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Recommendations for an external hard drive set up

Santiago
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Registered: ‎10-08-2007

Recommendations for an external hard drive set up

I have been advised to buy an external hard drive to maintain a back  up for my work Dell laptop.
I have no experience of these and was hoping to get some advice as to the best way to do this and also get some recommendations for the kit required.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions
11 REPLIES 11
Midnight_Caller
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Registered: ‎15-04-2007

Re: Recommendations for an external hard drive set up

You will need a external hard drive case to put your hard drive in to, make sure that the case takes for example IDE if that is what your hard drive connects with, then if your hard drive has been formatted already just connect the USB cable to your computer, and you will get an extra drive come up say  drive ":E"
Hope that helps
Santiago
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Registered: ‎10-08-2007

Re: Recommendations for an external hard drive set up

Thank you, I don't have a spare hard drive to use in a case. As I understand it I need a complete external drive that I can use with Dell Back up.
David_W
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Registered: ‎19-07-2007

Re: Recommendations for an external hard drive set up

Few questions, how much space will you require?  if it's something small like 20Gb then just get a 32Gb pen drive.  Second, if you need more than 20Gb (say 32Gb+) you're better of getting an external drive, but what interface does your Dell use?  USB or eSata?  If it's USB is it USB 2 or 3 (major difference in speed between 2 and 3).  If it's a USB 3 get an external USB 3.0 drive (it's faster than eSata) but if it's USB 2.0 and you have eSata, may as well get an eSata drive.
My first choice would be a Pen Drive, they are small enough to fit on a keyring and if you accidently drop it, it's not toast.  2nd choice would be a standard USB 3.0 (it's backward compatible) as it's sort of future proof should you upgrade later to a USB 3.0 capable system.  I use a 1Tb Segate drive, my second one, the first one I accidently dropped when I kicked the cable which in turn killed the hard drive inside.
Peter_Vaughan
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Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: Recommendations for an external hard drive set up

A pen drive will limit the number of backups you can store - this may be an issue.
You don't need anything special and the costs for USB2 500GB/1TB drives are coming down all the time. The Dell backup software may not work with eSATA but should have no problems with a USB drive.
Is size/weight an issue? Do you need to carry the backup drive around with you? If so, a normal drive may be a problem due to knocks etc and a pen drive may be safer (if your backups are small).
I've used external drives from seagate, western digital and have had no problems with freecom based external cases & drives.
Santiago
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Re: Recommendations for an external hard drive set up

Thanks for your comments.
I use a pen drive for portable important data back up.
I need to have  a complete system back up and a weekly data back up. The external drive will stay on the desk.
The laptop is a Latitude E6410
* goes to look for laptop manual
Midnight_Caller
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Re: Recommendations for an external hard drive set up

Santiago
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Re: Recommendations for an external hard drive set up

Thanks for all the suggestions. My wife made the decision when she bought me one for my birthday as a "surprise"
WD Elements 320gb from Tesco http://direct.tesco.com/product/images/?R=206-7809
I like it, nice as a portable option and I have moved some data from my laptop to free off some capacity on the hard drive.
I think I will go for a larger WD model for my main back up, the one Gary recommended looks a good price on Amazon.
dvorak
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Re: Recommendations for an external hard drive set up

I use freecom external drives have 4 in various flavours offering me around 4TB of storage, excellent drives and never had an issue with them.
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Santiago
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Registered: ‎10-08-2007

Re: Recommendations for an external hard drive set up

Thanks Adie, I will check them out too.
ReedRichards
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Re: Recommendations for an external hard drive set up

Quote from: Oddball
....The external drive will stay on the desk.....

This will offer security against failure of the hard drive in your computer but little security against theft, fire, flood or any other threat where it is likely if your computer is lost  then your external hard drive will be lost also.  If you want to be secure against loss of data by those means then I recommend you use two external hard drives, use them in rotation and keep one in another location, or in a fire-proof safe if that is not possible.
VileReynard
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Registered: ‎01-09-2007

Re: Recommendations for an external hard drive set up

I use the hard drive remotely and do backups with rsync via a wireless connection.
Files are backed up to alternate root folders.
In addition, I have a second drive in the PC and a month’s worth of full and incremental backups are taken daily of /home (ignoring large files).

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