using second hard drive for storage

yabbiebee

yabbiebee

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hi guys just wanted a bit of help really ive got alot of stuff on my pc that i need to back up and was wondering what was the best way to go about doing so ? i think of using a second hard drive about 500gb for the storage but not sure how to go about connecting it up to my pc.

so what im thinking is like every 2 weeks or so i could plug in this storage hard drive back up my current harddrive. could any one help thanks for any info

mainly photos,films,music and all my work stuuf.
 
There's loads of USB stand alone hard drives on the market. The only connection you'd need to make to your PC is to bung the plug into a spare USB socket when you want to back up although there's no reason why you couldn't leave it connected if you wanted to. I'm using one myself but I'm gonna need to get something bigger pretty soon.
 
Your best bet is to probably get a USB external drive. Just plug it in and it shows up as a new drive letter.
You can then use something like SyncToy (which is free) to backup. It's easy. You just choose which folders you want to backup and once its set up you can just click 1 button everynight and it's done :)
 
2 weeks isnt exactly very often, but that's the hassle with external drives, i admit i don't update mine often enough.

The best solution is a NAS which you can update daily, but this is the most expensive.

The other option is another internal drive but this has two disadvantages
1) if the psu blows up and takes out both drives you are screwed (quite unlikely)
2) if the computer gets nicked in a burglary both drives will be gone (this can be an issue with external drives as well if you dont put them out of sight)

Best bet is just an external hard drive, 1Tb can be had for about £80-90, put it out of sight when not in use and try and update it as often as you can.

Also, download and use 'synctoy' from the microsoft website, it will make updates far easier and quicker as it will just detect new files and move them across in 1 swift movement.
 
USB external hard drives are plug n play. Just push the usb connector into your hub or pc and follow the onscreen instructions. Amazon are doing 500gb for under £60 and 1tb for under £80! Bargains.
 
Blue Eagle said:
The best solution is a NAS which you can update daily, but this is the most expensive.

....

Also, download and use 'synctoy' from the microsoft website, it will make updates far easier and quicker as it will just detect new files and move them across in 1 swift movement.
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um can you explain why is NAS better than USB? cos i cant think of any reason..

an alternative to synctoy is allway sync, personally i found the interface and options nicer than synctoy. i use it to sync up 3 usb drives on a "when a file is modified" basis.
 
My NAS is much better than an external drive as it takes all new movie, picture and MP3 files off each computer as they are shutting down. I don't need to do anything. Plus,w ith them being on a NAS they can be accessed from anywhere, including via the internet ;-)
 
hmmm i did ask a few mates about usb type drives but was told hes tried a few and some failed on him ? anyone else had that happen
 
Hard drives, like anything, have a limited / finite life-span; as such they are bound to fail sooner or later.

If you care so much for your data, then you have to back-up. What means you use is up to you, as is how much you want to spend and get technical with.

A USB hard drive is probably the easiest to set-up, but not necessarily the fastest / best solution. Personally, I'd go with Firewire 800 if your computer supports it. It's a bit more expensive, but the speed increase (read / write) is very noticeable when you are taking about photos in 10s of MB size.

But to answer your question "anyone els had that happen" .. I've had an internal hard drive fail on me, and it gave me nightmares .. I started a thread on TP about it. It's not a pleasant issue to live through. Internal / External, they will all fail sooner or later.
 
USB external drives are fine, but like all hard drives they're going to fail sometime. If you want to safeguard your data at reasonable cost then get two external drives. Keep the main copy on the internal drive and backup to both externals, then keep one of these off-site.

It's not perfect, and hardly an elegant solution, but it does give you three copies of your data at not too much cost. The chances of losing all three at once are fairly remote.

I wouldn't rely on CD or DVD as backup either, I've seen these deteriorate way faster than you'd think.
 
Baz007 said:
My NAS is much better than an external drive as it takes all new movie, picture and MP3 files off each computer as they are shutting down. I don't need to do anything. Plus,w ith them being on a NAS they can be accessed from anywhere, including via the internet ;-)
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I'm thinking of getting one, which one do you use and has it built in FTP?
 
Just bought myself a Tosiba 1 tb usb external hd from ebuyer for £74.43 including postage. reckon thats a pretty good deal. :thumbs:
 
Edtog said:
I'm thinking of getting one, which one do you use and has it built in FTP?
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To be honest my brother set it up, he's the pc geek, he does networks for a living. on the scan website its this one.... 1Tb Netgear RND2110 100UKS READYNAS DUO2 Although a different colour.

As for the FTP, I think thats run from a seperate mini pc next to it. I get confused :bonk:
 
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