External Hard drive wanted

posted_2

If you read the op's requirements again, they want to backup/transfer their personal pics, and docs from their work pc in case they get made redundant, it's highly unlikely the volume of data involved (unless etc = music/video), equates to anywhere near a terabyte. Most people's pics and docs would easily fit onto a dvd (or 2) costing 1/500th of an external hard disk, a second copy costs a few pence more

Pitchshifter

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/158510

How about a USB Flash drive? 32GB of solid state storage for under £40!!
Fast, reliable, secure and fits in one's smallest crevice! Can't go wrong.

Marty_J

posted wrote: »

If you read the op's requirements again, they want to backup/transfer their personal pics, and docs from their work pc in case they get made redundant, it's highly unlikely the volume of data involved (unless etc = music/video), equates to anywhere near a terabyte. Most people's pics and docs would easily fit onto a dvd costing 1/500th of an external hard disk, a second copy costs a few pence more

Well if the OP only wants to back up something that's less than 4.7 GB in size, and doesn't want to ever back anything up ever again, then they should buy a DVD-R.

That 1 TB drive though, is an absolute steal.

totalsolutions

Why not try Microsofts free 5Gb storage option ( there are plenty of others but all end up on a yearly fee) look at cloud storage solutions.
https://www.mesh.com

adonis

I have just got the the 500gb toshiba external hard drive from ebuyer for less than £50.
I know i could have got the 1TB drive for another £20 but thats a lot of data to lose, i would rather have two 500gb drives as a belt and braces approach as well as dvd backups.

basmic

I think the OP needs to tell us how much data they want to store.

A 32gb flash drive would cost £40 - a good price, if you ask me. Plus it's a reliable backup destination - I've never lost data on a USB stick yet!

prowla

I've just bought two Iomega 320GB portable USB hard drives for £85 all-in (ie. £42.50 each) from Tesco Direct.

Leopard

adonis wrote: »

I have just got the the 500gb toshiba external hard drive from ebuyer for less than £50.

I know i could have got the 1TB drive for another £20 but thats a lot of data to lose, i would rather have two 500gb drives as a belt and braces approach as well as dvd backups.

My own belt-and-braces approach was to buy two of the 1TB Toshiba drives.

Quite honestly, the extra 500 GB for £20 is an immensely powerful argument in their favour.

In fact, I bought three in all - the third one for use as an external additional storage device for my Humax FoxSat-HDR (FreeSat HD) recorder. For that, too, they're ideal.

These Toshibas are great devices - low power consumption and effectively inaudible. The drive inside them is a Western Digital; I opened one up to find out, before buying more.

Unhesitatingly and thoroughly recommended.

Important data I back in multiple different ways, including DVDs and online remote storage servers (among them, Apple's).

I trust no one medium totally.

Backups should always be kept at a number of different locations. There's no point in having three backups inside a premises that gets burgled, flooded or burnt to the ground in a fire.

timbim wrote: »

For moving data between two computers, hard to beat a USB HDD. For a long term backup, DVD's win hands down.

Gigabit Ethernet, eSATA, Firewire 800 and even Firewire 400 beat USB2 hands down for moving data between two computers.

But for cheap and reasonable-speed, non-urgent backups (including Time Machine, operating in the background) USB2 is fine.

timbim_2

True. But then not many laptops have eSATA, not even many desktops for that matter. Also, most laptops have at best a 4 pin firewire, or no firewire at all, looking at the new macbooks. If you have 4 pin firewire, it's another cable to get lost (4 pin to 6 pin), for which you may not have any other use.

Leopard

Your sweeping statement with which I took fundamental issue was:

timbim wrote: »

For moving data between two computers, hard to beat a USB HDD.

You concede, as you had to, that this was incorrect but seek to justify your error with:

timbim wrote: »

But then not many laptops have eSATA, not even many desktops for that matter. Also, most laptops have at best a 4 pin firewire, or no firewire at all, looking at the new macbooks. If you have 4 pin firewire, it's another cable to get lost (4 pin to 6 pin), for which you may not have any other use.

I, in turn, concede that the latest MacBooks come with no Firewire port and that MacBooks Pro now come with only Firewire 800 - a fact about which I have a number of times here waxed angry. But both (except the Air) do have Gigabit Ethernet. I would not, have not and will not, personally, ever buy a laptop that has no Firewire port.

The (Apple) laptop upon which I am writing this has, in a neat little row next to its dual-DVI socket, the following ports: Gigabit Ethernet, FIrewire 800, Firewire 400 and USB2. On its other side, which carries its second USB2 port, is an ExpressCard slot which can provide an eSATA port if I wish. So, I do know the relative merits of each of these means of shifting data between computers - including laptops. (As well as by 5 GHz 802.11n and by Bluetooth.)

This particular Apple laptop is nearly two years old - an age at which a poster in another thread here is saying that he normally replaces his Windows laptops. (I certainly have no need nor desire to replace mine for a few more years.) And I'm running it, this morning, booted off a Firewire 800 drive (because that is 1TB @ 7,200 rpm).

Every Apple laptop I have ever owned this century has come with Firewire 400 (six-pin) and either a CardBus or an ExpressCard port (and, thereby eSATA). The Ethernet ports on those since 2002 have been Gigabit, too.

So, I don't think that further part of your argument holds up to much scrutiny, either. Seasonal goodwill, however, restrains me from calling it :easter_ba .

:easter:


bushcaro,

If, as you state, you seek merely to export some personal documents and pictures from your office computer, a simple USB2 memory stick will perform the task easily and (perhaps more importantly, under the circumstances) discreetly. As already pointed out by Pitchshifter, you can get a 32 GB USB2 stick for less than £40 and it will always be useful for other purposes, afterwards. I don't suppose you need to perform the whole decant in one go, anyway, if 32 GB is insufficient. But 32 GB holds a lot of documents and pictures: it ought to be plenty enough.

I wish you good luck in the job survival stakes: these are hard times.