What's better, a network drive or external?

CyberSlave

[H]ard|Gawd
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I am needing to back-up a large chunk of data. Easy 30+ DVDs.

What would be a better choice for plain data back-up aside from DVD (which I already have, just want a redundant copy), external or network drive?
 
I have a network drive at the moment and it is great for accessing small to medium size files from two or more computers however if I wanted a device simply to backup many gigs of data I would definitely go for a Firewire or USB2 interfaced external harddrive. Network drives that I have seen are not near as fast yet. I have found that network drives rarely transfer data at the advertised speed. That being said most network drives have a USB2 interface also so you could transfer your files over faster using that then access them over the LAN interface later. Note that as far as I know only one of the interfaces (LAN, Firewaire or USB2) will work at any one time. Basically you decision will be determined by how you want to access your data.
 
I am needing to back-up a large chunk of data. Easy 30+ DVDs.

What would be a better choice for plain data back-up aside from DVD (which I already have, just want a redundant copy), external or network drive?

It depends what you compare. If you get a poorly implemented USB/ FW drive your transfer rates will stink. However even in that case you will be faster than using a Fast Ethernet attached disk.

A Gigabit Ethernet connected disk is likely the fastest, provided that
  • your network support GbE speeds
  • your network uses jumbo frames
  • both source and destination NICs are ``good'' and configured correctly
 
It really depends on what you need. Do you want to access that drive from any PC? Do you want more expansion ability?

If you go NAS, make sure you get a good one, not the cheap single drive ones that works great for smallish files but is crab slow for large files.
 
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