Good external memory?

[Swiss Toni]

Hi

I have 30GB+ of phots and video on my PC hard-drive and want to back them up onto an external drive - with confidence that it will serve this need for a good few more years.

I need to allow for at least 200GB, probably more - looking at the price of 500GB external hard drives, that would seem to be more than enough?

Can anyone recomend a decent unit (and seller?).

I guess I need to save my pictures from house fire etc - so something small enough to live in a 1'x1'x1' fireproof safe.

Cheers

:bannana:

 

[JasM]

How about this one? :

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B000LQA652/?tag=amazon0e9db-21

 

[Swiss Toni]

How about this one? :

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B000LQA652/?tag=amazon0e9db-21

Looks good (have your got one and would you recommend it?)

Cheers

 

[JasM]

Looks good (have your got one and would you recommend it?)

Cheers

Sorry no i haven't got one. However from the customer reviews and specs it looks like a good external HDD.

 

[AndyS]

I have a 500gb freeagent external hard-drive, does everything i need it to and looks quite sleek in black. I think it was about £70 from Maplins about 8 months ago which means it will be less now or 750gb for the same money.

 

[Beetnik]

Not what you've asked for but you mention safety:

Unlimited online backup @ $4.95 per month at www.mozy.com

I use at home and commercial version at work. Top notch.

 

[CE230]

As well as backing them up why not upload them to photobucket too and that way you will have an external backup as fire safes are time limited and in the event of a severe fire you could still lose the photo's.

 

[Chrishazle]

Have a look at www.aria.co.uk, they have good USB external HDD's at a good price - about £75 for 1TB which should cover storage requirements for quite some time to come! I'm thinking of one myself! My other 2 favourites for computer bits are ebuyer.com and dabs.com, but a couple of days ago Aria had the better deals on external HDD's.

 

[carnut]

I had the same requirement. Do you realy want an External hard drive or a Portable external hard drive so you can take your pictures with you when you visit freinds,relatives ,etc?

See thread

http://www.mbclub.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=58799

for info

 

[Rory]

Hi

I have 30GB+ of phots and video on my PC hard-drive and want to back them up onto an external drive - with confidence that it will serve this need for a good few more years.

Backup (ie having them in 2 places) is OK but whatever you do don't move all of your photo's etc to a single external drive.

These things are very variable in their reliability - they could run for anything from a few months to many years.

 

[BTB 500]

I would personally be looking at two identical USB disks of around 500 Mb each (Maplin regularly have special offers e.g. http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=226783&source=1 ). Use them alternately for backups, with one kept at home and the other offsite (at work, nearby relative's house, etc.).

 

[blondebier]

I've got one of these : http://www.ebuyer.com/product/142742

Agreed that it is fairly pricy, but I have piece of mind that my photos and videos are safe if one of the disks were to fail. They are Western Digital drives and are hot swappable so you don't even need to switch it off to replace a disk.

Fingers cross my house doesn't burn down or someone breaks in a knicks it!

 

[BTB 500]

Fingers cross my house doesn't burn down or someone breaks in a knicks it!

Yes, that's exactly the problem.

 

[W210 Fan]

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/145041

Toshiba 1TB, £70, free delivery,

I just brought a 1TB as it doesnt matter how much storage you get you will always fill it

 

[A210AMG]

I buy all sorts of these for people at work and the Lacie ones seem pretty good.

They do anything from the smaller USB2 drives to the 1TB ones and if your able to use firewire 800 then transfer is very quick.

Depends how portable you want them.

Myself I use a 320GB Toshiba USB 2.5" drive and a 1 TB Toshiba mains powered.

Having the two menas I can always take one with me easily if visiting friends / parents etc.

Could be worth looking at the ruggadised ones if your moving round with it. Shock proof and a bit more hardy.

Another alternativer and one which I am looking at is a NAS unit, you can buy an empty box for around £60 and attach this to your network at home. My idea was to get one with two drives and use this in the house. Save my laptop getting full of pictures but easily accesible if I want them.

 

[laf]

I would go with blondebier's recommendation. I have something similar at home (4x1TB drives) at it's a godsend if things fail.

Depends on budget though....

 

[kay7]

Wester Digilal, Toshiba and Samsung = 300bg all around £55-100 from sites like amazon,PC world Business or dabs.com. These are ok for now.
If you want something for life get SolidState which are expensive now but the future of hard drives. Whoever goes to usa can buy one for 300$ ( 160gb ) and now depends. Lacie are ok but i don`t trust them as they have a small 1.01kb piece of soaftware built in bit strange but i think safety

 

[laf]

SSD for life? I know they are a lot better nowadays but they don't last as long as normal drives, especially in high write enviornments!

 

[kay7]

got one toshiba of 200gh and one samsung 300gb and have all my business files . we shall see how long they`ll last

 

[Swiss Toni]

Thanks for your suggestions!

I would personally be looking at two identical USB disks of around 500 Mb each (Maplin regularly have special offers e.g. http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=226783&source=1 ). Use them alternately for backups, with one kept at home and the other offsite (at work, nearby relative's house, etc.).

If I went for 2 back-up systems, are there any external memory discs/SSD that I could plug in elsewhere in the house* and add to my network via a router without having to add any more hardwear?


*I was thinking of putting it in the garage, next to 3 cars and a store of flamable chemicals...