Buying an external hard drive

lammy82

Move everything onto OneDrive and use the OneDrive settings to only store the 'current' stuff on the laptop. Once you do this you might not need the external drive and the associated risk of future data loss.

But if she does want more space available on the laptop, why not consider a small USB drive like this one, which is less likely to be dropped or lost.

meer53

lammy82 wrote: »

Move everything onto OneDrive and use the OneDrive settings to only store the 'current' stuff on the laptop. Once you do this you might not need the external drive and the associated risk of future data loss.

But if she does want more space available on the laptop, why not consider a small USB drive like this one, which is less likely to be dropped or lost.

Yeah, Chuckmountain recommended that one too, i'll definitely have a look at that x thanks x

ChuckMountain

A couple more things:-

Onedrive has a local copy of the data normally, so you can work offline when no Internet connection. So for arguments sake if you 1GB of documents on Onedrive, your local PC will have also have 1GB of data.

In other words it doesn't free any space issue by default.

I would go for one the smaller flash drives you can leave this in permanently no moving parts to break and no leads to lose. She does not need a 1TB drive that's overkill in this situation.

almillar

Yes - I was about to suggest a USB drive, or an SD or Micro SD card would be better, if she has a slot for those. USB drive would stick out unless you get a really slim one, and some SD card slots leave the card sticking out - you wouldn't want this permanently, so choose based on the best physical solution.
Whatever you do, it should come up as, say, drive . You can move your 'User' folder(s) (all your daughters 'stuff' onto , and also tell OneDrive about it, then she'll be left with just the apps on the C: drive, and her data on . This is a much better solution than having a USB hard drive hanging off it. And remember to BACK UP!

meer53

Thank you all, i'm so pleased i posted on here before buying the external drive. I think i'm going to go for the flash drive option, i'm taking it to a local company tomorrow for them to clean it up or do whatever needs doing to sort it out ! It does have an SD slot so that might be an option too. She's managed 2 years at college with it so far so it will probably be ok with a spring clean and small external device just in case !

I can't cope with another meltdown like Sunday night when it told her she was logged on as a temporary user and her files may be deleted, then shut down ! My technical knowledge is restricted to "switch it off and back on again"

psychic_teabag

meer53 wrote: »

I can't cope with another meltdown like Sunday night when it told her she was logged on as a temporary user and her files may be deleted, then shut down !

That should be sufficient incentive to keep good backups of important work ! If disaster does strike, it will be with zero notice. It's also important that you actually know how to restore the backed-up files.

It might still be worth buying an external disk, but only for backups, rather than for continuous attachment. I'm not terribly trusting of flash or usb devices, since I've had them spontaneously corrupt more than once. But that might be due to repeated plugging and unplugging - if an sdcard remains plugged in all the time, it may be a bit more resiliant.

ChuckMountain

psychic_teabag wrote: »

That should be sufficient incentive to keep good backups of important work ! If disaster does strike, it will be with zero notice. It's also important that you actually know how to restore the backed-up files.

This I completely agree with, imagine getting close to the end of your course only to lose all your data

psychic_teabag wrote: »

It might still be worth buying an external disk, but only for backups, rather than for continuous attachment. I'm not terribly trusting of flash or usb devices, since I've had them spontaneously corrupt more than once. But that might be due to repeated plugging and unplugging - if an sdcard remains plugged in all the time, it may be a bit more resiliant.

This I somewhat disagree with, partly because it relies on manual connecting the external disk and running a backup. Not an automatic process that backs up potentially more frequently etc.

USB drives that stick out a long way can be prone to snapping, but equally an external drive can be dropped and will often suffer damage.

The reason I would not go SD card is that a lot of them are designed to slide into the laptop and then press again to eject. This can have the unfortunate effect of been pressed when working on the laptop especially if on your lap. This can then screw your data up...

Here is a picture of a USB drive that myself and Lammy82 were talking about. As you can see it doesn't stick out much and has to be pulled out rather than accidentally ejected.

meer53

I've had a look at The SanDisk one, it seems like the best option so far. My daughters college have now encouraged them to use OneDrive so she's pretty au fait with that but like most other teenagers, it's always THE biggest disaster in the world at that moment ! Drama queen is an understatement.
To be honest, i was worried too so need some reassurance it's not going to happen again !

ChuckMountain

Yep with OneDrive you also normally get versioning so you if you accidentally delete the content of you essay and save the file you can still get the old one back.

Even the 128GB is under £30 and they are quick too. Be wary of older stock at a local retailer as they might be more expensive and slower ...

that

Those HP Pavilions x2 are crud in my opinion. 32Gb of flash memory and an atom cpu, limited and slow. A netbook more than a laptop.

Yes they are light weight, but you cant expand them, limited use and cost under £300 new.


Depending what your daughter studies, she most probably will not be able to install any applications, and you will end up buying her another computer.


Dont buy a disk, buy a computer, or wait till she goes to uni, especially if she does thing like architecture, or graphics.


OneDrive is great until there is no wifi connection. Just buy a 128Gb usb stick for under £30