Thanks,

J

Oh, any recommendations on enclosures/nas systems?

 

[drizzt81]

I am looking to start backing up my data at home. I looked at NAS setups and then I am looking at just external harddrive shells. Is there any particular reason to have one or the other?

I would generally think that a "external shell" (i.e. USB/ FW attached HDD) may be a 'more secure' solution since it won't be vulnerable to attacks when your PC is off. However if you only have the NAS turned on when backing up, you can achieve the same level with a NAS.
Aside from that point, I do not think there are major differences if you are only concerned with saving one computer.
For a single-PC backup, I would get a USB drive.

Second question, I have two HD's on my PC a 120gig and a 40gig. If I have a spare 35 gig or so laying around would that be sufficient to backup up my data (a complete image is not needed)?

It depends. You need to select the data that is important to you and assess how much that is by looking at its size. We do not know what you store on your HDD, much less what data is important to you. It may well be that the 35GB drive is sufficient, it may also be that it is much too small.

Third, the backup software (or windows scheduler task) - do those normally verify checksums to see if it needs to transfer the file to the back up or are they just glorified "drag/copy from drive a to drive b'?

You can use task-scheduler to run programs that will create and verify backups. I have recently seen a nice article on how to do this with WinRAR, also adding some parity information to survive smaller problems with the backup hardware:
http://www.chrisevans3d.com/tutorials/backup.htm

 

[modi123]

Thank you. External it is.

 

[drizzt81]

I suggest you try and get a Cypess chipset equipped USB enclosure, Oxford if using Firewire. I have a BYTECC 5.25" enclosure that I bought at newegg a couple of years ago that used the above combination.

 

[modi123]

I suggest you try and get a Cypess chipset equipped USB enclosure, Oxford if using Firewire. I have a BYTECC 5.25" enclosure that I bought at newegg a couple of years ago that used the above combination.

i am not sure what you mean by the cypress chipset or the oxford. are those important to the connection type? truthfully I was going to go on geeks.com and just snag the cheapest shell they had. What's the importance of the chipset?

http://www.usbdiscount.com/enme-705.html


like this one:
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=BLK-AP35-C&cat=CSE

 

[general]

NAS is good if you have multiple machines connecting to it. Otherwise, the USB direct connected drive is going to be more secure and easier to take and go.

 

[modi123]

Excellent information everyone. I am now a bit concerned about this external drive 'chipset' thing mentioned by drizzit81. Would anyone care to elaborate?

 

[drizzt81]

Excellent information everyone. I am now a bit concerned about this external drive 'chipset' thing mentioned by drizzit81. Would anyone care to elaborate?

The chipset that I am referring to is what translates USB "commands" to IDE "commands" and vice versa. It also takes care of making sure that when you connect the device it tells the host "Hey there, I am a USB mass storage device". While this sounds ridiculously simple, doing this efficiently and well isn't really.

My knowledge about chipsets is a little rusty, so things may have changed, however there was a time when there were a couple of USB chipsets that were inexpensive but known to cause data corruption at times, usually if the drive was used a lot. One may almost want to call these "cheapsets". Since you are looking for a USB enclosure from a backup perspective, I wanted to suggest to go with an enclosure that comes with a chipset that is known to be reliable (such as Cypress was back in the day, i.e. 2003) since your backup won't do you much good if the controller screws up your data just when you need it most.

When you get your enclosure, you should be able to look at the chips. They usually have markings revealing their manufacturer. I would then google a bit to find out whether the chipset you have is known to be problematic. I assume that most USB chipsets are pretty good now, but I do not know.