Why are External HDs better for backup?

Yes I would love to have a DVD-recorder to use as my backup. But as you just stated they only hold 4.7GB. My computer has a 120GB harddrive. which is almost half full. So the DVD option would not work very well. It would take several disk and more time switching them out than it would take to just have everyting on an external or ever an internal second drive for backup. Althought this system I know have does not have either. My last computer I had I put in a second drive my self to use as a back up. But I have not done it on this new system yet, even though I have had it for over 2 years now.

The OS can be reinstalled for your OS CDs.
Updates are downloadable so that's a non-issue.

The applications can be reinstalled.

-> All we have to worry about are files we can't replace with ease and CD-KEYS.

-> If you must backup an image, you'll look to TAPE DRIVES since they are acceptable as backup (write protection, multiple copies, off site (or firesafe storage.)

The story and tears about "My backup was on the external hard disk" is easy to follow and avoid.

Bob

PS. Please install BELARC ADVISOR today and print out it's report.

If you do choose the external hard drive route, a suggestion I make to all of my clients is to buy a reputable hard drive of a size acceptable to you, and put it in a usb or better yet firewire external case, rather than buy a pre built unit. This has shown to be less expensive and more reliable in my experience. There are some very nice pre built units on the market from Maxtor from what I've seen, but they're very pricey, and who knows about the reliablility. If you buy the hard drive and put it in say, a Vantec (that's what I've been using for two years, nice little unit) external storage unit, you KNOW what kind of unit is inside, and additionally, if the hard drive does happen to crap out, it's easily swappable for a new one, regardless of the brand name, making it much easier and cost effective to shop for a hard drive whether it's the first one or a replacement. *Come on Bob, I know you're gonna have something to say about that, hit me* LOL

There is something amiss with XP and Firewire drives. This combo is showing with disk volumes corrupted for no apparent reason.

-> I can't suggest Firewire for hard disks.

I do however share my lesson that Firewire seems to be the only connection to use for that camcorder.

Bob

Hmmmm..........you think so? I've never had any problem with my two (external Sony firewire 8x DVDRW and a firewire external hard disk, WD CAviar in a firewire box) Could it possibly be the transfer speed is too much for some hard drives? I've never tried a 5400 or 4200. Granted I only use my ex hard drive to dump files onto before format and clean installs. none of them have ever shown signs of corruption though. Bah, USB external is cheaper anyway, and honestly, mine is dual and really the difference if any is minimal.

I wish it was a solid failing issue. The issue is showing up too often to ignore. I'm sure it works for most. No common cause from what we've seen. For now it's just an "avoid" this setup.

Bob

I was using a firewire/USB HD that would become corrupted for no apparent reason. The problem stopped when I switched to the USB connection.

A DVD burner is the only way to fly, after of course you have installed the extra HD and install it's own copy of Windows on it.

I have a humungous HD just like everyone else, so I picked groups of folders to backup, groups that is that don't exceed 4.7 GB. I recently installed the burner and backed up the system with five DVD's.

Not to say that it could not be done with less, I just got in a hurry....and wenet down the line in Documents doing them all.

I use them to back up photo files, financials, video, letters and other brickabrack. For the rest I plan on having to use the recovery disks that came with the computer and reloading the other software


Steve Gauss

If you use an external HD and copy files from your main drive properly you will have an image of the main HD. If the main HD fails, you can just replace it with the external drive and be up and running in no time.

Rather than an external HD you might want to look into RAID where you write to 2 differnet HDs simultaneously.

I've always used Western Digital HD's and never had one fail in 12 years. OOOPS!! My mistake, two of my Western Digital HD's failed after they were flooded by Hurricane Ivan. How inconsiderate of Western Digital not to make them saltwater proof. Just kidding, other than not being waterproof, Western Digital HD's are GREAT!!!

Scott,

As I satated in my previous post, you may want to consider purchasing the HD and external USB case separately. Then in a case where down the road the drive fails, it's easily replaceable. Putting a hard drive in a USB case is a piece of cake, there should be instructions with it anyway. In addition you know what kind of hard drive is inside the enclosure, unlike those ones you posted, I'd stay away from those personally, they look nice, but what drive is inside them ????

I am on the verge of buying an external hard drive and am SO relieved to read these comments. I'm considering either a 80GB Maxtor for $149AU or 200GB Maxtor for $299AU. The idea of using DVDs or CDs for 'storage' or 'back-up' seems a dumb idea. All those discs floating about, when I can put everything from my desktop and laptop onto the external hard drive and take it anywhere I go. That's what an external hard drive is for isn't it? I am just a Little Old Lady trying to do the right thing. Thank you CNET.

