Shazz January 13, 2008 Share Shazz Member January 13, 2008 I need a backup hard drive. I searched our forums but only found one posted over a year ago. http://www.gamrs.co/forums/in...ckup+hard+drive I would like to find a backup hard drive for pictures, music and the likes. I would like one at a minimum of 300 gigs. I don't have a clue on what brand to get. If that is even necessary. Is a firewire connection compared to a usb a big difference with backup hard drives? I know it is with other things...but I don't know much about backup hard drives. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mookie January 13, 2008 Share mookie GC Alumni January 13, 2008 Firewire/IEEE1394 should be about twice as fast as USB, otherwise there should be no difference as far as reliability goes. Most computers seem to have firewire ports but some don't and that might be worth considering. You might want to compare costs between getting an external hard drive and just getting an internal hard drive and an enclosure to put it in. The effect should be the same but getting an enclosure and drive separately might work out cheaper (then again, might not). I like Seagate drives, but that's just me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZesteR January 13, 2008 Share ZesteR Member January 13, 2008 Firewire is 400 and 800 MBPS USB 2.0 is 480 MBPS. USB 3.0, which is suppose to come out this year (i think middle to end) will be 10x usb 2.0. Meaning 4.8 GBPS! but I'm sure u won't wait around until then, and there isn't any hardware that supports it right now. Anyways, lol. I see a lot of deals on buy.com for external backup hdd's. Just another option: If you have a good network, you could look into getting one hooked up to your network via file server. Some come with their own software or you can do a linux or bsd job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stutters January 13, 2008 Share stutters GC Alumni January 13, 2008 call me goofy, but i tarball my critical files and push them to my webhost 2x a month. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shazz January 13, 2008 Author Share Shazz Member January 13, 2008 Which would be the better bet...get a hard drive with a enclosure? Or get a pre-made backup HD? I am into DLSR photography. So I have tons of pictures. Plus I have a 160 gig ipod that needs to have some extra HD space. Guess I am to lazy to sit and burn all my pictures to a DVD over and over again. I don't have anymore slots left in my computer case to put another HD. So I am looking for the alternate way of getting some backup space. I do have firewire and of course usb. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ilovetomatoes January 13, 2008 Share ilovetomatoes Member January 13, 2008 Even though the specs say they are close, Firewire is waaay faster. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Preacher January 14, 2008 Share Preacher Member January 14, 2008 Fasteer may not be the only issue for you so if you may want to use with other PCs and have portible consider the USB over firewire. This makes no difference in your choice of hard drives, only the case. As far as which is better the premade external drive or one you pop into an external case, I would say the one you do yourself only because it's easier to upgrade to larger or better later. Definately get sata 3.0. Below are a few suggestions for price and quality Hard drives: 750gb http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16822136131 500gb http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16822136178 320gb http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16822136098 Enclosures: USB: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16817193038 both usb and firewire: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16817198004 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ilovetomatoes January 14, 2008 Share ilovetomatoes Member January 14, 2008 speaking of sata, if you have an esata connection on your PC, that is uber-fast Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shazz January 14, 2008 Author Share Shazz Member January 14, 2008 Thanks Preacher! What about this enclosure? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16817145657 speaking of sata, if you have an esata connection on your PC, that is uber-fast I doubt it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Preacher January 14, 2008 Share Preacher Member January 14, 2008 never heard of the brand but there isn't much to these cases. TBH every one I have used or bought for others has been fundamentally the same. Make sure it's alluminum and not plastic, the stupid plastic cases are bad with heat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lazarus January 14, 2008 Share lazarus Member January 14, 2008 i got a 1tb external from costco from 189.99. you can find them cheaper, but with shipping it came out to be about the same. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magruter January 14, 2008 Share Magruter Member January 14, 2008 http://dealnews.com/search.html?search=har...amp;x=0&y=0 Check some of those prices out, some good deals in there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stutters January 14, 2008 Share stutters GC Alumni January 14, 2008 found this to be pretty interesting: http://forre.st/storage plots out gigs per $ (from newegg), and details the best deal. for extra credit, it auto-updates hourly. currenly, best option is "(5.348166 GB/$) Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shazz January 14, 2008 Author Share Shazz Member January 14, 2008 nice find sj. Just a quick question about these "build your own" backup HD's. Do you have to install software onto the empty HD? Or does this thing just act like a huge Micro Drive whenever you slap the HD into the enclosure and plug it via USB? Never have put one of these things together before. Completely noobish here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EbilDustBunny January 15, 2008 Share EbilDustBunny GC Alumni January 15, 2008 i still like my "my book" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magruter January 16, 2008 Share Magruter Member January 16, 2008 http://shop1.outpost.com/product/5366798 500gig for $90 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bubblegum Bandit January 16, 2008 Share Bubblegum Bandit Member January 16, 2008 Or does this thing just act like a huge Micro Drive whenever you slap the HD into the enclosure and plug it via USB? This is the way mine works..... I forgot how much storage you actually needed, but if you need this thing to be mobile, check out laptop HDs. The smaller enclosures (maybe the larger ones, but my bigger one doesn't) will power off of USB. Its a pain to have to plug my bigger one it, therefore it gathers dusk. My smaller enclosure with the lappy drive = plug usb into drive, plug other end into desktop, go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stutters January 16, 2008 Share stutters GC Alumni January 16, 2008 http://www.apple.com/timecapsule/specs.html ! and/or use iscsi to mount the drive (and/or any drive) from anywhere in the world, securely. sex-Y! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dragonfly January 16, 2008 Share dragonfly Member January 16, 2008 Yeah, preorder yours now for the small fee of 299.99... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Preacher January 16, 2008 Share Preacher Member January 16, 2008 nice find sj. Just a quick question about these "build your own" backup HD's. Do you have to install software onto the empty HD? Or does this thing just act like a huge Micro Drive whenever you slap the HD into the enclosure and plug it via USB? Never have put one of these things together before. Completely noobish here. just plug it in, wait till it's been recognized then go here and follow instructions: http://www.ehow.com/how_6026_format-hard-drive.html That is same procedure for vista too Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Preacher January 18, 2008 Share Preacher Member January 18, 2008 http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=30...-DT&cat=HDD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shazz January 18, 2008 Author Share Shazz Member January 18, 2008 http://shop3.outpost.com/%7BypSzC0ffqCvNhw...product/5424589 How about this one? Just bought the one above. Sweet deal! Today only. I live down the street from Fry's and they are selling this one in the store for over $150.00. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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