External HDD options

[Hokiefyd]

It's time to buy an external HDD for regular computer backups. Windows 7's far-superior-to-XP backup/restore functionality has me inspired to finally get this done.

My plan is to get one of those HDD docks that connects to the computer via USB, where you can hot-swap standard 3.5" internal HDDs. I like this idea over buying a consumer-grade external HDD, but I'm not sure why. I'm always paranoid about mechanical HDD failures, and I don't like the idea of buying a full-on external HDD with an enclosure and tossing the whole thing out if the HDD itself goes bad. Plus, I think the hot-swap docks don't require an external power transformer, and some of the external HDDs do.

What do you have, and why do you like or dislike it?

Thanks!

 

[CivicFan]

This is mine, I keep my multimedia on it. Other files are on the Google Documents cloud to be accessible from anywhere.

http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Canvio-Portable-External-E05A100PBU3XS/dp/B0041RS5LY

 

[Donald]

I too think the Win 7 backup is excellent. I use to use Ghost, but this is equivalent and free.

I searched for a good external HD after my old one failed, and did not want another one that might fail and where I could loose stuff.

I now have a StarTech RAID enclosure where one can install one or two hot swappable HDs. I have two 2 TB Seagate drives installed and configured it RAID 1. So each drive mirrors the other in real time. Pull one out, replace it with a new one and a short time latter it will again mirror the original. It handles many RAID configs. This is all done by the chipset in the enclosure, not Windows.

The price is not bad. It connects via USB or the much faster eSATA. My laptop has an eSATA port.

 

[AandPDan]

If you have space in your system you can put the dock directly into an unused 5 1/4" bay. It'll connect via eSATA, no power, no cables. The drives are contained in a cartridge.

Hard Drive internal dock station

 

[Hokiefyd]

Thanks for the opinions so far. I think I've leaned instead towards just doing two identical internal HDDs, and having Windows image one onto the other one periodically.

I was initially interested in doing an SSD for the main system drive, but honestly, I'm very happy with the performance of the system as it is now, so I may just do two identical 1 TB drives, and use one as the backup drive. 1 TB drives are plentiful and inexpensive. Plus, my entire system, including all of our media and data, take up less than 250 GB, so this will leave me plenty of room (and options) to expand later.

 

[Hokiefyd]

Originally Posted By: AandPDan
If you have space in your system you can put the dock directly into an unused 5 1/4" bay. It'll connect via eSATA, no power, no cables. The drives are contained in a cartridge.

Hard Drive internal dock station


Now that is very interesting. I do have an extra 5-1/4" drive bay. I'm not familiar with eSATA, nor do I see any cabling on their product info. Could this connect internally to my motherboard via a standard SATA cable?

 

[brianl703]

Originally Posted By: Hokiefyd
Plus, I think the hot-swap docks don't require an external power transformer, and some of the external HDDs do.


You are not going to be able to pull enough power out of a USB port to run a 3.5" hard drive. A 2.5" hard drive, yes (most of the time anyhow), but not a 3.5". So if you use an enclosure that supports a 3.5" hard drive, it will have and require the use of an external power supply.

 

[brianl703]

Originally Posted By: Hokiefyd
Could this connect internally to my motherboard via a standard SATA cable?


The photo of the rear of this drive dock shows a standard power connector and a standard SATA connector, so the answer is yes.

 

[JHZR2]

I have a raid 1 setup in an external container so things are doubly protected. It does have a wall-wart, etc., but I just disconnect power to minmize uptime when Im not using it.

 

[Colt45ws]

I have a hot swap dock. It does come with a wallwart, but I wired it up to draw power from my computer power supply. What I do is have two 2TB drives and they get alternated on a weekly basis. I do this for extra protection. That is the big reason I went with a hot-swap dock. Worst case and I lose the drive with the latest backup for some reason, I still have one with the next oldest backup set.

 

[Hokiefyd]

Funny thing yesterday: a Dell coupon came in the mail for $15 off a $50 upgrade or accessory. So I went online and found a Western Digital Caviar Blue 1 TB hard drive for $70. Minus coupon = $55. Free shipping = $55 out the door. Newegg was $59 with free shipping. Best Buy didn't have the Blue, but had the Green for $70. So I got my 1 TB drive for 55 bucks.

 

[Hokiefyd]

Just wanted to complete this topic. Got the new WD drive in the mail today from Dell. That was super-fast; I only just ordered it 3 days ago!

So I took my old system drive out of Bay 0 and stuck the new 1 TB drive in. I took my data drive out of Bay 1 and installed an extra HDD I had that I burned a system image to earlier in the week. Turned on the computer and used the Windows 7 repair CD to restore Windows to the new HDD. It did it in about 15 minutes, rebooted, and I was back up. TOO EASY!!

Interestingly, it formatted the 1 TB into a 160 GB partition (same as my old system drive) and left the rest unallocated. So I used Windows' super easy drive partitioning tool to extend the partition to include the entire HDD.

Then it took about an hour or so to copy all of my data from my old data drive into its respective location on the new 1 TB.

So now I have it set up to run system images once a week onto my old data drive, which is a 250 GB drive. That'll hold me for a while; our system files and data only occupy about 130 GB.