The problem with hard disks for backup is simply they have the same faults and failure modes as what you backed up from. To call it a "COPY" is accurate, but backup it is not.

For example, without the write protection of say a CDR disk a virus will wipe out the host drive and attached drives. Poof goes the backup.

-> If you keep an eye on these forums, the pleas for help in recovering external drive data is not uncommon.

Bob

Well Maam, here is a "it'il never happen to me story"!
Yes proffett I'm the the 1/2 you mentioned in your last post...Twice over!

I spent many days and nights transfering and editing old 70's vcr tapes to dvd. Had several hours on a maxtor 200gig hd which was NEW! After burning to dvd, Murphy's law took over, you guessed it, the hard drive went south, way south...Wouldnt even turn south...No problem I said!, I have my "NO NAME BRAND" dvd's...We watched them one time and then they proceeded to self destruct. Another "way south thing"! Just like the "Mission Impossible" tapes except There was just no smoke involved. "How can this be" I said! Why me? All I could do was get out "the crying towel"! I said many bad things and my wife had to reminded me we had company and not to mention kids!

The moral of the story, NEVER trust a harddrive for backup,(maxtor did replace my harddrive and my wife says I still cry over it in my sleep mumbling somthing about cheap dvd's) and never buy cheap dvd's...
TOM

I really need a cheap backup solution and was after at least a huge 200GB IDE ATA100 drive because I'm stuck with IDE on my 4 year old 1.3GHz PC. I have XP Pro.

I'm querying a point made early about backing up data using internal IDE but then just unplugging it. Would the data stay on the harddisk without any power for ages? it would be great if it did.

The only drawback with my system is that with 2 40GB HDs and 2 DVD-ROMs, I couldn't unplug the two 40GB drives because I have them both partitioned. They are as follows: HD1 (C:=O/S and drivers & D:=Programs), HD2 (E:=Digital Photos & F:Software downloads and updates).

So could I use the secondary IDE of one of the DVD-ROMs to connect the 200GB harddisk in order to copy the contents of the likes of My Docs, Digital Photos, etc..

I know it's not the ideal solution but money is tight. Unless anyone has any great ideas I'll stick to this way. I can't replace the 'tiny' 40GB HDs with a bigger one because I need to use the PC every single day and can't afford any down time.

That's less than 10 bucks of DVDRW media. DVDRW drives are all of under 60 bucks for internals.

The external drives are nice "copies", but do not qualify as backup since you can't write protect them (think virus issues) and you don't have the mulitiple copies.

Bob

I was thinking of getting a DVD-RW to back up my 2 40GB drives, but I need a faster solution than that, so thank anyway. I don't fancy fiddling about with 20 DVD-RWs.

If i'm going to be backing up my PC every month, I will be overwritting previous data on the backup HD and replacing it with updated files . I'm always editing existing files (documents, dig. images, etc..) so adding new files to the backup would miss out the updated files.

My friend has bought a Maxtor 200Gb 7,200rom external HD FireWire/USB2 for

That only happens on my 3rd set. I rotate some 3 sets so that when a write fails, I can replace the media and retry.

I don't need to repeat the pleas for data recovery you see in this forum. Again, hard disk units are not "backup" but fast copies.

If you haven't learned this lesson, I'll just wait a little longer.

Bob

I know exactly what you mean when people can rely a lot on hard disks for backups. Rewriteable DVDs will only become the norm and the most common way to back up PC data when we eventually get either Blu-Ray or HD DVDs with nearly 50GB storage.

That would really tempt me to back up my other PC with 600MB HD space - not all of this is actually in use - only around 50-60% is at the moment.

When I do replace this 4.5 year old PC, I will need around 1TB of disc space running in RAID array. 250GB x4 (with SMART enabled). I know I'm getting off the main point, but I'm looking at the bigger picture in 2-3 years time when I laugh looking back at 4.7GB (8.5DL if you can afford it) being a backup solution.

While I'm not knocking anyone who finds this way ideal with their own PCs with less storage, etc.. I think DVD backups are a lot better than TAPE backups because there user friendly and cheaper.

I am getting a dvd burner v soon. I am curious as to how you would do incremental or daily backups using the dvd approach?

What do you actually do? It sounds expensive to be burning 10 dollars worth of disks each week (day?)

Also how to you physically organise the discs so you know which disk holds what and how to find the disk with the desired content when you want it?

When do you throw them away?