Thread: External Hard Drive

Anyone have experience with one? Are they basically like a massive USB "stick" drive?

Are they better than backing up files on DVD-R's? What brands would you recommend?

Thanks!

edit: (really stupid question) Do you have to have the files on your regular internal hard drive for files to read on your external drive?

I have 3 external HD's (2TB of movies TV music).
They are all connected via USB port, and they work just like regular files.
Way better than backing up to DVD.

I use my external hard drive to archive a lot of my files as data storage. One major use is as a backup in case of crash as well as to store master programs I received online before executing or extracting.

I only hook up the external hard drive when I have disconnected my computer from the internet. This way, it is extremely unlikely that a virus or worm can infect the computer and corrupt all the valuable data.

I have one TB that I got before my IMAC, the existing Windows computer had a 40 gb hard drive to start with and I added a 100GB for pictures and videos I started.

Now my Imac is 1TB and the airport it has had 1.5TB. My Imac backs up to the airport every hour. so I'm pretty well taken care of.

Tb ext renal hard drives are dirt cheap starting at about $80 now.

Anyone that has windows would be double dumb not to have one.

How long do they last? DVD-R's can last 1 year or 10 years without losing a bit of data...my parents want something to put pictures onto for long term storage.

Originally Posted by sneakers

How long do they last? DVD-R's can last 1 year or 10 years without losing a bit of data...my parents want something to put pictures onto for long term storage.

You don't want an external hard drive for long term storage. For that, get verbatim or one of the other products that claims 100 year or so life span, and then make multiple copies of your photos.

For hard-to-replace items like family photos, your best bet is multiple copies in multiple places. I have things like that stored on multiple hard drives, cd's, sent to other family members with computers, etc. They aren't all going to fail at the same time.

My theory is that hard drives fail but the data on the hard drive doesn't fail often. Bad sectors are rare so just because a hard drive crashes, doesn't mean the data is corrupted or gone. I have one internal hard drive that does the browser, the OS and the day-to-day stuff. I have a second internal hard drive that is entirely to store data. It's accessible but it doesn't do all the heavy lifting of the first drive. The external hard drive is only attached when I want to use it for backups. Then, for things like family photos, I share the best of them with other family members so that they'll survive even if my home suffers a fire or flood that destroys all my computer equipment.

If my home was on fire and I had time to grab a few things and go, my external hard drive would be one of the things I'd try to take because it would have 90% of the computer stuff I truly would hate losing. How fast could you flee with a hundred DVDs?

That's my arrangement, anyway. Hope this helps.