Good Deal on a Back-up Hard drive

gypsydan · November 26, 2015

I bought a 2-tb HD backup for my system several years ago ($130), and would not be without it. Now, the quandary is, since the 2-tb is 70% full, do I get this 3-tb drive to make sure I have complete backup for the next few years? Or. do I get it as a Christmas present for someone? Decisions . . . . Decisions. . . . .

http://archives.subscribermail.com/msg/48052e6ad18b4304b978f1a8d1df0917.htm

gypsydan · November 26, 2015

can a moderator move this to Computers & Software.

skp51443 · November 26, 2015

Neat, I guess we weekend moderators can move things! I hadn't tried that before. :-)

docj · November 26, 2015

To get back to the OP's question, I assume he's aware of the fact that you don't need to buy something called a hard drive backup device for it to work perfectly well for making backups. Take any 2.5" hard drive and put it in a USB to SATA case such as this http://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-2-5-Inch-External-Enclosure-EC-UM30/dp/B00MQ97QGE and you have a drive on which you can store backups. There's plenty of free software that will create image files of your drives.

RV_ · November 27, 2015

Good deal for 3 TB. I had three 1TB My books years ago. When I had issues from heat years ago I pulled them out of the external drive housing and still use them in drive docks. Good drives, and remember the hard drive might outlast the circuitry in the enclosure.

KRum · November 27, 2015

My preference is for Western Digital (I really like their Wifi Passport Drive)

http://www.amazon.com/Book-External-Hard-Drive-WDBFJK0050HBK-NESN/dp/B015X2FI4W/ref=sr_1_17?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1448617084&sr=1-17&keywords=5tb+external+hard+drive

A close second would be Seagate for just over $100 bucks!!!

http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Desktop-External-Storage-STDT5000100/dp/B00J0O5R2I/ref=pd_sim_sbs_147_4?ie=UTF8&dpID=41vl1bc6VdL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR160%2C160_&refRID=0NNFBV1K9CPF1W4AWBV8

lappir · November 27, 2015

Costco I got a 3TB Seagate with a plastic case for just over $100.

Rod

RV_ · November 27, 2015

I use the cases like Joel mentioned above.

The 2 TB USB 3.0 powered Seagate portable drives are selling now for $69.99: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822178435&utm_medium=Email&utm_source=IGNEFL112615&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL112615-_-EMC-112615-Index-_-PortableExternalHardDrives-_-22178435-S1A2A

I prefer docks and won't buy anything but the drives and my own enclosures. Right now on Newegg I can buy a 2 TB 3.5" internal drive that plugs right into my dock as opposed to the enclosed ones for ten more.

I have two of these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153133 and two of these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817801130 The two two bay Sybas for duplicating or cloning disks are on my workbench and my Over The Air Channel Master DVR.

I have lots of internal drives, almost 20 TBs now. I use external drive docks of which Thermaltake makes the best USB 3.0 IMO. Then I can just pop in one drive of either size. I can understand with the limited space of an RV not wanting to have multiple drives to store. I also bought a 3TB Lenovo personal cloud, the EZ media model. IT suddenly dawned on me that I had no 3 TB drive to back it up to. That is the reason for the NAS driverless two and more drive bay systems. They are in the $200 - thousands of bucks range. So if I wanted to take up desk space I'd order two and back one up from the other. I prefer to have multiple drives and have three copies of my ripped music and photos. One on my main drive, two on internal drives I can pop into my drive docks, one on my desk, one on Lynn's desk, and one on my workbench desk. Clones all. Now I have my own media issues with videos etc. so I have them on several drives and haven't backed them up yet because I can watch most online anytime. So I see no need to buy movies let alone store copies of them. There are lots of data hoarders out there. I am in some areas like my emails which I have kept since 1995 on two drives because the first set are all Outlook express and I have to run it to see them off line. The rest are Outlook from MS Office 2003 and 2010.

See, I use tablets a lot now too and am about to go through and store my current ASUS Transformer T200 data on one then factory restore it to sell after I get my Surface Pro 3 i5, 128GB SSD, 4GB RAM brand new system delivered today. (FedEx tracking says it is on the truck for delivery this AM)

Now I also have a 1 TB WD My Passport small USB powered drive with USB 3. I have seen them in 2 TB versions as low as 79 bucks. If you don't want to use internal drives that can be had used or new, as well as cheaper than buying them already enclosed with the circuitry. If I were fulltiming now, I'd go with several 2 TB internal drives and a Dock. However you need today to store all your data and then room for more, then multiply X2 and use the spares to clone the data from the first two. If your storage is not worth backing up, then you don't need duplicates.

I actually have SDXC card storage booklets holding several 64GB and 128GB micro cards and a USB 3.0 reader.

Then my external USB powered 2.5" drives all USB 3.0:

One a factory WD My Passport 1TB drive. Six USB powered 2.5" drive enclosures with my used laptop drives in them ranging from 500-640GB.

Then I have my internal 3.5 drives that can be installed in a tower computer or used in my docks. each in a sleeve: two 2 TB and a bunch of 1 TB, all in slip covers and used in my two Thermaltake docks, and two Syba no computer needed cloning docks ( set and forget.)

USB 3.0 Flash Thumb drives: I have two 16GB for recovery media for our two tablets, and one 64GB used to shuttle music and other data. I may get another but I already have too many 2.5 drives in cases to warrant the expense. I am thinking of putting my 3TB EZ Media Personal Cloud server back online, now that my docks can support up to 4GB drives and more reliably. I can get one of these and backup the Personal Cloud 3 TB server and have 3/4s of a TB left over to store my main desktop images on. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822149627&utm_medium=Email&utm_source=IGNEFL112615&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL112615-_-EMC-112615-Index-_-DesktopInternalHardDrives-_-22149627-S3A1A

gypsydan · November 30, 2015

Thank you for the many reply's.

RV, I thought my 6 drives (6tb) were a lot, but I was wrong. I was glad to read how you use them, as it opened some possibilities I had not thought of. I've been playing with the idea of getting an NAS drive, but haven't taken the action yet. I'm know in the fun process of designing a new computer to do video editing. Will post what I'm doing on another thread when I get it solidified.