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External Hard Drive

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spinr:
I'm quickly filling up my PC hard drive with photos, so I want to get an external HD to help with storage.  I've thought of just adding another internal HD, but I think I want something a little more flexible.

Now, I'm stuck between putting an internal drive in an enclosure or just getting a ready-made external HD.

I'm leaning toward the simpler the better.  I'd like at least 100 GB and, obviously, as inexspensive as possible; not necessarily cheap, just a good deal.

Are the brands like LACIE, Fantom, etc. comparable with Seagate, Maxtor, Western Digital and such?

Thoughts, suggestions?

Thanks!
Steve

matis:
Spin180,

I went through this problem a few months ago.  

I used to just hang on an extra hard drive (I always have the case open -- never put the side on), slaving it to the C master and using ghost or acronis to make an image or clone copy.

That way, if I had to do a back up, I simply put the back up drive in place of C and boot.

But that is unsuitable for my ex-wife and others I help with their computers.  They won't fool with power and data cables, etc.  And even for myself, I had to turn the computer off and then back on each time I added or removed the slave drive.  And I had to get down on my hands and knees to do it.  Got to be a PITA.

So I got an internal drive drawer to accomplish the same thing without getting down on the floor each time.  But I still had to turn the computer off to put the drawer in and then again to remove it.  Otherwise, anything that might take out my hard drive  would also take out the back-up drive.

I finally got myself an external USB enclosure for an extra hard drive and that has solved the problem.

No need to turn the computer on and off each time.  I just turn on the external drive power switch, plug in the USB cable (hot) and run the same software I used before to clone the C drive.  And I can copy anything I need back onto C.  Should it be necessary, I discovered I can even boot from the drive in the external enclosure.  All that's necessary is to remove the drive from the enclosure and hang it back on as C.

Problem solved the lazy man's way.


I bought the USB enclosure from Chiefvalue.com for $29.  I had extra hard drives lying around, but you can buy a brand new 250gig drive for around $59 or $69 if you watch the Sunday paper for the sales (pay more -- get the rest back as a rebate).

Hope this helps.


matis

zahc:
I bought a 250GB seagate for like 80 and an enclosure for about 40, when I build my desktop I can just put this drive in it.

lee n. field:
Putting a drive in an eclosure is trivially easy.  Windows 2000 and XP, and Mac OSX will mount them automatically, as well as most version os Linux.

Harold Tuttle:
i luvs the LaCie hardwarze

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