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Views on External Hard Drives
What's the general consensus on external hard drives. I am looking to set
one up as a backup device but not sure whether to go for a host powered USB drive (in the region of 40 - 60GB) or go for a 120GB externally powered USB drive. Ideally I want a dive I can plug in and leave it do its incremental and full backups without having to turn the power on and off at system start-up and shutdown. What are the externally powered drives like for leaving powered on all the time and is it advisable to do or not do this? cheers Butty |
#2
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Previously Butty wrote:
What's the general consensus on external hard drives. I am looking to set one up as a backup device but not sure whether to go for a host powered USB drive (in the region of 40 - 60GB) or go for a 120GB externally powered USB drive. Ideally I want a dive I can plug in and leave it do its incremental and full backups without having to turn the power on and off at system start-up and shutdown. What are the externally powered drives like for leaving powered on all the time and is it advisable to do or not do this? With having it on and next to the computer you eleminate some of the benefits of regular backup: - Fire/break-in/overtemperature/... will kill your backup as well - Power-surges will get your backup as well. - If you do something stupid, you may accidentally erase your backup. - With only one backup many people would say "one backup is no backup". Ususally at least two (better three) independent media sets are required for working backup. The reason is that if you discover your master is bad while backing up to media A, the backup on A is already destoyed. With incremental its a little different, though. So in essence wour set-up is a little more like a RAID and less like a backup. Besides this, it should work, depending on the external drive enclosure. I have one (Agrosy, firewire), that does not work with Linux when it is on befeore the computer has finished booting. As to host-powered vs. externally-powered, all the host powered external HDDs have notebook HDDs in there, since USB does not provide enough power and no 12V line. Notebook HDDs are generally slower and less reliable. They are however more shock-resistant. I would still go with externally-powered. Arno -- For email address: lastname AT tik DOT ee DOT ethz DOT ch GnuPG: ID:1E25338F FP:0C30 5782 9D93 F785 E79C 0296 797F 6B50 1E25 338F "The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws" - Tacitus |
#3
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On Wed, 25 Feb 2004 23:02:58 -0000, "Butty"
wrote: Ideally I want a dive I can plug in and leave it do its incremental and full backups without having to turn the power on and off at system start-up and shutdown. What are the externally powered drives like for leaving powered on all the time and is it advisable to do or not do this? When it comes to storage, I find bigger is better, and one backup is better than none. DVDR can help with off-site archives, depending on how much you're dumping. The only addition to other comments would be whether the drive would be bothersome if it were noisy. I have an external drive in the bedroom that I power down with the computer because of the annoying whine. It's not very loud, but it's loud enough. Neil Maxwell - I don't speak for my employer |
#4
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"Butty" wrote in message
... What's the general consensus on external hard drives. Guess you'll find out after you run your poll. Question mark (?) is appropriate after a question. I am looking to set one up as a backup device but not sure whether to go for a host powered USB drive (in the region of 40 - 60GB) or go for a 120GB externally powered USB drive. Go firewire. USB2, close second. Ideally I want a dive I can plug in and leave it do its incremental and full backups without having to turn the power on and off at system start-up and shutdown. What are the externally powered drives like for leaving powered on all the time and is it advisable to do or not do this? Be sure its well cooled. cheers Butty Let us know the percentage count on your poll. Dave |
#5
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What's the general consensus on external hard drives. I am looking to set
one up as a backup device but not sure whether to go for a host powered USB drive (in the region of 40 - 60GB) or go for a 120GB externally powered USB drive. Ideally I want a dive I can plug in and leave it do its incremental and full backups without having to turn the power on and off at system start-up and shutdown. What are the externally powered drives like for leaving powered on all the time and is it advisable to do or not do this? I leave my 200 GB USB2 Western Digital external hard drive plugged in all the time. The case gets warm to the touch but not hot. I swap them out every couple of weeks and take the latest backup home to my closet. Lynn |
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