Back Up Hard Drives recs?
mannybolone
Los Angeles, CA 15,025 Posts
I'm looking for something around 250-300 GB. Cost is not as important as reliability. I currently rock a Lacie that I'm happy with but I'm open to other suggestions, not just for recommended brands but also brands to stay the fuck away from (Maxtor comes up often).Thanks.
Comments
5 year warranty!
Oh, and I only use Sata II drives. eSATA biatch!! 3.0Gb/s transfer rate!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wicked for externals.
hd's are a gamble, there'll be complaints about every brand under the sun. Go with the one w/ the best warranty.
Quit fucking around with these little 300GB devices and invest in your future, Oliver. It's so cheap now, and many "home office"-styled devices are being manufactured for cheap. The service, functionality, and versatility offered from these devices make it silly not to invest.
For instance, the best company, in my opinion, is the Infrant Technologies. Specifically, their ReadyNas NV:
It is 2 terabytes (~2,000GB) with RAID configuration on 4 of 5 discs. Meaning, whatever you save on this (and you can save a lot), the device saves it across 4 500GB discs. If one disc should ever fail, you drop the 5th (spare, empty) disc in, and the machine automatically reconfigures itself. You've lost nothing.
Other devices, such as GRaid, are similar, but you buy their discs with the device. With the ReadyNas, you buy the box, and they allow you to buy third party discs (they all need to be identical capacity), so you can create whatever size server you want. This device can handle up to 4 750GB discs.
If you were to go with the ReadyNas NV box, and 5 reliable third party 500MB discs, you're looking at less than $1,400. And you'll never lose anything or run out of space again. A similar GRaid is close to $4,000.
The other bonuses: You can network it (for instance, if you and your wife want to both use it, or if you want to store all your digital audio there, and use a remote player to play from to avoid laboring your current laptop, etc.); this device offers RAID, snapshots, journaling (if you're unfamiliar, these features are worth reading about); and best of all, you can back up everything you need once, which is time consuming, then "schedule" backups routinely using the ReadyNas software--so, after the first back up, you never have to fuck with it again. The ReadyNas just looks into your computer, finds what's new, and backs it up. It doesn't re-do the entire lot, so it's quick and easy.
And you don't need to be there for it to work. You can set your computer to wake up every night (or week, or month) at 4am (in your System Prefs>Energy Saver>Options>Schedule), let the device do it's thing, then your computer falls back asleep. Sleeping easy, I might add, knowing you are thinking of her future.
I like this option because I don't have to do anything manually ("did I get this folder?" or hidden folder shit), so there are no mistakes or oversights. Plus, you don't have to worry about digital media; movies, albums, photos, etc. There's no real limit. Cause I know you aren't fucking with terabytes.
There are other companies, and smaller configurations. I'd recommend Infrant because they offer the most, and they--as a company--are quite open and receptive. They have a forum on their site, and they improve on their older models based on customer feedback.
More here:
http://www.infrant.com/products/products_details.php?name=ReadyNAS%20NV
Gigabytes are for silly motherfuckers. Step into the arena.
TERABYTES, DUDE. TERABYTES![/b]
(who represents for yottabytes?)
fie on your Syst??me International d???Unit??s prefixes. I'm reppin Scientific Notation[/b]
ten to tha tenth to tha tenth to that tenth to tha tenth to tha tenth to that tenth to tha tenth to tha tenth to that tenth to tha tenth to tha tenth to that tenth to tha tenth to tha tenth to that tenth to tha tenth to tha tenth to that tenth to tha tenth to tha tenth to that tenth to tha tenth to tha tenth to that tenth...
Failing that, there's really only one rule for hard drives: buy two. Seriously, disk space is relatively cheap, and there is a basic rate of failure for anything that's going to be spinning at 7200 rpm for hour after hour. Go ahead and get the cheapest one you can find if you like, there's not much differece between the bottom and the top of the price range. But get two and regularly back your whole drive up.
Keep an eye on this page for deals: http://dealnews.com/categories/Computer/Storage/51.html
Ain't that the truth. I usually try to back up my most essential files in two places but of course, my essentials files are getting so big that using an external HD and my iPod isn't cutting it these days.
Some affordable and pretty dependable sotrage right here.