Portable Hard Drives

kwikbreaks

Sounds like you've been the victim of faked USB sticks which claim (and actually show) a higher capacity than they really have.

You can drop a pen drive quite a way and the chances are it will still work - spaecially the rubber clad ones. Can't say the same for most mechanical drives.

Chrishazle

Euyer are doing a good deal on an Intenso 1Tb USB hard drive at the moment, under £50. My BIL bought one, it seems good - and is USB powered so you don't need a separate power supply.

GabbaGabbaHey

Depending on how important/valuable the documents are, you may need TWO external drives, one of which you normally store outside your house.

While a single external drive should protect your data against most IT problems (apart, perhaps, from an encrypting virus, if the drive is permanently attached), it will not help you if both the PC and the external disk are stolen or damaged (due, for example, to fire or flood).

poppellerant

I use a USB flash disk myself for small backups of documents, pictures and the like. Of course they have a finite life, but I've never been able to wear one out yet.

You can fill a flash drive around 3,000 times before it will deteriorate - some will allow much more than this, around 100,000 cycles. So if you bought a 32GB flash drive, you would need to write over around 93TB (assuming 3,000 cycles) before it might show signs of wearing out. So - in theory - you could fill the drive every day for around 8 years before you might need a replacement.

Harddrives are subject to stress every time they power up. Unlike harddrives, flash drive have no moving parts, so the only stress is plugging it into the USB port, just like with the USB harddrive's plug.

If it were me, I'd buy two 32GB flash drives and cycle the drives every other day. Don't be fooled by skimping and buying cheap £10 ones off eBay or Amazon. In fact forgot eBay, I wouldn't trust a flashdrive bought from there. If you want to test the drive isn't a fake, use a tool called H2testw.

Don't worry about buying a USB 3 device and it not working in your USB 2 ports - it will, as USB 2 and 3 are back and forwards compatible. By that, I mean USB 3 devices will work in USB 2 ports, and USB 2 devices will work in USB 3 ports. You can actually feel the difference in speed with USB 3 flash drives, even the budget ones.

If you do buy a harddrive, don't be fooled by Seagates cheap prices for massive harddrives. The last brand of drive I would want my backup on is a Seagate drive. :eek:

Oblivion

poppellerant wrote: »

If you do buy a harddrive, don't be fooled by Seagates cheap prices for massive harddrives. The last brand of drive I would want my backup on is a Seagate drive. :eek:

Amen to that, Seagate performance and reliability is appalling in my experience. My preference is for Western Digital drives and I particularly like their 'My Passport Ultra' model.