External Hard drives

[huskertko]

Does anyone have one they would recommend?  I want to get one as a back up for my main internal drive as well as to store digital media to keep my internal drive cleaner.  I am having some issues with my internal drive so I want to move all of my data to the external one, then do a system restore to clean it up and hopefully fix the glitches I am having.  

One other question, if I want to  back up my data, is most if not all of it stored in my personal folder on the hard drive?  I very rarely ever select a different location to store items when asked, I usually just let it be stored in the default location.

[ejtaylor822]

Hey Huskerto,

I highly recommend this one:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1088430&CatId=0

This is the latest generation from WD.  I have a couple of the previous versions (w/out the built in card readers - nice feature) and they are great.  I did a complete rebuild of our main home PC a while back and did not loose a single bit of data.  The restrospect backup software is one of the best backup SW packages I have used - ability to perform full volume copies, full backups and incremental  backups.  The vol copies are bit-for-bit copies while the backups provide compression.  Very easy to use and configure.  

I have a couple of these devices hanging off of each of my PCs mainly for backing up internal drives.  I have additional internal drives installed to keep the "C" drive free & clean.  Keep pics, media, video and other files on the additional internal drives and use the "C" drive for OS and programs only.  Then use retropsect to automatically backup the drives every night. I bought a couple of the 250GB WD external drives off of ebay a while back for 75$ ea.  They were refurbed with a warranty and came with the retrospect software.  If you go the ebay route make sure you are comfortable with the feedback of the seller, they come with a warranty & refund policy and the retrospect software is included.

Good luck.

Eddie

[huskertko]

Thanks, I am looking at a 250GB WD that is on sale at Circuit City.  

Can I just drag and drop files from my C drive to the new external one, the reformat the internal drive?

[ejtaylor822]

Yes, from within file explorer you can bring up your "C" drive and drag and drop files and folders to the external WD. You can also use retrospect to make a full copy of the drive and/or a full backup. The full copy is basically a "drag and drop" just managed through the backup software which gives you some error checking and some other managebility beyond drag and drop. What I did on the most recent rebuild:

1. Drag and drop to other internal drive - had the space on a second internal drive and was easy backup and recoverability outside of any SW package with the intention of deleting after rebuild completed. This also put another copy on another drive.

2. Full volume copy within retrospect - quick volume level copy and restore of data if needed within retrospect to the external drive

3. Full backup within retropsect. This was my historical backup archive that would be kept indefinitely on the external drive in case I discovered later there was something missing.

Yes, this is overkill, but, I wanted to be sure I could get everything back. Also, my wife uses this PC and I was not sure all her files would be in one location - better safe than sorry - so, just copied everything and had multiple copies in case something went wrong (I work in IS and have seen too many failed recoveries - had the space and just made extra copies).

After I re-installed the OS and progam packages, copied data files back over as needed.

Good luck with this. Know it is a pain and time consuming but you can get through it. Feel free to ask any questions, will help as much as possible.

Thanks,

Edd